Voting systems
Mar. 20th, 2011 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susanreadsThe British election system is broken.
The system we'll be asked to vote for or against on May 5th is AV, Alternative Vote, also known as Instant Runoff. It's the system used (with added bells and whistles) in voting for the Hugos and such fannish elections as TAFF. You rank the candidates in order of preference and the ones with fewest votes are eliminated until one candidate has more people-who-prefer-that-candidate-over-the-rest than all the rest. In fannish elections it's referred to as STV, Single Transferable Vote, but apparently in politics that's the name for something more complicated.
The No campaign want to keep FPTP, First Past the Post. Their main argument seems to be the supposed extra cost of AV, which is a blatant lie.
Here's the Yes campaign's list of problems with FPTP.
My favourite reason as a voter for preferring AV is that I wouldn't have to tactical vote. I could put my preferred candidate first and the tolerable-candidate-most-likely-to-win, whose party constantly pisses me off by saying that only they can keep the Tories out and ignoring certain alternatives entirely, second.
A major reason as a citizen for preferring AV is that it would make it harder for fascists to get elected. Instead of having to beat the most popular of a splintered opposition, they'd have to beat all the alternatives added together. The BNP know this and are campaigning for No.
The system we'll be asked to vote for or against on May 5th is AV, Alternative Vote, also known as Instant Runoff. It's the system used (with added bells and whistles) in voting for the Hugos and such fannish elections as TAFF. You rank the candidates in order of preference and the ones with fewest votes are eliminated until one candidate has more people-who-prefer-that-candidate-over-the-rest than all the rest. In fannish elections it's referred to as STV, Single Transferable Vote, but apparently in politics that's the name for something more complicated.
The No campaign want to keep FPTP, First Past the Post. Their main argument seems to be the supposed extra cost of AV, which is a blatant lie.
Here's the Yes campaign's list of problems with FPTP.
My favourite reason as a voter for preferring AV is that I wouldn't have to tactical vote. I could put my preferred candidate first and the tolerable-candidate-most-likely-to-win, whose party constantly pisses me off by saying that only they can keep the Tories out and ignoring certain alternatives entirely, second.
Under FPTP millions of voters are often faced with voting with their head or their heart; if they vote for who they really want they risk letting the candidate they least want win by default.
With AV voters can vote for what they really want without having to worry about this. If their favourite candidate can't win in that seat then they can support them whilst knowing that their vote will transfer and still count.
A major reason as a citizen for preferring AV is that it would make it harder for fascists to get elected. Instead of having to beat the most popular of a splintered opposition, they'd have to beat all the alternatives added together. The BNP know this and are campaigning for No.
Most of us have MPs most of us didn't vote for. Because First Past the Post enables candidates to win with the votes of 1-in-3 people in a constituency, extremist parties such as the British National Party have more chance of being elected under FPTP despite most people in an area opposing them. They've snuck into town halls across Britain and they'd like to repeat the trick at Westminster.
With AV, no-one can get elected unless most people in an area back them. The risk of extremist parties being elected by the back door is eliminated; that's why the BNP are campaigning vigourously for a "No" vote in May.
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