The BBC is asking a variety of people to give their view on the 5 May referendum on reforming the voting system.
Today it’s Liberal Democrat party president Tim Farron’s turn:
Did you know that most of us have an MP that we voted against?
That our elections are decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats? That the worst expenses scandals occurred in safe seats, many of which hadn’t changed party since the Second World War?
Our current voting system, first-past-the- post, isn’t fit for purpose anymore and is failing us.
It means that most people’s votes don’t count; it’s created a system of safe seats and jobs for life, and was at the heart of the expenses scandal.
AV is a small change that would make a big difference.
Put simply, it allows you to rank candidates in order of preference and requires every MP to have secured the support of at least half of their constituents.
It gives voters more power and politicians less, because it allows you to vote for the candidate you really want and not the one you dislike least to keep someone else out. It means all MPs will have to work harder for your vote by reaching out to more of their constituents.
What could be possibly be bad about that?
You can read the full piece at the BBC News website.
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6 Comments
Happy to agree with this up until this point:
“AV is a small change that would make a big difference.”
I’m afraid it’s a small change that will make a very small difference,
Followed by the most irritating, consistent misrepresentation of the Yes campaign:
“Put simply, it … requires every MP to have secured the support of at least half of their constituents.”
No it doesn’t. It doesn’t even require you to have the support of at least half the people who voted. (And that’s even accepting the dubious definition of “support”, which amounts to “not rating you bottom of their list of preferences”.)
Still, I’ll vote Yes, and I encourage others to do so, because I think it’s a tiny little bit better than what we have now; and even a tiny bit better is better than not better at all.
That our elections are decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats? That the worst expenses scandals occurred in safe seats, many of which hadn’t changed party since the Second World War?
Elections under AV will still be decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats – maybe slightly more of them, but not a huge amount. And those seats which haven’t changed hands since the Second World War are those which are least likely to change hands under AV. AV is likely to have most effect where seats are already competitive between parties. Overall, relatively few seats are likely to change hands under AV compared to FPTP – usually where one party is only narrowly ahead of the second placed party and the votes of third and subsequent parties transfer significantly to the second placed party.
This is the worst pro-AV rubbish. What is it about this referendum that produces constant bilge on both sides?
“Did you know that most of us have an MP that we voted against?”
Yes, and that will continue under AV due to 2 facts, firstly not everyone will state full preferences meaning we’ll still have wins with a minority of the votes. Secondly, this is total rubbish unless you accept 1st prefs as the same as 6th prefs, which they are self-evidently not.
“That our elections are decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats?”
No, they’re not. Total rubbish. They’re decided by voters in every single seat. And this will be only marginally changed by AV. Safe seats only stay safe because every election vast numbers of voters turn out to vote for a certain party, They’re not crooked 1820’s style rotten boroughs. There’s nothing undemocratic about that.
“That the worst expenses scandals occurred in safe seats?”
So? Safe seats will still be safe under AV. Seats where more than half the electorate always vote Labour will continue that way, and the votes of everyone else in those seats will stay useless. AV doesn’t solve that. Only PR does. No2AV, yes2PR.
“Simply, it allows you to rank candidates in order of preference and requires every MP to have secured the support of at least half of their constituents.”
1. And it makes the ludicrous step of assuming 1st and 6th preferences have equal weight.
2. No it doesn’t. Unless you make it mandatory to give a preference to every candidate. Either Farron knows this, and is just lying, or he doesn’t know this, in which case he’s totally ignorant about his subject and should not be making pompous speeches about it.
In a way, the Conservative party are in government because they used a similar form of AV. They didn’t have over 50% of MP’s so called on the Lib Dem MP’s to top up the figures. They use the system when it suites them.
Bernard Salmon
Elections under AV will still be decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats – maybe slightly more of them, but not a huge amount. And those seats which haven’t changed hands since the Second World War are those which are least likely to change hands under AV
Indeed. I am getting really annoyed by the way “Yes to AV” is basing its campaign on vague claims about the effects, some of which are rather dubious, while making little effort to give a straightforward explanation of the system. Their argument for this is that they ran tests and people got bored by the factual explanation but responded positively to the claims about this “making MPs work harder”, “ending duck houses” etc.
The problem with this is that, yes, of course people will respond positively to “motherhood and apple pie”, but what they forget is that the other side can do that as well. Most of the “No to AV” campaign is based on waffle and very dubious claims, but when “Yes to AV” is similar, we’ve moved to their ground. And on their ground they’ve got the added advantage of being able to appeal to fear and conservatism. The main thing the pro-AV case has going for it is that what it says CAN be backed up by showing how the mechanics of AV provides it, but if – as is the case – it refuses to do that because it fears people get turned off by a bit of technicality, it has thrown away that advantage.
The “No to AV” campaign are managing to pick up on some of the pro-AV lines and damage the pro-case by revealing them as dubious. For example, it ISN’T the case that AV means you have to win the support of over half the electorate or even half those who vote, because even ignoring those who don’t vote you have those whose votes are lost due to not filling in all their transfers. It’s a technical point but because “No to AV” can legitimately claim it is wrong, they can raise doubts about everything else “Yes to AV” says because it’s one of the things they say.
I feel “Yes to AV” would be doing better had they resisted the hyperbolic claims and instead been more honest about the main advantage of AV – that it removes the “don’t split the vote” fear – and played AV down as a valuable but fairly minor reform – which is how most of us who know about these things actually feel about it.
Mein Gott Lieber Himmel!.
A short sharp argument which properly defines AV. Tim Farron is better in five minutes than the AV YES campaign is in five months.