TakeBackParliament.com has launched a competition to crowd-source the design talent of bloggers who support abolishing first-past-the-vote and replacing it with the Alternative Vote in readiness for next May’s referendum.
Andy May – occasional contributor to LDV – has mocked up this effort to get the ball rolling:
But he’s asking for readers’ assistance:
What do you think? Could you do better?
We’re looking for your poster designs and ideas – post your design on your blog and paste the link in the comments or send them to [email protected].
The latest polls show that the race is narrowing with the initial 10% lead enjoyed by AV amongst the public gone. It’s still early days of course, but we need to get our skates on if we’re going to win this referendum.
The best poster will win £20 and feature prominently in our grassroots campaigning.
Best of luck!
Over to LDV readers to take a crack …
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29 Comments
Please vote Yes to AV
It’s the only way the Lib Dems won’t get wiped out at the next election
Please. Please. Please we’re desperate.
I don’t think people will buy it if AV is sold as cleaning up politics. Patently switching to AV is neither going to eliminate safe seats, end spin, nor end scandals. As long as politicans and voters are human beings the latter two will never go away. The campaign should focus on what AV actually does: Empowers voters by eliminating tactical voting and forcing MPs to take account of the majority of their constituents rather than the small minority that normally elect them.
Here are three suggestions:
http://stuartbonar.typepad.com/stuart-bonar/2010/07/poster-ideas-for-the-av-campaign.html
Please feel free to leave a comment on my blog – although there’s no need to tell me that the blackening out needs to be thinned a little. I’m working on it.
“Patently switching to AV is neither going to eliminate safe seats, end spin, nor end scandals.”
Well, quite.
The fact that the poster presents three totally spurious arguments in favour of AV suggests that the author wants to conceal his real reason for supporting it.
Can someone please reassure me that Take Back Parliament won’t end up as the designated organisation for the Yes campaign?
The requirement to achieve 50% of the vote will dramatically reduce the number of completely safe seats, and greatly increase the number of votes that count. So the anti-politician sentiment is definitely worth tapping into; after all, if people conclude from the campaign that they would ideally want even more reform, that’s not a bad thing, as it’s hard to see why that would weaken support for a step in the right direction.
So something along the lines of “first they defended their dodgy expenses claims, now they’re defending their dodgy safe seats” may be worth a try. “Why shouldn’t our votes count, wherever we live?”.
It’s also worth noting that under so-called FPTP there is actually no “post” to be first past, whereas AV is based on the entirely reasonable proposition that the post is set at 50% and the first person past it wins. There must be a slogan in that somehow – along the lines of “AV – the constituency voting system that actually has a post” type of thing, but a bit more self-explanatory?
‘AV – our token Labour policy to balance out all the Tory ones’
‘AV – because selling out on PR has to be worth something’
With Eddie Izzard’s permission:
“Cake or death?”
“Cake please”
“Oh, I’m sorry, we’re all out of cake”
DON’T LIKE YOUR OPTIONS?
ISN’T IT TIME YOU HAD A REAL CHOICE?
CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT, NOT WHAT YOU DON’T
FOR YOUR SAY VOTE YES TO AV
‘Radical reform too much too stomach? Why not spend millions of pounds tinkering instead?’
@Mike80
I assume you are aware of the counter-argument. Don’t you think your contributions would be more useful if you addressed it?
“Vote for AV so Clegg can tell his members Cameron has delivered on the Coalition Agreement.”
No, I don’t think that will work. But sadly, I can’t think of anything that will.
Yes, I will troop down to the polling station next May and vote for AV. It is a slightly fairer system. Slightly.
What I cannot stomach is Clegg going along with the Tory plans to reduce the number of MPs and gerrymander the boundaries. And Clegg’s casuistic (and potenetially very dangerous) quip that fewer MPs cost less. Fewer MPs means a poorer service for the electorate. As Clegg, steeped in the Lib Dem traditions of community politics and local champions, should know. And almost certainly does know.
I say “potenetially very dangerous” for two reasons:
(1) Something as precious and fundamental to our way of life as democracy should not have a price tag attached to it. If 650 MPs provide a better service than 600, a few million (out of billions) should matter not one jot. Talk of this kind cheapens democracy and casts the thoughtspore that the whole system might just be a total waste of time and money.
(2) Clegg’s approach capitalises on the climate of cynicism about politics kindled so deftly by our North American owned media with their manufactured MPs’ expenses furore – one of the most successful campaigns of mass psychological manipulation in modern times. Nick has to avoid using their language and playing along with their game. Remember Tony Greaves at the height of the revelations warning that what we were witnessing was an attack on democracy. He was right.
“The requirement to achieve 50% of the vote will dramatically reduce the number of completely safe seats, and greatly increase the number of votes that count.”
I just don’t believe AV will “dramatically reduce the number of completely safe seats”.
In comparison with 2010, other things being equal, I’d expect it to make Labour seats where the Lib Dems were third a bit safer, Tory seats where the Lib Dems were third a bit less safe – but without “dramatic” changes in any of them – and seats where the Lib Dems were second generally less safe, and Lib Dem seats generally safer.
No doubt somebody can run a computer model and get some concrete figures, but I can’t believe that on any criterion of safeness the reduction will be “dramatic.”
“POTENTIALLY” without the extra typo “e”.
To be scrupulously fair to Tony Greaves, he was saying that the purpose of the revelations was to make it more difficult for people of modest means to become MPs, which is a slightly different point.
@Sesenco
You’re aware that the Lib Dem Manifesto included a pledge to reduce the number of MPs by 150? With STV in place, admittedly.
Having just voted in the co-operative dividend card holders’ STV based elections, I still say that the #1 reason for AV is putting candidates’ quality and individual policies against each other is a far fairer and more pragmatic way of picking a representative than voting mostly on party allegiances.
That, and needing 50% support.
As far as posters are concerned, fake campaign pics of leaflets “slagging other candidates off” vs. sensible comparisons where each candidate answers questions on what they stand for might be an idea? That way, people might actually get an idea of what each person stands for, rather than having to blindly vote by party allegiance, or tactically vote against the party they dislike!
People whose response to a contest is to mudsling, well…
the problem with the vote is that voters may use it as a protest vote against the lib dems because they know what to expect from the other 2 parties but now they seem to see the lib dems as selling out and enabling draconian cuts which will hurt all sectors of society.
@ Paul Griffiths
Yes, I am aware. This post was about poster slogans, and I thought some self-depreciating humour might help.
The counter arguments that hold weight are basically that virtually no MP would get elected without 50% of the voters approval (as long as you count second preferences as being of equal approval), and that voters could vote for their perfect party first, and then back it up with one more likely to win, improving voters confidence.
The counter-arguments are that second-preference voting does not measure strength of feeling. It is also hampered as the second-preferences of the top two candidates are not necessarily counted. So the second preferences of those who support fringe parties whose candidates drop out first count more. Hardly fair. And the other argument is that you can currently vote for your favourite candidate, this change isn’t needed. Just because your candidate loses does not automatically make it unfair. Finally, say you voted Lib Dem first and Labour second, and then the Lib Dems go into coalition with the Tories. Has your voting intention really been registered?
It’s not a proportional system, so there’s no benefit there. Whilst in some elections it might increase smaller parties seats, in others it can exaggerate a swing to a popular party.
There are arguments for and against. The Lib Dems used to make strong and fevered arguments against it. Now it is pretty much the only big concession that has been squeezed out of the Tories, you are lining it up to defend it to the hilt. This blind loyalty to party, rather than policy, is rather breathtaking.
@Mike80
I think we are at cross-purposes. You seem to be defending:
P1: STV is preferable to AV
a proposition that I’ve never heard any Lib Dem deny. Perhaps (I’m not sure) you are denying:
P2: AV is preferable to FPTP
But I had assumed from your earlier comments that you were actually denying:
P3: A choice between AV and FPTP is the best we can hope to achieve under this Coalition
and therefore it was the arguments in support of P3 that I expected you to address critically.
“The counter arguments that hold weight are basically that virtually no MP would get elected without 50% of the voters approval (as long as you count second preferences as being of equal approval), …”
But obviously second (or third, or fourth) preferences aren’t really equal to first preferences. And of course, people don’t have to specify additional preferences, so it needn’t be 50%. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of Labour voters refused to put either of the coalition parties on their lists.
To be honest, I think the best non-partisan argument in favour of AV is that in effect it formalises tactical voting, while allowing voters to register the party they would ideally have supported. That’s something, but it’s scarcely the best thing since sliced bread.
But in any case I think it’s obvious that the real reason the party is supporting this is that it hopes it will get ten or twenty extra MPs out of it. The trouble is that that’s not really an argument you can deploy in public.
Which post should be the finishing line: 50% (AV) or less than 50% (FPTP)?
@Anthony Aloysius St
Or, put another way, it will allow thousands of voters in those ten or twenty constituencies to affect the outcome of an parliamentary election, possibly for the first time in their lives. I happen to believe that electing more Lib Dem MPs would actually benefit their constituents, not just the party, But these days I seem to be in a minority around here…
@Paul & @Henry – good ideas 🙂
“P3: A choice between AV and FPTP is the best we can hope to achieve under this Coalition
and therefore it was the arguments in support of P3 that I expected you to address critically.”
I would ask: is it the best use of a) political capital and b) public & campaigners money, if you are interested in expanding democracy. And I’m not sure. Wouldn’t STV for local authorities be more likely to lead to STV for Parliament? It seems like a lot of money and political goodwill will be used to pass a referendum that the party thought a miserable compromise before the election, and could – depending on the votes cast – actually reduce proportionality in a future election.
As the same time, in order to secure the AV referendum, the Lib Dems have surrendered their right to oppose policies like academies, the breaking up of the NHS, immigration, tax reform & Europe. Any discussion of voting reform at local government is off the table. Would it not have been better to focus on something that Lib Dems actually want, rather than implement Labour’s policy, that you opposed and dismissed before the election?
I’m not saying the answer is straightforward, but I am surprised this question is rarely asked on here.
@Paul Griffiths
Judging by the many opinions expressed here over the weekend on a recent thread thread, you are in anything but a minority. I think you make a good point about voters in quite a number of constituencies (possibly more than twenty) being able to make their vote count for the first time in their lives.
Let’s get it into our heads that AV is only a first step. As the only alternative to FPTP on offer it is therefore the only route to the holy grail of a fully proportional voting system. (Repetitive, I know, but how many of us have actually campaigned in a national referendum before?)
In reply to your earlier question, you can be reassured that ‘Tale Back Parliament ‘ will not be running the official Yes campaign in that referendum.
“Or, put another way, it will allow thousands of voters in those ten or twenty constituencies to affect the outcome of an parliamentary election, possibly for the first time in their lives.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t follow that. Of course it would always have been open to them to affect the outcome of an election by voting tactically.
As I said, the virtue of AV is that it also allows their “ideal preference” to be registered, which in a way is nice. And I suppose it also allows people who for one reason or another didn’t want to vote tactically to influence the election. But I think it’s difficult to portray AV as any kind of great democratic reform.
Hi!
My take is here, http://rwtwm.blogspot.com/2010/07/av-campaign-poster.html
obviously there is a full quality print version available should you choose this poster.
Please offer feedback if you have any. I’m happy with the general concept.
Thanks for all the entries – we’ll put a blog update on http://www.takebackparliament soon and inform LDV.
Cheers!
Andy
Take Back Parliament
Another idea for a YES poster, http://stuartbonar.typepad.com/stuart-bonar/2010/07/another-yes-poster-idea.html