Sequins and Tickboxes

This is most exciting.

I now, apparently, have to provide some sort of actual content on my blog, as opposed to my usual rantings and ravings. I’m told, quite flatteringly – and I’m never graced with flattery, I just carry on – that I have a lot of “interesting opinions and insights into current affairs and things general”.

Cripes. Cheers for that, Joe

The eloquence statement I have no such qualms about accepting.

So I suppose I’d better start Mutterifying my blog. In the nicest sense, in that entries might not always be four-and-a-half page harangues about various subjects. To be honest, they drain me and I have tons of unfinished ones rotting by the wayside. No, I think bite-sized chunks of opinion and insight are good. Little and often, as they say…

Anyway, time to move on from that awkwardness to the meat-and-potatoes of what I wanted to say today. In retrospect after laboriously typing (and, almost having to completely retype) this entry, I’ll do bite-sized blogs in the future. Today’s topic is too important to be condensed, so here we go...


There is an upcoming referendum on the voting system here in the UK. If you're unaware, or have been living under a rock, the UK is holding a referendum on it's voting system, asking whether we should ditch the first-past-the-post system and use the alternative vote.

My answer to that is absolutely not. Let’s explore this…

First, a bit of background: the Liberal Democrats have, for years, wanted to change the voting system, as it is their belief that the current system, where each member needs to win only a simple majority (ie; get the biggest number of votes, which may or may not total 50% of the total votes cast; otherwise known as a plurality) is unfair as it only favours a two-party system. Now, when the Conservatives, after winning a plurality in the 2010 election last year, but falling 20 seats short of an absolute  majority, invited the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition, one of the Liberal Democrat demands for this agreement was to hold a referendum on the voting system. The Tories reluctantly agreed, and we're where we are now.

I do happen to disagree slightly with Joe here, and have to say it wasn't really a way to make the Liberal
Democrats "surrender everything" in order to get into government. The Conservatives had to make their fair share
of compromises. Alas, though, both parties were itching to get into government so it is entirely possible that some
sense of balance went out of the window. Time will tell if this was bad. For the time being, I'm pretty content with
the coalition; a Conservative Prime Minister is installed in 10 Downing Street and the immense damage done to our
country by 13 years of Labour is steadfastly being repaired with refreshing gusto.

I digress.

AV is, somehow, supposed to be a fairer system. Not so, I believe. Not only is it complex (overly-so), it leaves
people completely unsure of what their vote actually means. The last thing the voter needs is uncertainty over how their vote will be counted. When I vote in an election, I vote for who I want to win. I don't have a massive crisis worrying about which order I "like" each candidate. Elections are not the time to be indecisive, as in the event, someone has to lose and someone has to win. With AV, second and third and, maybe even fourth preferences are somehow given equal credence to first preferences.

This I believe is wrong.

Ranked preferences, by description, are not equal, and should not be treated as such. In the event, under AV, using a complicated and mysterious system of electoral black magic and unpredictable - especially to the voter in the ballot box, who can have no idea how exactly in the event it will occur with their vote - redistribution, a winner is decided. This might not be the person who got a plurality, which is disconcerting. I was criticised for posting the No to AV video featuring a marathon as an allegory of AV voting, having people say it's not a "fair comparison". It is: like FPTP, in a marathon, the first person over the finishing line wins, simple. It would not be fair, would it not, to add up the total distance travelled in the same time by the other competitors and, bizarrely, redistributing that "distance" to crown another winner, one who didn't actually win. It wouldn't work.

What’s even worse is that if people decide to only use one “preference”, by filling in only one box as opposed to 3 or 4, then their vote is NEVER redistributed, whereas those who fill out more preferences have potentially more chances of having their vote being “redistributed” – read: used more than once. Which without shadow of doubt highlights how under AV, not everyone’s vote is equal!

In terms of ensuring the winner gets at least 50% of the vote at the end of play, AV fell apart on BBC Radio 5 when the Labour Party somehow won with… 49%!

Also, I've noticed a few other squiffy things about the Yes to AV camp in particular, that leaves me sceptical of their
motives. Firstly, they're sponsored by the Electoral Reform Society, which, it transpires, stands to benefit directly
from a Yes vote. It is the commercial arm of the ERS that will provide ballot papers and, as is most likely, electronic
counting machines to the Electoral Commission, at the taxpayer's expense of course. And, in the spirit of fairness
and openness, they're trying to blanket the whole thing in a super-injunction.

Great.

A few smaller points that aroused my attention is the wording of the yes campaign's slogan: "Yes to fairer votes". "Fairer", not "fair". All in the semantics, dear readers.

It also struck me as be/amusing that both Strictly Come Dancing and the Conservative Leadership elections are being used to prop up the AV argument, by saying that either a) if Strictly Come Sequins wasn't held under AV, and used FPTP, Ann Widdecombe would have won on day one, and b) David Cameron himself was elected Conservative Party leader using AV.

Didn't she do well! Let's give her a Brucie Bonus!

No, really. They tried to use Strictly as justification. It beggars belief.

Neither of these claims, however, are strictly (come) true.*

Firstly, it’s nice of the Yes to AV camp to insult the electorate. Sure, Ann Widdecombe couldn’t dance to save her life, but surely if she was to win on the first vote, that is the will of the people and it should be respected, no matter how ludicrous. This is, incidentally, how I view BNP representation in the EU. Icky, but it’s there, let’s deal with it and move on.

Secondly, and this applies to both the Strictly Come Dancing comparison and the Conservative Party leadership election: neither of these events use instant runoff voting, as used by AV. The voter gets a chance to think again between rounds. This is important: neither Strictly nor the Conservatives use elections where the voter is forced to make all of their choices at once. After each round of voting, and I believe this is a killer argument against AV, the voter gets the chance to re-evaluate their voting intention as each candidate is knocked out, and, if they wish, reassign their vote as they see fit. With AV, this breathing space disappears, and hence people are forced to make educated guesses as to how the electoral black magic plays out.

This is categorically wrong.

Oh, and in the face of increasing leads by the No To AV lobby, it’s nice to see the Yes camp throwing their toys out of the pram and insulting the electorate some more:



Incidentally, I had to use a screenshot as the Tweet had mysteriously disappeared. Funny that.

So go out on May the 5th and vote NO TO AV.

Do not assume, going by the opinion polls that give the No camp a comfy lead, that everyone else will do it and you won’t have to, every vote will count. Yes to AV is depending (increasingly desperately) on apathy to win a Yes vote by a slither.

*Really rather great related reading: Graeme Archer: You Can't Always Get What You Want.