The Alternative Vote System

JGK wrote:Aust has only had one hung Parliament in about 80 years.

That's sad. If I had my way politicians would be hung more often

JGK wrote:Aust has only had one hung Parliament in about 80 years.

In that time has the 3rd party in Aus ever won close to 18-20% of the vote?

Not really.

JGK wrote:Not really.

So the comparison doesn't really stand up for the UK tbh

holcs wrote:But in a politics where we have potentially 6 potentials, you end up getting a bloke/lass whom didn't get the most number of votes.

Your always going to get safe seats in UK politics, your never going to get a Tory in Barnsley, or a Labour seat in Hertfordshire for instance.

And the Green Party etc wouldn't get seats if AV was introduced..

Watford and Stevenage, both in Hertfordshire, had Labour MPs until the last election as did Welwyn & Hatfield until 2005. Seats like Barnsley would return at least 1 Tory MP if the STV (Single Transferable Vote) system was employed (currently employed in the Republic of Ireland and for the Northern Ireland Assembly). This is similar to AV in that voters express a numbered preference for all the candidates but instead of a transfer taking place from the least popular candidates to the more popular candidates transfers take place downwards from the most to the less popular candidates (this is done by establishing a 'quota' necessary to elect a candidate determined by the number of candidates to be elected + 1(+1 vote) - thus a 3-member seat would produce a quota of 25% +1 - any votes over the quota would be redistributed among the other candidates - thus a candidate getting 55% of the vote would be automatically elected but get 30% of his second preferences redistributed among the other candidates unti two more reached the quota).

STV can only work in multi-member constituencies whereas AV can only be used where there is only one candidate to be elected. There is little to prevent STV being introduced immediately into UK local government since, at least at municipal level, most wards already return 3 councillors and under the FPTP system a 33% vote for one party can yield 100% of the seats. It might improve the governance of some Northern towns where Labour has a Soviet-style monopoly of power (the same goes for the Conservatives in some leafy southern boroughs although they are more likely to have fairly vigorous Liberal, Green or Residents' Association opposition).

However, outside of Northern Ireland, UK governments have been to loath to introduce STV (although it was used to elect University MPs - voted by the graduates of the respective universities - between 1918-45 until the Labour Government abolished the university graduate vote in 1949). at any level of government and have preferred the AMS (additional member system - a hybrid of FPTP and party-list system currently used in Germany) for the Scottish, Welsh and London Assemblies or a regional-party list system for the EU Parliament (a national party-list system is used in Israel and South Africa where the party machines pick the winning candidates from a national list based on the proportion of votes cast for each party) as well as a very crude form of AV for the London Mayoral election (voters have a second vote to express a second preference if their first preferred candidate is eliminated but if their second-preferred candidate is not one of the top two on the first ballot their votes are disregarded).

Whilst it is true that AV does increase the power of the supporters of minority parties who usually get to choose between the least worst (to them) option of the major parties it does little or nothing to increase the representation of the parties - indeed the opposite. If there is a pronounced swing in favour of one of the major parties AV would accentuate this swing thus isurveys have shown that Labour's majority of 167 in 1997 would have been even larger as more Liberal voters expressed a preference for Labour over the Conservatives (this is the reason why Labour officially supports AV). The main argument by supporters of AV is that it at least has the advantage over FPTP in that it would moderate both major parties in that they would have to seek the support (at least on second preferences) of other parties' supporters whereas, under FPTP, all they need do is rally their 'base' leading to an exaggeration of the differences between the two parties and a more confrontational and abrasive style of campaigning (as we currently see in US politics).

However 93 years of AV has hardly led to a less confrontational and abrasive style of Australian politics. The relative failure of minor parties (outside of the Liberal-led coalition) to break through also illustrates how AV inhibits rather than assists minor parties. The recent growth of parties like the Greens and support for Independents reflect a prevailing tendency throughout Western democracies of a decline in support for the two major parties due to a decline in class-identification irrespective of the voting system.

The assumption of moderating the two major parties is itself based on the premise that the third party is a centrist, moderate party. If the third party was either more extreme either from the left or the right (such as the BNP) the two major parties would either be forced to curry favour from the extremist party or accuse the other of pandering to it in order to attract crossover votes (or more likely both).

The use of the run-off, or second ballot, again a cruder form of AV, whereby separate elections are held, usually a fortnight apart, the first under FPTP and the second restricted to the top two candidates in the first election (assumming neither received 50%+1 in the first election) in the French Fifth Republic (elections in the Fourth Republic were held under the STV system) has seen the emergence of the far-right National Front as a strong third party at the expense of Green and Centre parties. Although both major parties have had almost equal periods in office since 1981 and have differed little in policy enacted the style has become, as in the US and Australia, more confrontational and abrasive.

Whilst the French right has consolidated the French left has become more fragmented. This was most amply demonstrated by the 2002 French Presidential election when the incumbent conservative President, Chirac, was opposed by the incumbent Socialist Prime Minister, Jospin. Jospin was popular on the left (but equally unpopular on the right) because he had introduced the 35-hour week. However many on the left chose to distribute their votes amongst a wide variety of colourful candidates who had no real hope of winning (one longstanding far-left candidate was nicknamed "Trotsky's Granny") on the assumption that they could coalesce behind Jospin on the second ballot. This assumption proved to be catastrophically mistaken as Jospin came third and the second ballot turned out to be a choice between the conservative Chirac and the far-right Natuional Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen - a choice between " a crook and a Nazi" as it was popularly put at the time.

This example has been used by critics to show how AV - of which the second ballot is a form, albeit a crude and vulgar one - does not always lead to the selection of the 'least worst' candidate.

Allan, I think you get what I was trying to say about safe seats. I was talking more rural Herts/Oxs/Bucks, which on the election programmes are generally coloured in blue.

holcs wrote:Allan, I think you get what I was trying to say about safe seats. I was talking more rural Herts/Oxs/Bucks, which on the election programmes are generally coloured in blue.

Absolutely, but AV wouldn't apply in these seats any more than it would in Barnsley (or any other former mining seat in Yorkshire or South Wales which is apparently permanently coloured red) as the winning party gets over 50% of the vote as it does in a third of all UK constituencies - so AV does nothing to represent minority voters in 'safe' seats - indeed in seats where the majority party takes 40-50% of the vote and is 10% ahead of the nearest rival (the definition of a 'safe' seat) AV might act to make the seat even safer.

Minor parties in Australia have more influence in the Senate than in the House of Reps.

WideWally wrote:Minor parties in Australia have more influence in the Senate than in the House of Reps.

That's because STV is used for the Senate not AV.

Its a mix of Proportional Representation and PReferential Voting.

JGK wrote:Its a mix of Proportional Representation and PReferential Voting.

unnrepresentative swill

Sage.

Where's BD with the hatchet that he wants to bury into Bob Brown?

JGK wrote:Its a mix of Proportional Representation and PReferential Voting.

Says it's STV here:

Australian Senate Voting System

STV is a proportional system that involves expressing a preference for candidates in multi-member constituencies. There can be no transfers without a preference being expressed by the voter.

The Australian Senate used to be pure STV. Technically it still is, however...

Back in the 1980s the government introduced "above the line voting". This allows a voter to express a preference for just one party ticket by placing a number in a box above the line. Preferences will then be allocated in accordance with the official party ticket.

If a voter doesn't want to let the party allocate their preferences then they can vote "below the line" which involves numbering the box for every individual candidate below the line. I vote this way, but 90% of voters opt to put one number in a box above the line. It effectively mutates STV into something closer to a party list system.

New South Wales has a much better system for its upper house (disregarding the massive 21-seat statewide electorate) - it allows voters to allocate their own preferences above the line, and only requires voters to fill out as many boxes below the line as there are seats up for grabs.

On compulsory voting...

This is one of the best democratic practices Australia has adopted.

I can understand that those who are unfamiliar with it may be naturally sceptical. But once you have lived under it you realise it is not an affront to your liberties (ie. the right not to vote), but safeguards much wider liberties.

There are many ways of defining democracy, but the over-riding principle is "government by the people". Compulsory voting ensures that as many people as possible are consulted on the make-up of their government.

The government is not just for those who are enthusiastic about politics. It is for everybody. It is vital that the process of choosing this government is as representative as possible.

The people least likely to vote are the poor and the marginalised - those who feel cut off from the political process and believe their vote has no power. If enough people within a certain class or demographic feel this way it can cripple its electoral power. Other people in the class who do vote will lose their allies and as a result their power. Governments are able to ignore them and can go about governing for a sub-set of the people rather than ALL the people.

Taxation is compulsory. Relying on a system of voluntary donations to the government would be a disaster. Jury Duty is compulsory. It ensures that we have juries which are as representative of the population as possible. If jury service was voluntary a particular class of people would pop up over and over again and the democratic value of the process would be diluted.

Personally, I would like ballot papers to carry a "none of the above option". That's just window dressing though. No one has to vote if they don't want to now. They can just pop a blank ballot in the box or scribble obscenities on it before they do so. You can pay the extremely small fine as a conscientious objector or get out of it with a semi-decent excuse.

But making voting nominally mandatory gets just about everybody involved in the democratic process. It is a great safeguard against tyranny and its many immitators.

On a practical level it forces politicians to move towards the centre. They can't just play to their "base" and try to get the other side to stay home. Instead of pursuing extremist policies to get their traditional voters off the couch and down to a polling station politicians have to look at winning over voters from the other side. In a country where all of us have to share the same government it makes for a more palatable set of rulers.

Sageness from Hass.

Hass wrote:On compulsory voting...

This is one of the best democratic practices Australia has adopted.

Er....

Doesn't North Korea have compulsory voting too? I think it's based on the Henry Ford principle that you can support any party provided it's red.