Yes or No -AV referendum May 2011

[littlebabyjesus]

So you never got to the point of actually understanding why the report reached those conclusions so that you could precis their argument in a couple of sentences, then?

I'd suggest you go back and reread the report a little more closely.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

So you never got to the point of actually understanding why the report reached those conclusions so that you could precis their argument in a couple of sentences, then?

I'd suggest you go back and reread the report a little more closely.

I'd suggest you stop trying to imagine what I have or haven't done not only because you are not very good at it, but also because I'm not here to do your work for you. Over to you LBJ; will you jump through my hoop?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No. You've given me no reason to believe that jumping through your hoop is worth my while.

I don't need to imagine whether or not you have presented an argument here. You haven't.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I am glad to see you've let go of the claim that I was saying AV is less proportional than FPTP.

Louis MacNeice

I've reread what I wrote and that was simply a mistake in writing on my part. All you have been doing is stating that AV could be less proportional is what I meant to say, but at no point have you said how. Telling me to go and research your position so that I can present your argument for you is pathetic, I'm afraid. You should be able to defend your position yourself, should you not?

 

[articul8]

AV is thus not a proportional system, and can in fact be more disproportional than FPTP... It does very little to improve the voice of traditionally under-represented groups in parliament, strengthening the dominance of the 'central' viewpoint.​

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Disproportionality is not the only flaw in FPTP that stands in need of correcting. Having an accurate picture of 1st preference support can help smaller parties build up their local base and fight local elections more successfully. Votes that currently appear as "for" big parties can disaggregate and the real support for smaller parties is demonstrated.

Any "Pull to the centre" effect is more than offset by the widening of the base of marginal seats - which already imposes a massive gravitational pull to the centre under FPTP. Besides which there are seats like Hendon that went Tory in the GE because of the Greens. Labour would have every incentive to appeal to these Green voters on a left/environmental basis.

 

[articul8]

Your mate Clegg has fucked us either way.

what is this shit? I've never defended Clegg in any respect - he's a loathsome right wing neoliberal scumbag.

 

[Santino]

Having an accurate picture of 1st preference support can help smaller parties build up their local base and fight local elections more successfully. Votes that currently appear as "for" big parties can disaggregate and the real support for smaller parties is demonstrated.

You keep saying this like it's an established fact. Can you present the merest suggestion of evidence for it? Has it happened anywhere, at least once?

 

[articul8]

You keep saying this like it's an established fact. Can you present the merest suggestion of evidence for it? Has it happened anywhere, at least once?

It offers the *basis* for building a base, not a guarantee. But since Australia is the only comparable nation to use AV, the evidence there wouldn't be enough to either clinch or disprove the thesis. The socialist left has previously made some breakthroughs in local government in Aus from what I recall over recent years - but even PR doesn't guarantee left successes - look at Scotland.

But the failure of the SSP to build on an initial breakthrough doesn't mean PR isn't a more advantageous climate. Neither do the limits to Green/Socialist gains in local government in Aus mean that there are no benefits to the British left/

 

[Santino]

It offers the *basis* for building a base, not a guarantee. But since Australia is the only comparable nation to use AV, the evidence there wouldn't be enough to either clinch or disprove the thesis. The socialist left has previously made some breakthroughs in local government in Aus from what I recall over recent years - but even PR doesn't guarantee left successes - look at Scotland.

But the failure of the SSP to build on an initial breakthrough doesn't mean PR isn't a more advantageous climate. Neither do the limits to Green/Socialist gains in local government in Aus mean that there are no benefits to the British left/

What is the *basis* for the claim that AV will do anything other than entrench the dominance of the existing parties? Give us something, anything, other than what you 'reckon' might happen.

 

[redsquirrel]

Evidence of how AV can be less "proportional" than FPTP
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8506306.stm

 

[bonathanjishop]

As always, it depends on your definitions. What do you mean by "proportional"? Proportional in terms of first choices only? First and second choices? Anything-but-last choices? These things may all contradict each other.

You're right kabbes - How can it be proportional if only one candidate gets elected and they must have 50%+1 of the vote!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What is the *basis* for the claim that AV will do anything other than entrench the dominance of the existing parties? Give us something, anything, other than what you 'reckon' might happen.

What is the basis for saying that AV would 'entrench the dominance of the existing parties'?

 

[frogwoman]

because your second preference vote gets added onto another candidate's majority, even if you don't want them in power, instead of counting agaist that candidate in the first place.

 

[frogwoman]

and in theory, correct me if i'm wrong, but couldn't a candidate could win despite another candidate getting a larger percentage of the vote, due to second preferences.

 

[Santino]

What is the basis for saying that AV would 'entrench the dominance of the existing parties'?

Because it's what happened in Australia.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

because your second preference vote gets added onto another candidate's majority, even if you don't want them in power, instead of counting agaist that candidate in the first place.

If you don't want them in power, you don't give them your second preference – you don't have to give any second preference if you don't want to.

and in theory, correct me if i'm wrong, but couldn't a candidate could win despite another candidate getting a larger percentage of the vote, due to second preferences.

Another candidate can get a larger percentage of the 1st prefs and still lose, yes. That's the whole point.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Because it's what happened in Australia.

Is it?

I'm going on wikipedia here, but it says that Australia introduced preferential voting in 1918! Is it wrong?

I just don't see the mechanism by which this would happen. The existing parties appear to me to have entrenched their dominance pretty effectively under the current system in the UK. How would AV make this even more the case?

 

[Santino]

This is all bollocks anyway. You're not going to effect meaningful socio-economic change by tweaking the electoral system.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This is all bollocks anyway. You're not going to effect meaningful socio-economic change by tweaking the electoral system.

Well yes, I agree with that!

It would have been pleasing to have seen the Tories almost annihilated in 1997, though. If that BBC link from earlier is accurate, the LibDems would have become the official opposition in 1997 under AV. That could have changed a lot.

 

[bonathanjishop]

This is all bollocks anyway. You're not going to effect meaningful socio-economic change by tweaking the electoral system.

Yeah - the parties are still likely to put their 'yes men' up. Maybe if there were open primaries like in the US where the public choose the candidate instead of the parties then it would be more likely to happen.

 

[frogwoman]

Well yes, I agree with that!

It would have been pleasing to have seen the Tories almost annihilated in 1997, though. If that BBC link from earlier is accurate, the LibDems would have become the official opposition in 1997 under AV. That could have changed a lot.

What would it have changed?

 

[articul8]

and in theory, correct me if i'm wrong, but couldn't a candidate could win despite another candidate getting a larger percentage of the vote, due to second preferences.

Yes, and why is this not desirable if it means the winner has a broader basis of support than the candidate with most first preferences? Eg. in the Labour leadership election under FPTP David Miliband would have won because the non-Blairite vote was split between the other candidates.

AV is not a proportional system. But it is not always or necessarily less proportional than FPTP. But disproportionality is not the only flaw in FPTP.

 

[articul8]

This is all bollocks anyway. You're not going to effect meaningful socio-economic change by tweaking the electoral system.

No-one is claiming there is a direct causal link. But it would begin to introduce a different political dynamic which allows voices critical of the existing socio-economic dispensation to more accurately demonstrate their support and be taken more seriously in the electoral debates on these questions. It would also subtly shift the dynamic of the policy targeting process which under FPTP is orientated around a very narrow group of swing voters in key marginal seats.

 

[frogwoman]

Because it could lead to a situation where the lib-dems (or whoever) win despite their recieivng the least votes.

 

[articul8]

No - any party that had the least votes would be eliminated in the first round.

 

[ViolentPanda]

How are we going to get "proper PR"?

To paraphrase Willie Shakespeare:

The first thing "we" do is, we kill all the gradualists.

 

[bonathanjishop]

Because it could lead to a situation where the lib-dems (or whoever) win despite their recieivng the least votes.

A few of people I know in Pontypridd wanted to vote Green/Socialist Labour in the last election, but definitely didn't want the Lib Dem Mike Powell to get in. With AV people could vote Green or Socialist Labour and use up all their votes on all candidates except Mike Powell, so it could mean the 'boogieman' candidates like him are kept out.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Streathamite - how about you actually deal with the substantive point in #1127 about history showing that your position is utterly futile and counter-productive?

Frankly the arguments for a yes vote are winning out so far - our detailed internal polling shows it. Urban 75 is *nothing at all like* the electorate at large so I'm not going to cry myself to sleep worrying about not having persuaded a few people on here who offer no coherent justification for the positions they are taking.

The problem with this post is that when you say "coherent justification", it's not what you actually mean, because anyone reading the thread can see that you've been given coherent justifications aplenty.
What you appear to take the phrase to mean is "you haven't given a justification that I approve of for your position, therefore it can't be a coherent one". Anyone (besides yourself) reading this thread can see this.
As for your internal polling, unless you're looking at the datasets (as opposed to the headline figures), you're seeing an interpretation. Even then, unless your sample size is above a "critical mass", and is adjusted for demographic loading, it's not going to give an accurate reflection of voter intentions.
Having long ago learned (and got paid for doing so!) to construct polls, I'm generally cynical as to their utility for anything other than ego-boosting.

 

[ViolentPanda]

AV isn't an alternative to FPTP. It *is* FPTP.

Or, as some of us have been saying since the referendum was set (and some of us even before then), "FPTP with bells on". It allows the possiblity of the injection of new political blood, and slightly greater accountability to the electorate into the mix, but in reality means that the same three mainstream parties as now will continue to dominate parliamentary politics.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's absurd - why do you think the historically anti-PR forces (Tories, Prescott/Blunkett/Reid etc. ) are so opposed to AV then?

Couldn't possibly be personal, rather than political interest, could it?