Yes to Fairer votes launch
Sunday, 7 November 2010 23:07![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_complexMany apologies that both writing and commenting here remains so light. It's going to be like this until December, when I finally finish and submit my article on Italian urban peripheries. Until then, the combination of that article, the other daily demands of my job and the ongoing fight to secure a viable future for our department just means I have very little spare brain-juice available for LJing. I'm doing my best.
Anyway, on Friday evening I downed tools and headed out of the house, all dressed from top to toe in purple, to help launch the nationwide Yes to Fairer Votes campaign at the Hyde Park bonfire in Leeds. The date of the AV referendum has been confirmed now, and November 5th marked exactly six months until it will take place. So it was time to get out there and start spreading the word.
We had a professional photographer along with us, as the nationwide campaign is asking local groups all over the country to submit photos of their events for a collective gallery. So we started out by doing a few posed photos in front of the bonfire and the fireworks:
That raised quite a lot of interest in itself, as people came up to ask what it was all about, and what we were saying 'Yes' to. And once the fireworks had finished, we dashed down to one of the main exits to the park, and got stuck in to handing out flyers, giving out stickers and signing up new members:
You can see our full photo-set here.
Responses were pretty good on the whole. A few people just weren't interested, but I didn't encounter a single person who wanted to argue the case with us for keeping the existing first-past-the-post system. Rather more depressingly, though, the great majority of the people we talked to either a) had no idea that there was going to be a referendum on the voting system in six months' time or b) had no idea what AV is.
And that's a sad state of affairs, because what's happening next May is a really big deal. It's far bigger than a general election, where you merely vote to elect a government for the next five years. This referendum is about whether or not we should change this country's entire voting system permanently. It matters, and everyone should be thinking about it and talking about it and getting ready to decide how they want to vote in May.
Of course, the whole reason why we were there was to raise awareness about the referendum, and explain to people how AV works and why we believe it is fairer than the current system. And actually people seemed pretty interested once they heard about it. We chatted to as many people as we could and gave out a good couple of hundred flyers between us, with a fair number of people seeming actively pleased to be given them, or even coming up to us of their own volition to find out more. So it felt like a pretty positive start to the campaign. But there is still very definitely lots to be done.
Having said all that, of course, it would now be remiss of me not to finish off this post with a simple explanation of how AV works, and why I think it is an improvement on the current system. I know that a lot of people on my friendslist are already extremely well-informed about it. But I also know from my experience at the bonfire on Friday night that plenty of people won't be. Since everyone (who's over 18 and a UK citizen) will get to vote on this next May, I think it's time we all started talking about it. So this is my simple starter's guide to what on earth it's all about:
There's a lot more to say about it than that, of course. It isn't a simple issue, and there is plenty of debate to be had about how AV would actually play out in practice. But I am well enough convinced that it would be fairer than the current system to consider it worth actively campaigning for a 'Yes' vote. And I am absolutely certain that we should all be thinking about it pretty hard between now and the actual referendum. So consider the above my small, humble contribution to kick-starting the thought-processes. If it's the first kick you've had, then I've done my job.
Click here if you would like view this entry in light text on a dark background.
Anyway, on Friday evening I downed tools and headed out of the house, all dressed from top to toe in purple, to help launch the nationwide Yes to Fairer Votes campaign at the Hyde Park bonfire in Leeds. The date of the AV referendum has been confirmed now, and November 5th marked exactly six months until it will take place. So it was time to get out there and start spreading the word.
We had a professional photographer along with us, as the nationwide campaign is asking local groups all over the country to submit photos of their events for a collective gallery. So we started out by doing a few posed photos in front of the bonfire and the fireworks:
That raised quite a lot of interest in itself, as people came up to ask what it was all about, and what we were saying 'Yes' to. And once the fireworks had finished, we dashed down to one of the main exits to the park, and got stuck in to handing out flyers, giving out stickers and signing up new members:
You can see our full photo-set here.
Responses were pretty good on the whole. A few people just weren't interested, but I didn't encounter a single person who wanted to argue the case with us for keeping the existing first-past-the-post system. Rather more depressingly, though, the great majority of the people we talked to either a) had no idea that there was going to be a referendum on the voting system in six months' time or b) had no idea what AV is.
And that's a sad state of affairs, because what's happening next May is a really big deal. It's far bigger than a general election, where you merely vote to elect a government for the next five years. This referendum is about whether or not we should change this country's entire voting system permanently. It matters, and everyone should be thinking about it and talking about it and getting ready to decide how they want to vote in May.
Of course, the whole reason why we were there was to raise awareness about the referendum, and explain to people how AV works and why we believe it is fairer than the current system. And actually people seemed pretty interested once they heard about it. We chatted to as many people as we could and gave out a good couple of hundred flyers between us, with a fair number of people seeming actively pleased to be given them, or even coming up to us of their own volition to find out more. So it felt like a pretty positive start to the campaign. But there is still very definitely lots to be done.
Having said all that, of course, it would now be remiss of me not to finish off this post with a simple explanation of how AV works, and why I think it is an improvement on the current system. I know that a lot of people on my friendslist are already extremely well-informed about it. But I also know from my experience at the bonfire on Friday night that plenty of people won't be. Since everyone (who's over 18 and a UK citizen) will get to vote on this next May, I think it's time we all started talking about it. So this is my simple starter's guide to what on earth it's all about:
- The change proposed is very simple. Under the current FPTP (first-past-the-post) system, you place an 'X' by the candidate you want to vote for, and whoever gets the most Xs wins. Under AV (alternative vote), you get to rank the candidates numerically in your order of preference instead.
- If you want to, you can simply vote as you always have done under the AV system. You just put a '1' next to your favoured candidate, and leave the rest blank.
- But AV also lets you express your preferences in more detail. You can vote '1' for the candidate you like best, but also '2' for the one you like next best, and so on until you run out of candidates or preferences. (See an example here.)
- If no candidate gets more than 50% of the votes on the basis of first preferences, the candidate who got the least votes is eliminated, and the electoral officers look instead at the second preferences expressed by the people who voted for them.
- These second-preference votes are allocated to the relevant candidates, and this keeps happening until one candidate has at least 50% of the total vote. That candidate is then declared the winner.
- This means that in order to win their seats, parliamentary candidates would have to appeal positively to at least 50% of the voters in their constituencies.
- The result would be fewer safe seats, and thus more accountable MPs.
- It also means that if you live in a seat where your favourite candidate usually comes third, you would no longer have to face the choice between wasting your vote and voting tactically. You could express your actual preference by putting your favourite candidate first, but (assuming that that candidate is then eliminated) you would also still get to have a say in which of the remaining candidates wins by using your second (or third, or fourth) preference votes.
- And if everyone in the country was voting on that basis, we might just get a Parliament which represented the views of the voters rather better than it does now - surely a good thing, whatever your personal political preferences are.
There's a lot more to say about it than that, of course. It isn't a simple issue, and there is plenty of debate to be had about how AV would actually play out in practice. But I am well enough convinced that it would be fairer than the current system to consider it worth actively campaigning for a 'Yes' vote. And I am absolutely certain that we should all be thinking about it pretty hard between now and the actual referendum. So consider the above my small, humble contribution to kick-starting the thought-processes. If it's the first kick you've had, then I've done my job.
Click here if you would like view this entry in light text on a dark background.
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no subject
Date: Sunday, 7 November 2010 23:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 7 November 2010 23:16 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 09:48 (UTC)I do have a question, though, which I've not yet been able to work out the answer to. Suppose in my area there are three candidates, standing for the Nice Party, the Middlin' Party and the Horrible Party.
Is voting:
NP 1
MP 2
HP 3
equivalent to voting:
NP 1
MP 2
HP
??
Does use of a '3' imply a slight preference towards the Horrible Party, in a way expressing no preference doesn't, and mean my vote for them will be counted if the first two round of counting don't produce a result?
I had assumed that that was how it worked, but nothing I've read thus far as made the point that if your "last choice" is someone you actively don't want you should leave it blank rather than ranking them last.
no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 10:13 (UTC)The possible outcomes for your vote based on the scenario you've outlined above are:
1. One of the candidates gets 50% of the votes. In this scenario, there is no re-allocation of votes, so only your first preference vote is looked at.
2. No-one gets 50% of the vote, so the weakest candidate is eliminated, and the second preferences of people who voted for that candidate are counted up and re-allocated. If the Nice Party candidate is the one eliminated, then your vote will be transferred to the Middling Party candidate, whom you had ranked as your second preference. But by that point, there are only two candidates left in the race anyway, so one of the remaining candidates should now be a clear winner. There shouldn't be any scenario in a three-candidate race where it is relevant to go to third preferences.
As far as I understand, the same basic principle should apply no matter how many candidates are running. Votes will only ever be re-allocated up to the point where there is a clear winner in a two-horse race. So if 'x' is the number of candidates, then the count might go as far as looking at votes ranked x-1, but they would never get as far down the ranking as x.
Um, does that make sense? That's how I understand it, anyway.
no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 10:18 (UTC)Thanks for writing such a long reply when you're very busy!
no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 10:30 (UTC)And yes, indeed - of course in practice where there are more than three candidates, and you actively dislike several of them, it's likely that you'll want to leave several blanks at the end of your ranking. I think the most important rankings are always going to be 1 and 2, which allow you to vote freely for a minority candidate while also having some influence over the outcome of a battle between two stronger candidates.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:09 (UTC)Some AV or STV systems have 'RON' as a candidate, which stands for 'Re-Open Nominations', and is basically a way of saying "If it's reached this point, then I think all of the rest of the people I've not put above RON suck, we need better candidates so go back to the nomination stage, get a list of candidates, then re-run the elections.
NUS and student union council elections usually have RON, I think. Due to the cost and the need to govern the country, national elections under AV wouldn't have RON.
As long as you hate all the people you don't mark a vote for equally, then not putting down a number for a party is as effective as putting them last or more so – if it reaches the point where it's a contest between the people you hate, then your vote will no longer be counted, but that's fine as long as you don't want one of them over the other. Also, in that situation, that reduces the amount/proportion of the total votes that the last however many hated parties have, and thus shows that there were people that just didn't want them at all.
IIRC, the winner of an AV election is the first person to get 50%, or 50%+1 vote, OR the last person left. If no-one marks any second preferences, and the vote is split 40/30/20/10 between four parties, then you progressively eliminate everyone but the 40, and then notice he's the last one left, and give him the seat. The effective difference between this and checking who has the most votes out of the last two is effectively nil, but I believe that that's the way it's notionally done, probably because that then makes more sense in an STV election, where you might have the situation of 2 people reaching the quota, and then others getting in because there are X seats free and everyone else was eliminated.
On rankings 1 and 2, I've read some rather interesting stuff about the tactical use of your first choice vote in the instance where you're fairly sure you can't win, which I could go into more detail on if you'd like.
no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 10:20 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 10:32 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 10:35 (UTC)Good luck with the campaigning, it's a worthwhile cause. I'm afraid I'm a little sceptical it will get passed, but then that is what campaigning is all about, helping important political decisions that might go the wrong way.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:12 (UTC)I've been running into the issue that bar a scrap of fabric I was given at one of the marches, I don't have any purple clothes...
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:40 (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:55 (UTC)Though UKIP are actually in favour of AV, as whilst it won't directly get them more seats, it'll likely get them more visibility, as some people will put them first, Conservatives second, or visa versa.
no subject
Date: Monday, 8 November 2010 10:43 (UTC)I don't think most people care about the voting system, at all. Even when it's explained to them, as I've discovered from my small-scale campaigning efforts.
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 9 November 2010 15:08 (UTC)Absolutely. I'm far more concerned about the Lib Dems propping up just about the most ideologically horrible government we've ever seen, and if this is what coalitions are like, stuff 'em. Seriously, people are MUCH more concerned about the slash-and-burn policy the government has towards everything, and unless the Lib Dems do something to stand up to their Tory overlords, people will never forgive them, and the opportunity for reform will be lost forever.
people want to punish the Liberal Democrats in particular.
Can't say I blame them. They're not moderating the Conservatives' actions, they're enabling them, and the millions who are about to be made worse off will remember that when it comes to voting. I reckon the Lib Dems have just about had it here in Scotland - no-one will touch them with a barge-pole.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:17 (UTC)I'm not fond of it being on the boundary change bill, but that's one of the compromises that come from being in coalition rather than majority single party government.
Whilst we're targeting the people most likely to be soft Yes and soft No, from my time in the phone banks and on street stalls, a lot of people do seem quite interested once you've explained it to them, and the general response has been positive.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 13:29 (UTC)As for responses from members of the public, my experience is the same as yours. I'm quite used to people who aren't interested, but across three street stalls / flyering campaigns and one phonebank stint so far I've been very pleasantly surprised by the positive response. Most people who already know about it seem to be planning to vote 'Yes', and most people who don't know about it but stay to listen to our explanation seem to be convinced by the time we've finished with them, too. I've encountered a few vague sceptics, but not yet anyone whom I felt was seriously planning to vote 'No'.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:14 (UTC)In the phone banks I've not been calling much, generally I've been data entering, inducting, and keeping half an ear on our side of the calls to make sure people aren't swearing down the phone at the people we're canvassing.
But from our side of the conversation and talking to the volunteers doing the calling, the response is positive – a number of strong 'No' responses, but more strong 'Yes', and a lot of weak 'Yes', some of those being unaware of it 'till we called, but positive after our explanation. Thankfully only one or two "PR or nothing" responses.
Though on the phone banks the response isn't neccessarily as indicative, as those are targeted (so far as is possible with the data we have) at the people we think are going to be weak Yes or weak No, as the former can be firmed, the latter persuaded over to our side.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:49 (UTC)Argh, yes - so frustrating! The referendum isn't some nice philosophical debate about "Do we like AV or not?" It's a direct either-or question, and anyone who says 'No' to AV had better feel comfortable about saying 'Yes' to FPTP at the same time.
Sorry for the rant, which you obviously don't need to hear. But - grrr!
And agreed about the phonebanks not necessarily being indicative about overall views.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 17:25 (UTC)These are people who have given their details on the yes website, take back parliament, electoral reform society, or wherever else. The age of the data meant we had quite a few dead people, many that had moved, half a dozen or so MPs and a couple of Lords.
But also, a there was a serious chunk of people who were going "PR or nothing", claiming that the slowness of reform in the UK will mean that getting AV will mean we won't get PR for longer. The general response was a slightly more polite version of "If you say 'PR or nothing' you'll get nothing."
Personally, I actually think FPTP -> AV -> STV is better than FPTP -> STV, as whilst I really like STV, I think giving people time to get used to one change at a time is a better idea than all at once.
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 9 November 2010 15:11 (UTC)The Tories will steamroller the Lib Dems anyway, as they have all along (which was always their intention). A few million of Ashcroft's money will buy them the result they want.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2010 00:42 (UTC)It does seem to be a better system than FPTP (from my limited political insights) as it gives people greater power and pretty much eliminates the need for tactical voting.
However, it still doesn't stop there being a hung parliament or stop people moaning about who eventually won/formed a coalition.
Also, voting is compulsary in Australia. Failure to vote (or at least turn up to a poling station) is an offence and you get fined. I'm still undecided as to whether this is good or bad.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2010 12:46 (UTC)I don't support PR though as it hands too much power to the small fringe parties who tend to be kingmakers under a coalition system - you only need to look at some of the parties propping up coalitions on the continent to see how that works.
As an entirely separate point, I do get annoyed with the way people refer to 'wasted votes' as if it's only worth voting if you get your own way. A vote for a losing candidate isn't wasted, even under the current system. It expresses a preference.
And even if you do require your vote to have a definite impact to make you consider it worthwhile, if everyone who sat around not voting because their votes are 'wasted' actually bothered turning up and voting you'd probably see big swings. A result doesn't need to swing far enough to change the result to make a difference, a smaller majority puts a seat 'in play' so other parties make more of an effort potentially leading to a greater swing next time. End rant. :-)
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2010 22:39 (UTC)No, indeed - you're very right about that, and it's one of the reasons why I have always simply voted for the party I support, rather than voting tactically.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:22 (UTC)But systems like STV give you more proportionality, more people having someone they voted for representing them in parliament, whilst still setting the bar to entry high enough that the really fringe parties don't get in.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2010 13:38 (UTC)http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/04/av-referendum-boundary-changes-mps
There seems to be a connection between AV (of which I'm not totally convinced either way until I've done some more research) and the boundary changes (which I will oppose because it reduces Labour's representation in Parliament).
Can someone explain the connection, if there is one? Can you vote for one and against the other?
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2010 22:36 (UTC)For the general public, though, we don't get a say on the issue of boundary changes. That will be resolved by the normal process of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill being debated in parliament, and MPs voting on it on our behalf. Assuming that the bill passes, though (which it should do given that Tory support for it was one of the major promises which they made to the LibDems in the coalition agreement), then the issue of whether or not we should actually adopt the AV system will be put to the people in a general referendum. We'll just get to vote 'yes' or 'no' in response to one simple question, as follows:
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 12:25 (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 13:22 (UTC)Also, thanks for the add, and I shall add you back when I've posted this comment. Looking forward to getting to know you.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:05 (UTC)Came here via seeing your comment on
I'm a London-based gamer-geek who's been volunteering for the Yes campaign up till now, and will start paid work for them from tommorrow.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:21 (UTC)I actually only friended