Posts Tagged ‘FPTP’

Reasons for voting Yes or No to AV

The UK referendum on adopting the Alternative Vote (AV) is fast approaching, with the vote taking place on 5 May, 2011.

What I have been finding quite interesting are the comments from readers on various articles and op ed pieces about why they plan to vote Yes or No to AV. I’ve managed to identify the following main reasons for voting for each side.

Main reasons given for a Yes to AV vote:

  1. because they think AV is a good idea/somewhat of an improvement over FPTP
  2. not that keen on AV, would prefer STV or some other form of PR, but it’s the only option on offer
  3. see this as a chance to maybe move to further, better electoral reform in the future
  4. the tactics used by the No2AV side have put them off so much, they’re going to vote yes because of that
  5. AV is opposed by David Cameron/the Conservatives, the BNP, Lord Prescott, Margaret Beckett and some other senior Labour members, therefore that’s reason enough to support it

Main reasons given for a No to AV vote:

  1. FPTP is better/the best system
  2. AV will lead to perpetual coalitions/too much power to Lib Dems
  3. don’t like FPTP, but don’t like AV either
  4. want to punish Nick Clegg

If we look more closely at the reasons people seem inclined to vote Yes, points 2 and 3 are often very closely linked. Indeed, I wasn’t certain if I should list them as separate reasons. I don’t know that I’ve actually read a single comment from someone completely endorsing AV as the best option, or their preferred option out of all of the various voting systems. Most acknowledge that it’s only, at best, a marginal improvement over FPTP, and almost all would prefer a different system, with STV seeming to be the most popular. But what almost everyone voting Yes agrees on is that since they aren’t being offered any other options, AV does at least represent a small change, and there is strong hope that if AV is adopted, this will open the door to the possibility of further reform to a more proportional system down the road.

The last two reasons I’ve listed for a Yes vote are the most amusing. As I’ve blogged in the past, the No2AV camp is using some highly suspect claims against AV in their campaign for the No vote. Chief among these is that AV will lead to perpetual coalitions (which isn’t true), and that switching to AV will cost well over a hundred million pounds, money which could be better spent on the armed forces or healthcare. The cost figures are, to say the least, rather dubious, since they include the cost of the referendum itself, and hundreds of pounds for electronic vote counting machines – which there are no plans to buy, and for which there is no need. AV ballots can be counted by hand, and are in the jurisdictions that use AV. These highly questionable claims and the posters used to promote them have turned off a lot of, if not pro-FPTP, at least undecided voters. Any article against AV that appears on the ConservativeHome website, for example, is flooded with comments from people decrying these tactics and saying that while they were initially either going to vote no or were undecided, the No2AV tactics have pushed them into the Yes camp.

Similarly, quite a few more “progressive” voters point to the fact that those opposing AV are the Conservatives and BNP, and that alone is justification for voting Yes.

For those in the No to AV camp, many, particularly Conservative Party supporters, simply want to hang on to FPTP because they believe AV will equal constant hung parliaments (see above) and they want the Conservative Party to win an outright majority. As I’ve stated, there is nothing to support the claims that AV will lead to more hung parliaments – if anything, it could actually lead to larger majorities than a party might have achieved under FPTP. Hung parliaments are as likely to occur under AV as they are under FPTP, as occurred last year, and as has occurred in Canada three times since 2004.

The last two reasons commonly given by those voting No to AV are more interesting. There are many who don’t like FPTP, but don’t like AV either – like many of the Yes voters, they would prefer a more proportional system. But unlike their Yes vote counterparts, because no other system is being offered, they plan to vote No to AV. Their No vote is not an endorsement of FPTP, but a rejection of both.

There are also an awful lot of readers who comment that they plan to vote No because they see the failure of the referendum as a chance to punish Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats for entering into a coalition with the Conservatives and/or for reneging on key pledges contained in their election manifesto. Normally, many, perhaps even most, of these voters would vote Yes because they do support electoral reform, but their disgust with the Lib Dems, and in particular Nick Clegg, is stronger. There is a strong belief among many of these voters that if the Yes vote fails, the Coalition will fall apart because the Lib Dems, having failed to achieve the one thing they apparently hoped to achieve by entering into a coalition, will pull out. This view, in my opinion, is naive. The Lib Dems are at all-time lows in public opinion polls and for that reason alone, I can’t see them wanting to pull the plug on a stable coalition government, which would then leave the Conservatives in a minority situation and perhaps force an early election. Also, the Lib Dems are not huge fans of AV – the party officially endorses a move to STV. I remain to be convinced that many Lib Dems will be particularly heartbroken if AV fails.

There is a danger for those who plan to vote No for petty reasons such as wanting to punish Nick Clegg, or even for more principled reasons – such as holding out for a truly proportional system. A successful “No” vote will be viewed as an endorsement of FPTP. There won’t be any distinctions made between people who voted against AV because they love FPTP and those who don’t like FPTP, but voted no because they wanted something other than AV, or those who voted No because they’re mad at Nick Clegg. It will most likely close the door on any other attempts to move toward electoral reform for years to come because opponents will point to this referendum and argue that the people have already spoken and they want FPTP.

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AV does not cause hung parliaments

While I have resisted blogging about them, I have been regularly reading a variety of columns and articles on the May referendum on the Alternative Vote. One thing in particular continues to baffle me: I simply do not understand why so many AV opponents believe that AV will lead to more hung parliaments and thus make coalition government the norm in the UK.

This “fact” is repeated almost every single time anyone posts anything against AV, and I’m including reader comments on articles in this. A recent example would be this column by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian in which he writes:

The case against AV is that it would increase the likelihood of a hung parliament and uncertain government. Voters must sit for days (or in Belgium months) and await the smoke from the party conclaves. This in itself weakens any electoral mandate and devolves power from voters to the political establishment. It is elitist. It also usually leads to unstable administrations as minority coalition partners wax and wane in support and, usually, decide to cut and run when the going gets tough. Every country is different, especially those that are complex confederacies, but many people in Germany, Italy, Belgium and Denmark scream for the clarity of a two-party system, with governments in or out.

As opponents of AV are fond of pointing out, AV is used in only 3 jurisdictions, and the only one anyone ever discusses in any detail is Australia. Yet, if one is going to use Australia as the main example of how AV works, then the argument that it leads to more hung parliaments falls apart immediately. The UK, and also Canada, have had more hung parliaments using FPTP than has Australia using AV. It’s not AV that leads to hung parliaments, but the growing breakdown of two-party politics in countries like the UK and Canada that still use FPTP.

There have been five hung parliaments in the UK since the beginning of the 20th century. There have been 12* hung parliaments at the federal level in Canada since Confederation. Australia, which introduced AV in 1919, has had two hung parliaments under AV.

The overwhelming reason why Australia has had far fewer hung parliaments is because unlike Canada and the UK, Australia really does have a strong two-party system. From 1901 to 1910, when it used FPTP, no party had a majority in the House of Representatives, as there were two competing non-Labor parties. As a result, there were frequent changes of government, several of which took place during parliamentary terms. The 1910 federal election was the first contested by the Commonwealth Liberal Party, the result of a merger between the Protectionist Party and the Free Trade Party. The new party lost to Labor, but this marked the first majority government in Australia since the inaugural federal election in 1901. If anything, AV in Australia has reinforced the two-party system, making it far more difficult for smaller parties to win seats.

Proponents of FPTP assert that its main advantage is that it returns strong, decisive election results, and Jenkins is no exception:

Because yielding a clearcut and stable administration is the dominant requirement of democratic election, I opt for the electoral system that most delivers it, which has long been first-past-the-post. In crude historical terms, it has served Britain well. It clearly leaves Liberal Democrats on the sidelines, but we are talking about choosing a government, and the Liberals have never come first or even second in popular votes since they handed the torch of leftwing representation to Labour a century ago. Votes for Liberal Democrat candidates are not “wasted”, as some claim, but failed.

However, in Canada and the UK, what has been happening, despite both countries’ use of FPTP, is the breakdown of the two-party system in favour of multi-party politics. In Canada, this is further complicated by the increasingly regional support of the main parties. This is what is causing hung parliaments to happen, despite the fact that FPTP is used. The trend away from the two traditional parties, Labour and Conservative, is expertly explained in this post by Patrick Dunleavy.

Whether AV, if adopted in the UK, will slow this trend remains to be seen. However, if hung parliaments continue to occur even with the adoption of AV, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the same results would have been returned under FPTP. It is not the voting system that is responsible for these outcomes, but the fact that multiple parties contest each election, and that increasingly, more and more voters are giving their support to these other parties.
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*The 2nd Canadian Parliament was a minority for 56 days under prime minister Alexander Mackenzie after he took power from Sir John A. Macdonald following the Pacific Scandal. However, this event is generally not counted because Parliament was not in session when Mackenzie took over and he immediately called an election in which he then won a majority.

On a related note, ABC’s Antony Green addresses claims that AV leads to lower voter turnout.

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More thoughts on AV from down under

(Note: Not the information you’re looking for? I do try to help people as much as I can and regularly monitor key word activity on this blog to see what is bringing people here. If this post doesn’t answer your questions, please consider contacting me with details regarding what information you’re looking for, including context (i.e. if it relates to something currently in the news). I might be able to answer your question(s), or at least direct you to a site that might provide more answers. I will reply to you by email, and if it’s a very interesting question, I may even write a proper blog post about it. You may also be interested in this post for a summary of the most common questions being asked about AV.)

Antony Green has written a couple more blog posts correcting some of the misinformation being spread by the No2AV side in the UK. Green, as I’ve previously mentioned, is a expert on elections and voting systems who writes for Australia’s ABC website.

In this post from February 24, Green attacks an academic paper entitled “What is Wrong with the Alternative Vote? Electoral Reform Briefing Nr. 1, August 2010″ written by Monica Thelfall and updated in November of last year, following the Australian general election. The author’s main criticism of AV seems to be focused on it taking longer to count the votes: “AV fails the test of simplicity since even the Australian government cannot execute the full count in time to announce it on the night of the poll.” Green rightly explains that this has nothing to do with AV per se, but more a reflection of the size of the country when compared to the Britain. Of special interest to Canadians, Green uses Canada as an example of a country using FPTP where final vote tallies are also delayed by a few days.

In a February 26 post, Green again looks at the anti-AV side’s claim that a majority of Australians want to get rid of AV. Green again concludes that what Australians really want is not a return to FPTP, but rather, to no longer have to rank every single candidate on their ballot paper.

In a post from March 1, Green confronts the claims that vote counting machines are used in Australia, or even necessary under AV.

And finally, this post has nothing to do with any claims made by the No2AV side, but is still interesting reading. Australian elections have one of the highest rates of spoiled ballots. Green looks at this problem and offers up some simple solutions to address it – the main one being adopting AV, optional preferential voting (what the UK is proposing). This article will appeal mostly to die-hard electoral reform fans, but Green makes these issues fully accessible to anyone.

I’d also recommend reading the comments posted by readers. Green frequently replies to questions asked by readers in their comments, so there is often more to be learned in the comments as well.

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If FPTP is so great…

The referendum campaign on the Alternative Vote is in full swing in the UK. A recent poll showed the yes side with a 10 point lead (40% for, 30% against), but a large number of undecideds (30%) could easily nullify that.

While anyone who favours true electoral reform is bound to be less than enthusiastic about AV, given that it is not proportional and only marginally fairer than FPTP, many are still supporting it because they hope it might be a stepping stone towards true proportional representation. What is certain for many is that if the AV referendum fails, it is doubtful that another opportunity to vote on electoral reform will come by any time soon.

The Yes side is campaigning on the simple, direct slogan “Yes! to fairer votes“. The No side, sadly, but not surprisingly, is campaigning on fear, misinformation and outright lies. In recent days, many columns have appeared in various media advancing rather questionable “facts”. Topping that list is claim that switching to AV will cost British taxpayers over £250 pounds. This figure includes the cost of the referendum itself (about £90 million) and the rest coming from the cost of vote counting machines (£130 million) and voter education and awareness (£26 million). The big problem here is that there has not been any indication anywhere from any official source that the UK will start using vote counting machines if AV is adopted. The Bill does not call for the introduction of vote counting machines, nor has the government or the any other official body. Thus this purported cost is based on – what? An assumption? A wild guess? Wishful thinking?

Case in point is this blog post by the president of the No to AV campaign, Matthew Elliot, which appeared in the Spectator. Elliot writes “Likewise, electronic vote-counting machines are whenever AV is used in the US – As the head of the American pro-AV group, FairVote.org, admitted: “the use of machines is just a given” in the USA and ‘special software is required’.” Sadly for Elliot, the head of the American pro-AV group, Rob Ritchie addresses this point in the comments section:

Matthew Elliott utterly distorts what I said in my talk in London last month about the rise of the Alternative Vote in the United States. No American jurisdictions has gone from a hand-tally to machines because of AV. I said that “machines are assumed in the United States” because we already use voting machines for nearly all our elections, most of which use first-past-the-post.

What I also said very clearly is that one of the issues that has slowed the rise of AV in the United States is that many current machines can’t do it — but that this would not be an issue in the UK because you do hand tallies and it’s quite easy to do AV tallies by hand.

Another favoured argument against is that AV isn’t used anywhere but Australia, Fiji and Papua-New Guinea and that two of those places, one being Australia, want to get rid of it. This too is incorrect. There was a report commissioned in Australia reviewing the voting system and it found that there was significant support for a more proportional voting system – but no one wanted to ditch AV for FPTP.

An equally ridiculous op-ed piece by Simon Heffer in the Telegraph barely merits consideration. Heffer’s main argument against AV is that it is a “recipe for coalitions”, which is completely unsubstantiated. Heffer comments on the poll findings showing a 10-point lead for the pro-AV side and notes “The poll findings are a paradox, since the Coalition itself is increasingly unpopular.” In other words, how could people support switching to AV, which Heffer claims will lead to perpetual coalitions, when the coalition itself is increasingly unpopular? Perhaps someone should point out to Mr. Heffer that it’s the coalition’s policies that are unpopular, not the idea of coalition per se. Even a Tory (or Labour) majority government that was introducing the types of cuts the coalition has would find itself losing popular support.

Heffer also writes “AV could have the perverse effect of securing a landslide for one of the two main parties, with the damaging effects on the parliamentary process that we saw between 1997 and 2005.” Granted, this is true – AV isn’t proportional, and so it won’t address one of the key problems of FPTP – parties winning a huge majority without majority support. But it certainly won’t make this problem any worse than it already is, and might, in fact, improve things marginally since candidates will have to secure 50% of the vote to win their seats. Many commenters on various articles like to point out this ingrained unfairness of FPTP – parties winning a majority of seats with sometimes less than 40% of the popular vote. Defenders of FPTP dismiss this by saying “they got the most votes, therefore it’s fair”. However, FPTP can lead to even more perverse outcomes. At least twice in Canada, at the provincial level, a party has finished second in total votes cast, yet won more seats than the party that finished first in terms of popular vote (Quebec 1998, New Brunswick 2006). In another instance, again in New Brunswick, one party did win a majority of the popular vote, 60%, but also won every single seat in the legislature. How is that fair? There have been many other instances at the provincial level of one party winning a grossly disproportionate number of seats, with the opposition parties reduced to sometimes only one seat.

ConservativeHome has an article about the launch of the anti-AV campaign’s posters and leaflets. I am quite heartened that many of the readers are thoroughly blasting the mistruths and fear-mongering depicted in the No campaign’s media. This is also true of the commenters on the Matthew Elliot piece on the Spectator site. I’ve not bothered to read through the 350+ comments on Heffer’s piece in the Telegraph to see how they swing.

It’s also heartening to frequently read many comments by readers stating that the fear-mongering and lies being spread by the anti-AV side are pushing them to vote Yes. There are still several weeks to go in this campaign assuming the government can get it passed by the required deadline – the Lords are still playing hardball with some amendments. I expect the No side to further ramp up its rather ludicrous claims.

I could go on picking holes in the anti-AV arguments, but I think what is most striking is that I’ve yet to see one single column or op ed piece simply extolling the virtues of FPTP. If FPTP is that great, tell people why. Defend it against the various studies and arguments pointing out how unfair it is. Campaign in favour of your voting system of choice, not by spreading half-truths and outright lies about AV. If the No to AV side can’t properly defend FPTP, why should anyone else?

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Mentioning Canada wasn’t a good idea

I’ve been looking over the No to AV website this morning, and had a good laugh when I read their section on why FPTP is better than AV.

The reasons provided, six in all, are:

  • It creates strong governments
  • It excludes extremist parties
  • It’s fair
  • It’s simple to understand
  • It’s cheap
  • It’s the most widely used system in the world.

It was this last point that had me laughing, because they name some of the countries which use FPTP, and include Canada in the list. I think that by including Canada, they’ve essentially undermined two of what they probably think are their strongest “pro” points.

FPTP creates strong governments. You’d never know that by looking at what’s been happening in Canada over the course of the past seven years. There has been a general election at the federal level in 2004, 2006, and 2008, and each one has returned a hung parliament, which resulted in minority government (one Liberal, the rest Conservative). A lot of people expect another election this year. Almost everyone expects another hung parliament.

It excludes extremist parties. I know in the UK this is a reference to the BNP, but in Canada, FPTP has allowed the Bloc Québécois to become a permanent fixture on the federal scene. The BQ isn’t the same sort of extremist party as the BNP, but they are a party dedicated to the independence of the Province of Quebec. It’s largely because of the dominance of the BQ in Quebec that Canada is stuck with hung parliaments over and over again, because none of the main federalist parties can win enough seats in that province to win an outright majority. Only a move to a proportional voting system would reduce the BQ’s stranglehold on Quebec seats – FPTP gives them a number of seats that far exceeds their actual popular support in that province. Besides, if AV would make it that much easier for the BNP to win seats, why is the BNP campaigning against it?

I can’t be bothered to address the other points listed – if those are the best arguments in favour of FPTP, that’s rather sad. My previous post links to one of many studies that clearly demonstrates that FPTP fails any sort of possible fairness test you can put forward. The argument that FPTP is simple to understand simply means that opponents of AV think people are too stupid to be able to rank candidates in order of preference – heaven knows none of us ever indicate preferences in other areas of our lives. And maybe implementing AV might involve some costs, however, if the result of that is slightly fairer election outcomes, I think it’s a worthwhile investment.

And as for FPTP being the most widely used voting system – that’s not necessarily a selling point. Macdonald’s is probably the most widely frequented fast food chain – that’s hardly a ringing endorsement of people’s eating habits or the quality of their food. Just because it’s commonplace doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be improved upon.

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Worst of both worlds

As the pro- and anti-AV campaigns in the UK properly get underway with the launch of websites (the Yes side here, the No side here) in anticipation of the May referendum, I would like to take this opportunity to plug an excellent critique of the First-Past-the-Post voting system that recently appeared on the British Politics and Policy at LSE blog.

Despite its most unwieldy title (“In 2005 not a single MP was returned with active majority support amongst their local citizens. The UK’s ‘First Past the Post’ voting system no longer works – it is the worst of both worlds“), the blog post itself, authored by Guy Lodge and Glenn Gottfried is a scathing indictment of FPTP – as if we needed yet another one. However, since so many seem still so attached to FPTP and consider it the best voting system out there, I suppose we do still need more articles explaining in minute detail why FPTP no longer works in the UK (or Canada, for that matter).

I will point out that the article does not in any way endorse AV, it simply details exactly why FPTP is unfair, unsuitable, archaic and increasingly unlikely to return majority governments in future UK elections, if current voting trends continue. So even if you’re not a fan of AV, I’d still encourage you to read this post, since it is in no way a paen to why AV is so much better (in fact, AV gets only a couple of passing references).

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