Yes to AV – thinking liberal

Yes or no to AV?

Truly my last blog on the arguments for and against AV for Thursday’s UK referendum on AV. It’s been quite a campaign, but the arguments made by either side are weak or worse. This may get a little better in this last week. In its broadcast tonight the Yes campaign is at long last explaining what the system is and why it is a good idea, and even toning down some of its exaggerated claims. The Yes campaign had left too much of the explaining to its opponents, while spending too much time twittering to to the converted. By contrast the No broadcast seems much more about rallying the converted, especially Labour supporters; it rehashes the usual arguments in quick soundbites, using a variety of politicians and vox pops. Up to this week the No campaign has been much more vigorous, albeit scurrilous.

First, for the benefit of those that haven’t decided, and want to get beyond the soundbites, let’s have a quick round up of the usual, weaker, arguments before identifying the stronger ones. First the Yes:

It will make all MPs work harder. The idea is because most MPs will need second preference votes to win, as well as a good haul of first preferences, then they will be more sensitive to people’s needs. Well maybe. But they are already trying quite hard for the first preference votes of minor parties.
Tackles “jobs for life”, duck houses, etc. Well it should reduce the number of safe seats – but there will still be plenty left. So some change, but not that much.
All MPs will need 50% of support. A stronger argument, but of course this is 50% before abstentions. Some voters will not offer second or third preferences so they will drop out, meaning that the winner gets a bit less than 50% of the voters who turned up. The Economist newspaper seems to think this is a big problem, but if voters are indifferent between candidates then surely that’s fair enough.
It’s change. True, but is it for the better? Change would certainly rock the older politicos – but this is weak stuff.
It will keep the Tories out of power forever. Not an argument to persuade Conservative supporters. Frankly, I’m not at all convinced. The Lib Dem vote could implode, the Tories scoop up second preferences from UKIP; if Labour fluffs it that could easily deliver the Tories an outright victory. And if David Cameron succeeds in “de-toxifying” the Tory brand, it’s all to play for.

It says much about the Yes campaign that they haven’t said much more than this until this week. The Nos, on the other hand have given us a massive battery of arguments:

It will cost £250m which is best spent on other things. There has been a lot of heat generated by this claim, based on the costs of running the referendum (too late) and buying counting machinery (unnecessary). Still, there will need to be an information campaign to explain the system, and it will take longer to count the votes, which will mean a bit more overtime. Cheaper not to vote at all, of course. What price democracy?
More countries use FPTP than AV. My Tory leaflet says 2.4 billion to 29.5 million. So? I don’t know who they have counted into their 2.4 billion, but a large part of it is India, where there are literacy issues (and which doesn’t deliver stable government either). The US has got round many of the weaknesses of FPTP through primary elections (which really are more expensive!) . Many states also use run-off elections which work a bit like AV, and AV itself is not unknown. And for President, if they used FPTP then Al Gore would have beaten George Bush in 2000 – but in fact they use an electoral college system. New Zealand abolished FPTP for proportional representation. That leaves Canada amongst developed countries; that country’ electoral experiences are not an advertisement for the system. Today the Conservatives won a general election because the left-wing NDP took votes away from the centre parties. What’s more many other nations, including France and Italy, have a single member run-off system that works a bit like AV.
The Australians don’t like AV. My Conservative leaflet claims that 60% of Australians want to go back to FPTP. That isn’t what the poll in question actually asked. What many Aussies don’t like is that they are forced to preference ALL candidates, even if they are indifferent. We aren’t proposing that in the UK. In fact the principle of preferential voting (as they call it) is not controversial there.
AV gives weight to extreme parties, like the BNP. Extremists will find more difficult to win under AV. But they find it hard enough under FPTP (though George Galloway did sneak in in 2005). But their second preferences will count. Just as they would if there was no candidate of their party at all. This is true, but it’s called democracy.
Soppy centrists will get elected. This is the exact opposite of the extremist argument. It isn’t made by the mainstream No campaign, but it is the argument of choice of the magazine Spiked, and Matthew D’Ancona. The idea is that the trawl for second preference votes will put a premium on being unobjectionable. But you still need first preference votes to be in contention, since you will almost always need to be in the top two on first preferences to stand a chance (and this is the Australian experience). Soppy centrists are likely to get knocked out. Besides appealing to the centre is how marginal seats are won under FPTP too.
There will be permanent hung parliaments and coalitions. This is a valid argument against proportional representation, but not AV. The argument runs that the Lib Dems will get more seats, denying a majority to Labour or Conservatives. You have to believe in a Lib Dem recovery to think that; they will have a real problem to get enough first preference votes to be in contention in enough seats. Even if you accept this, the balance between the top two parties is likely to favour the winner (because they get more second preference votes as well as first preference votes), and this will offset the effect. One academic has suggested that the only election since the war that would have given a hung parliament under AV was last year’s, which, um…
We want PR. AV is not remotely proportional; that’s why a lot of people like it. But FPTP isn’t either. PR isn’t on the menu. The danger is that a No vote will put people off electoral reform of any kind for a long time.
We’ve been using FPTP for 300 years and we should stand by our traditions. Well I’m exaggerating, but only slightly, based on Mr Cameron’s utterings. One person one vote has only been around in the UK since 1950 when the university seats were abolished. It’s not all that long ago when we abolished rotten boroughs. We forget how much our constitution changes and adapts.

Enough. What are the arguments that count? For yes:

It reduces the chances of rogue candidates splitting the vote and letting the enemy in. This will make it easier for MPs to take an independent line against party managers. Perverse results where people vote for the left and let a right wing candidate in (which seems to have happened in Canada today) are prevented.
It’s more transparent. Today a lot of voters vote for their second preference because they don’t think their first has a chance of winning. The importance of first preference votes under AV will not stop this entirely, but it will be a big help. And the winning candidate will know where his or her second preference votes came from. Today they like to claim that all their votes are positive first preference ones – time to expose this.
It’s a majoritarian system, like FPTP. Coalitions only happen when the public really can’t make up its mind. Of course many people prefer coalitions…but see above. We aren’t turning the political world upside down, just making it a bit better.

And for the Nos:

There is clearer bond with the voter, who needs to make a binary decision, which then gets counted in a highly dramatic process. There is a little magic in the old ways.
If No wins then the Conservatives will have to give the Lib Dems a consolation prize, perhaps in Lords reform. If Yes wins then the opposite applies.

And that’s enough!

Why vote no to AV?

In my earlier posts on the alternative vote (AV) in advance of the forthcoming referendum, I have focused on the positive case for the reform, and considered some of the practical consequences. Now it’s time to consider some of the arguments being put forward by people advising us to vote No, in support of first-past-the-post (FPTP).

The leading argument from the No camp, to judge by the reporting on the BBC, is that AV undermines the principle of one person one vote. Partly this argument is used simply to confuse matters, alongside the idea that AV is complicated. But the more serious point is that idea that people who vote for candidates who are eliminated get another go, so it seems like they get a bonus. Meanwhile, as my local Conservative leaflet puts it: “This means that supporters of the major parties, the Conservative Party and the Labour party, will not have their votes counted more than once”. This is a candy floss argument that disappears if you try to think about it. AV is in effect a succession of run-off elections, with the loser of each election being eliminated between each round. The voters of the top two parties are counted in every vote, without their votes needing to be transferred. Far from being disadvantaged, they are setting the agenda.

But this argument leads to a more subtle one. Voters of the eliminated candidates influence the outcome, and these voters are less deserving. This is endlessly backed up by a quote from Winston Churchill that AV would give power to “the most worthless votes for the most worthless candidates.” A group of prominent historians were somehow persuaded sign a letter to The Times in support of the No vote, that managed to put this quote alongside the argument that AV undermined “one man, one vote”. We can summarize this juxtaposition so: “FPTP means one man, one vote as long as you are not worthless.” Supporters of AV argue that it is precisely the principle of one person, one vote that means that we must count the views of people who initially back less popular candidates. Even if they support the BNP. Far too much has been said about the BNP in this debate already; the BNP does not support AV for reasons that I talked about in my last post on AV.

There are rather better No arguments on offer, though you rarely hear them. Brendan O’Neill of Spiked offers two. The first is that AV will tend to promote insipid middle of the road candidates. He doesn’t try to justify this claim very hard, but I think the argument goes like this: when making their choices voters will put less offensive candidates above ones that are more offensive to them. That means that major parties with a real chance of winning a seat have an interest in selecting inoffensive candidates. A conservative candidate, for example, will be trying to pick up second preferences from both UKIP and Lib Dems; Labour candidates will be after the Lib Dems too, and the Greens and any fringe left candidates, as well as hoping for some of the UKIP votes; this might be done simply by being less offensive than your main rival. But it is hard to make the case that this is any more true under AV than FPTP, where the major parties fight hard for these voters’ one and only vote on the basis that only the top two parties count. Also if a candidate is too insipid voters won’t preference them at all. There is a more strategic argument too: FPTP suppresses spoiler candidates (i.e. breakaways from the major parties) because by standing these candidates might simply let the real enemy in. If it is more likely that major party candidates will be challenged by breakaways, as would be the case under AV, won’t politics become more dynamic? Mr O’Neill spoils his own argument by praising the spikiness of Australian politicians, which he puts down to compulsory voting. But since Australia uses AV, this shows that at worst AV is not much of problem on this front. Australian politics is full of challenges by independent candidates, many of them successful; AV helps them. (Incidentally there is an interesting analysis of the impact of AV in recent Queensland and New South Wales state elections here, important because they use the same system that is being proposed in the UK, rather than the full preferential system used in Australian federal elections.)

But Mr O’Neill also fields a much stronger, if less tangible, argument for FPTP, which comes close to the real reason why most ordinary No voters are going that way. FPTP is simple, direct and dramatic. The voter focuses his or her mind on making a single, dramatic choice. The votes are counted and the election resolved in a very clear process. This strengthens the bond between the system and the ordinary voter. AV is by no means a complicated system, but it does reduce the immediacy and drama of the process. Is this enough to tolerate the problems of FPTP, with the power it gives to unaccountable party machines? I say no. And if it was, I would replace FPTP with a system of run-offs, like they use in France and Italy, which have the best of both worlds, but are much more expensive.

Which leaves me with the real reason that major party establishment types want a No vote. FPTP makes it very hard for rebels in their own ranks to challenge the officially selected candidate, for fear of letting the opposition in. AV makes it much easier for party rebels. Candidate selection processes are subject to heavy influence from party hierarchies and give the established order real power over our political system. Now, ask yourself, is that a good reason why ordinary voters should vote No? Ed Milliband is very brave to see through this to wish for a more democratic political process, and support the Yes campaign. He is consistently under-estimated by the politicos that dominate what passes for political debate in Britain. It will be good for the country if he wins this vote.

AV: why I am voting Yes to a beautiful British compromise

Referendum Day approaches and the polls are tightening. The public at large has yet to show much interest, but the referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) is an important event in our political history. Yet nobody can be surprised that the quality of public debate is abysmal. If the arguments put forward by the Yes campaign, desperate not to lose people in technical detail, look a little weak, those of the No campaign seem like a calculated assault on our intelligence. The campaign is being fought on emotions: natural British conservatism pitted against the feeling that our current system is part of a stitch-up perpetrated by the political establishment on the people. I hope this post lifts the level of debate a fraction.

Not that I want to deny the importance of emotions in making decisions like this. I will start with mine. My views about proportional representation (PR) have fluctuated a bit over time; but my views on AV, from the beginning political consciousness in the 1970s, have always been in favour. First past the post (FPTP) is an outrage; a primitive system that belongs to the age of rotten boroughs and not a modern democracy. AV is an elegant answer to its most egregious features, and the one that is most appropriate to the British culture.

We start with the system of single member constituencies. This is embedded deeply into the British political culture, though I do not regard it as sacred. This carries with it the idea that an MP represents her whole constituency, not just the party and voters that put her there. This is indeed what most MPs claim to think. But if the election is contested by more than two candidates with broad appeal then the process rapidly degenerates into farce and the winner can be elected on quite a small minority of votes. You need a degree in game theory to make your you are voting for the right candidate. This is so obviously wrong that in most elections for an executive office, where you choose one candidate from a diverse field, the system has been abandoned, if it was ever used – from small societies up to presidents of countries, and even Mayoral elections in the UK. The job of an MP is a serious job, and surely exactly the same logic applies to them as to the London Mayor or the Leader of the Conservative Party.

And that should be enough. But the consequential results of the system don’t make it any better. As this video using animals explains, the system soon resolves into a two party system. Any candidate who wants to challenge the party machine and stand against the official candidate usually fails, and worse, lets in the candidate from the opposing party. So a lot of the process of democratic choice is handled by two party machines which do not have a strong incentive to be democratic themselves, for example in the way they select candidates. Of course, if you are a party machine politician you are inclined to think that this is a wonderful political system, but it is fundamentally undemocratic. It is quite clear from the declining combined vote share of the Labour and Conservative parties that the British are losing confidence in the two party system.

So what is the solution? PR is popular, but brings with it plenty of problems of its own which are not directly relevant to the debate. If you support PR the risk of voting No is that a No result is likely to kill the question of electoral reform for generations. The Americans have developed a system of primary elections, which have the effect of undermining the party machines and making them more democratic. It has the major virtue of making all safe seats competitive. The odd Tory proposes it for the UK. A second alternative is to stage run-off elections in seats where there is no overall winner – the French system. Both these systems require a second full-scale public election. They both have the advantage of simplicity: electors make a single choice at each election – the most attractive aspect of FPTP. But two elections mean doubling up the cost, and campaigning costs in the US system are astronomical, giving rich candidates a big advantage. And they both seem un-British. They require a more prolonged period political campaigning. The British like the drama of a competitive General Election (such as last year), but quickly tire of the electoral process. And anyway, neither system is being offered to us in the referendum.

Which leaves AV. This is a built-in run-off system, requiring voters to think ahead about how they would vote if there was a run-off. It loses the simplicity and immediacy of the single decision, but the whole process is decided in a single, easily comprehensible process in a day. How quickly the British would take to it is less clear (we can guarantee that the political parties’ campaigns will try to confuse the picture rather then help explain it), but they would get used to it eventually. It has settled down well enough in Australia, a country that has a very similar attitude to politics to Britain, though its effects there are difficult to disentangle from those of compulsory voting. Incidentally, the suggestion made by David Cameron that polls show that Australians would prefer to move back to FPTP does not stand up to close examination. What many Australians in fact dislike is being forced to mark a preference against all candidates for their vote to be valid – and we are not proposing that in the UK. In Australia AV has not undermined the two party system, as it happens, but it has surely made the two main parties more sensitive to the risks of breakaway groups and so more democratic themselves. Australia’s parliamentarians are a quirky, spiky lot – the sort of people to hold an executive to account, even if it is often not a pretty sight. All in all AV is a beautiful British compromise and I will be voting for it.

I will look at other arguments in the AV debate in later posts. This one is long enough!