The Great Alternative Vote Debate

[mister_vodka]

I see a lot of heat, but very little light.

Let's start with a disclaimer. I'm an anarchist. As such, the mechanism by which the parties divvie up power is primarily of academic interest to me. That said, I'll launch into the debate of "what colour do you think the wheel should be?" and ignore the shape. Why not

Comments

[kev36663]

The parties in favour I feel are in favour because it advantages them

[mister_vodka]

Y'see, that's just it. As soon as you admit supporting a change because "it'll keep x out" or "it'll get y more seats", you lose any moral highground.

Of course you're right on the prevailing views of other parties, which I didn't really touch on: their opinions are also shaped by what's in it for them. A party seeks power in the same way as a corporation seeks profit.

[kev36663]

Think that's why they don't admit it ;-)
But, don't think any party has moral high ground as most only want a 'yes' or 'no' depending on how it affects their power.

I'm sure there are some LD MPs/cllrs/members/voters who support purely for democratic reasons

I think a lot of the attempted argument is... 2010 election - Tory got 36% of the vote but 47% of the seats.
Labour got 29% of the vote but 39% of the seats. Lib Dem got 23% of the vote but only 8% of the seats.

Council level, ditto - in sunderland - Labour 49% of votes but 90% of seats. Lib Dem 18% of votes but just one seat.

So you can see why anyone could be a bit disgruntled, but I still do agree.
I don't the opinions from person to person - but - "we got x votes so we should have more seats than we actually have, ergo we want this system" which fits in with your point.

[mister_vodka]

Point taken on the distribution of seats, but I don't see AV necessarily changing that - although it may well happen to do in the particular circumstance of current UK voting patterns where, given a system with three parties of reasonable size, the (currently mathematically under-represented) centre party is likely to be favoured by picking up the bulk of the second votes.

[steer]

It's fairer in the sense that it's mathematically established to be better than first past the post at making the person who wins the person preferred by more of the electorate.

For me it's irrelevant which parties support it.

[mister_vodka]

"It's fairer in the sense that it's mathematically established to be better than first past the post at making the person who wins the person preferred by more of the electorate."

I take it you're talking at a constituency level there?

And I guess it comes down to the semantics of the word "prefer" ... take a 45/30/25 split - more people prefer candidate 'A' than either of the others, but more people prefer 'B' and 'C' combined than prefer 'A'. If the second choices go largely to 'B', (the people who preferred the least popular candidate would generally prefer 'B' to 'A') I don't see you can use maths to show which is the "fairer" choice.

As I said, you get either the single most popular candidate, or possibly the least unpopular, depending on your system.

[steer]

Sure -- talking at a constituency level.

The word prefer is here defined in an unambiguous mathematical way in terms of the "concordet criterion". The concordet candidate is the candidate who would always be elected if they ran an election solely against any other person standing (so if you ran X versus libdem and X versus tory and X versus labour and X won all of them then they're a concordet candidate). So if it was A versus B there's no "tactical vote" for you there you have to vote for the candidate you like best (at the constituency level at least). If a candidate would win all such contests they are the "concordet candidate". AV is better than FPTP at electing such a candidate. It's a good property for an election system to have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_criterion

[mister_vodka]

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, AV more nearly meets that criterion; although you've omitted the proof that it's a good criterion ;)

And I'd throw a hypothetical "rock, paper and scissors" at you if I were feeling argumentative.

[_pyromancer_]

Now that's what I call an interesting and insightful post! Well argued and very interesting

[mister_vodka]

"UK general elections these days are decided in a small number of marginal seats, by no more than a few hundred thousand voters in total."

This sentence, I can agree with.

I can't argue with the rest: not because I agree, but for the same reasons I can't argue with Creationists.

[_pyromancer_]

Any chance of expanding on that? Ok, the empire stuff is personal belief, by all means ignore it - it probably makes as little sense to you as anarchy does to me, but hey-ho - but what's religious about the rest? The idea that some people actually vote for fringe parties? That East Leeds is safe Labour? That Kali is awesome? :-)

Genuinely puzzled.

[mister_vodka]

Sure.

Without a shared frame of reference, debate is futile. It's not about religion, but talking to Creationists is the classic example:
-"Look, there are fossils here we can conclusively prove are more than 4000 years old."
-"Satan put them there to tempt us!"
...pointless to continue.

Similarly, as you say, any political discourse between us is doomed to furrowed brows:
-"Would AV actually produce more representative government?"
-"An Empire in North Africa would give Europe free power!"
I can't adequately explain to you, in a way you'd understand, all that's wrong with that. And the fact that I'd need to makes it similarly pointless to continue.

sorry for swears!

[gillywoo]

At this current moment in time I'm more concerned about how much it is going to cost to a) hold the referendum and b) make the changes. The Government bangs on about how much money we haven't got, severs the limbs of the public sector, buggers up benefits and fucks public sector workers up the arse with a big giant cock and wants to hold a referendum on something which approx .5% of the country care about

Re: sorry for swears!

[mister_vodka]

Get off the fucking fence.

Re: sorry for swears!

[gillywoo]

I'll say Bugger AV then.

Re: sorry for swears!

[mister_vodka]

And, frankly, I agree with much of that.

As to why it's happening now ... the price of coalition, natch. From which we may all draw our own conclusions.