Posted on February 5th, 2010 in
UK Politics
The UK general election is expected on May 6 2010, where around 45 million eligible voters will place a single X against the political party/candidate they want to represent them for up to 5 years.
With our current first past the post electoral vote system only the candidate with the most votes in each of the 650 constituency seats will be MPs despite the majority of those who become MPs not receiving at least 50% of the vote from their constituency (only 34% of MPs received 50% electoral support in the 2005 general election!).
In the 2005 general election, 19 million eligible voters cast ineffective votes (they did not get the candidate they voted for), that is ~70% of those who voted!
This results in a two party system (Labour or Conservative governments) with many smaller political parties including the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Greens, BNP… being significantly under represented in parliament relative to the percentage of the popular vote they poll and a feeling among many British voters that their MP does not represent their views and in many safe seats an attitude of “what’s the point voting, my vote is wasted?”.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to pass legislation committing a future government to a referendum on moving to an Alternative Vote System for Westminster elections by October 2011.
What is the Alternative Vote System?
With the alternative vote system the same 650 constituency boundaries are used as with the current first past the post vote system.
Voters again elect a single candidate from a list to represent them, but rather than placing an X against the ONE preferred candidate, voters rank candidates in order of preference with number 1 being their first choice, 2 their second choice…
If a single candidate polls 50% of the vote (50% number 1s) they would be elected as an MP just like the current first past the post vote system.
Where no candidate receives 50% of the vote the candidates who polled least have their 1 votes redistributed to their second choice candidates. This is repeated until one candidate receives over 50% of the vote.
Based on the 2005 general election results over 30% of seats will not be affected by the alternative vote system. So 70% of parliamentary seats could be affected by the alternative vote system, assuming similar voting patterns (which is unrealistic to assume).
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35 responses to UK Electoral Reform – Alternative Vote System
This system, which we call Preferential voting, works here in Australia and usually means that the winning party receives more than 50% of the Two Party Preferred Vote across the whole country or state. If the electoral commission has done the job of adjusting electoral boundaries fairly, that is. Occasionally, one party will win with around 48% of the 2PP vote as happened in South Australia this year but that sort of outcome is nothing in comparison with the unfairness of your system in the UK where a party can win with 36% of the vote.
The advantage of preferential voting is that you know that the winning candidate is always acceptable to more that 50% of the voters in a single electorate and the winning party is usually acceptable to more than 50% of all the voters across the country.
It certainly does not favour extremist parties.
The Conservatives may worry that all of the preferences from the Liberal democrats would transfer to the Labour Party. In practice this will not happen. Probably only 60% of the vote would transfer to Labour. 40% would go the Conservatives. The vote for independents and other parties would go where the voter stipulated. Chances are that in the current election where Labour is on the nose the Conservatives would have won a significant victory using this system. Non-Labour voters are likely to preference Labour.
Based on the experience in Australia this system is far more favourable to the conservative parties than the Single Transferrable vote or Hare-Clarke system which is employed in Tasmania and the ACT. In those jurisdictions it favours the Labor Party and the Greens.
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UK Electoral Reform – Alternative Vote System
The AV system has worked extremely well for many years and many elections throughout Australia, where it is known as Preferential Voting – a term that describes, better than AV, its method and intention.
It ensures that people voting for minority parties do not have their ballots wasted. It also provides for tactical voting – for individual seats in Australia, parties hand out leaflets advising the voter how to number his paper to vote tactically in line with his party’s preference.
For each seat, it results in the election of the candidate that the voters, as an overall group, dislike least – surely an attitude that meets current mood of voters in the UK – and it is a good method for getting rid of a sitting member if that were the wish of a majority of voters in this electorate.
In Australia, where voting is compulsory, everyone who votes must use Preferential Voting (or the Alternative Vote, if you will), and you don’t find Australians saying it is too hard to understand or to use. If Australians can number their papers to indicate their preference among the candidates named on the ballot papers, surely this will not be beyond people here in the UK.
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UK Electoral Reform – Alternative Vote System
Simple problem with this system: It is based on the assumption that if there are 6 candidates, the strength of your preference for these candidates decreases (or increases) in a straight line.
Because this is often not true in reality (consider the strength of anti-Tory feeling on parts of this website for example :-), perverse conclusions about who is really liked or disliked the least are possible. There are also other vagaries around what happens if a few candidates are of roughly equal, but slightly different, preference. I would like to go into detail, but will only model an example if required (some illustrative cases exist on the web already).
For the true relative intensity of preference to be ascertained, I suggest that each voter is given a number, say, 100 points. They can allocate any number to a candidate, so long as the total adds up to 100 (this can be mediated by a simple computer at the booth, so voters test their proposed numerical allocations, get them validated on-screen, then print off their ballot).
This can then be aggregated, and either the first past the compiled post wins (on the true non-tactical preference of each voter in each constituency), or any other number of leading preferential candidates selected.
Such a system renders tactical voting truly meaningless. (I regard people who preach tactical voting as being morally equivalent to people who encourage tax evasion.)
If you can’t allocate 100 points across 6 candidates, then… Labour’s “Education-Education-Education” policies have clearly not worked? ! :-)
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UK Electoral Reform – Alternative Vote System
I am pleased to see that the Australian-style Alternative Vote system is being discussed for reform in the UK. From my research, that is by far the “least worst” system. No need to look to Europe–look to Australia, which has used the system successfully for nearly a century.
The AV system preserves the single-member constituency to which you in Britain and we in America are accustomed, yet avoids the absurdity of electing a candidate with as little as 30% of the total vote.
The AV system is far from radical. If anything, empirical studies show it tends to produce moderate or compromise candidates and parties.
In fact, the system generally leads to the same result as in the FPTP system, because there is a tendency for the second and third preferences to mirror the proportion preferences counted in the first round–meaning that the candidate leading in the first round of counting generally tends to win at the end of the day even under the AV system. The exception is where two or more ideologically-similar candidates split the vote. That’s the beauty of the system. It really only comes into play when it is needed–the keep the minority for dominating the majority.
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UK Electoral Reform – Alternative Vote System
UK need not look as far as Australia for examples of workable electoral reform. Both the Irish Republic and N Ireland keep constituencies but with multiple members using the Single Transferable Vote (STV). Both Wales and Scotland use a variant of the Mixed Member Proportional system which mixes single member constituencies with a ‘top up’ of list MPs to make the party representation more proportional. This sytem was originally divised by the US, UK and France for post-war W. Germany and adopted by New Zealand in 1993. All of the UK are used to the list system used for MEPs – so the people of the UK should have a referendum with these choices so that they – and not the politicians – can choose. If no system has a majority, then a runoff referendum would occur.
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UK Electoral Reform – Alternative Vote System
Now for something completely different! Reduce the number of constituencies to 500 and the winner in each is the elected MP. Allocate a further 100 seats in parliament in exact proportion to the nationwide percentage of the vote, to be selected by the respective parties but ONLY from those candidates that finished second in their own ballot. Not perfect but has the following positives: a fairer balance to the overall result, less “wasted” votes, simplicity.
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UK Electoral Reform – Alternative Vote System
Re: Steve Tasker – so you’ll have a 100 MP’s that do not represent a constituency sitting in Parliament????
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