Aerothorn on 5/5/2011 at 15:03
As an outsider, I don't understand why anyone is voting no on this (other than the aforementioned "Loss of conservative seats" answer). I WISH we had this system in the USA.
Chimpy Chompy on 5/5/2011 at 15:15
Well I do understand why, although I think people are deciding based on misdirection from the No campaign (as I briefly mentioned).
Also we've been told a switch to AV will cost £200 mil or something like that. I guess that's based on a switch to electronic machines, except I don't see that being necessary. (we could just count the papers as before and, er, take a bit longer about it).
[edit]also, i think there's a lot of party-lines voting, or voting "i want whatever [party i don't like] doesn't". I kinda wish the tories and lib dems weren't so closely associated with no and yes, so people would think more objectively. And also I don't want to see the lib-dems implode because of a No result.
Matthew on 5/5/2011 at 15:30
Exactly Chimpy; the NI Assembly votes are all hand-counted as far as I am aware, we use STV and bloody d'Hont, yet we still manage to get a result out within a couple of days.
And even if it did cost £200 million, it's still government spending on the economy :p
d0om on 5/5/2011 at 15:45
What I find most ridiculous is that the Conservative party (and probably the others but I'm not sure about those) effectively use AV to choose their own leaders. But they don't want the public to have AV?
DDL on 5/5/2011 at 18:02
Plus the 200mil figure neglects to mention that most of it's effectively already been spent, and would've been spent even if AV had never been considered.
Also annoying is the tories pointing out all the flaws in AV, when the only reason we're considering AV instead of an even better system (like actual proportional representation) is because the tories refused to accept anything more progressive than AV when drawing up the deal with the Lib Dems..
It's sort of ending up like a mimic of US rep/dem politics, where one side uses incredibly dirty tactics and the other side apparently..refuses to, in some mistaken belief that this noble behaviour makes them more electable or something. Some of the "No" campaign leaflets are insane.
"AV is unfair! Also, Nick Clegg is a dick! Therefore if you like AV you like dick! Vote no or be a fag!"
I'm only half joking.
R Soul on 5/5/2011 at 18:35
Quote Posted by Matthew
Good thing I was being mildly facetious then, eh?
Fair enough, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Yes voters were 'Lib Dem voters + half of Labour voters' and the No voters were 'Tory Voters + half of Labour voters', with some extra on either side.
Nameless Voice on 5/5/2011 at 18:46
We have this in Ireland, and I can't understand why it isn't more common in other countries. It seems far fairer than single voting, since it give people other than just the biggest main parties a chance, without forcing people to vote for what they consider "the lesser evil" just because they don't want "the greater evil" to get in by voting for their actual choice (which they think is unlikely to get enough votes to get in).
Of course, it still won't stop voters from being idiots - nothing can do that. Yay for constantly re-electing known corrupt governments!
Koki on 5/5/2011 at 18:56
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
We have this in Ireland, and I can't understand why it isn't more common in other countries.
This is not how democracy works okay
oudeis on 5/5/2011 at 20:55
Quote Posted by demagogue
I remember a professor walking us through different voting systems, including these two, and showing how the math could lead to unexpected outcomes in every case, in different ways (like a winner that's nobody's 1st choice, or 1st only for a relatively small group, or way down the scale but less disagreed on). Robert Dahl does this too in one of his books on Democracy,
Preface on Democratic Theory or
Democracy and its Critics or
On Democracy, one of those.
Their point was that ranking a "general" preference perfectly is an impossible task because whatever system you pick has to bring in all sorts of assumptions, and just as a matter of numbers there's no such thing as a ideal general preference to find.
I have to remember the reasons why the one you labeled "Current System" has advantages. I know you want each vote to be counted equally, which rank & re-vote systems undermine. I can't explain it all as well as Dahl did.
Not to hijack this thread, but you made mention of something along these lines in another post, about how probability dictated the number of viable political parties based on the type of voting system or some such (not a political scientist, obviously, ;), but if this what PS is about then I wish I had studied it in my attempts at colleging) . Is this covered in the books you mention? Can you recommend some good basic texts on the subject?
Nicker on 5/5/2011 at 21:10
Quote Posted by Koki
This is not how democracy works okay
Tell us about it...
In Canada we just got a dose of exactly what this much more fair system would have prevented, 40% of votes cast, representing about 25% of registered voters, delivering a monopoly on our parliament.
In British Columbia we had a referendum last year for the candidate ranking system do0m described. It failed by far too large a margin. A small part of the problem was dirty tricks by opponents but mostly it was the failure of the Yes campaign to explain the system simply. I understood it and I still found their explanation head hurting. The media didn't help much either.
Another reason was suggested on the CBC this morning, by Canada's first Green MP, Elizabeth May. She said that it should have been a two part question, part one being "do you want to keep the first past the post system"? Once people have agreed to ditch the old way then they must choose the best alternative.
(May also said her first task in the new parliament will be to restore decorum to proceedings, ending the cat-calling and juvenile interruptions, especially in question period. Go Liz!!)
I hope the UK adopts the AV method. Anywhere else in the Commonwealth it has been tried has had great success with it. Time for Mother England to set a new standard.
