Below is my reply to a reply to my comments on Nick Cohen's rather pathetic attack on the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign for the Spectator. http://www.spectator.co.uk/nickcohen/6578143/reformers-for-the-anci...
Before going on I'd like to draw your attention to Lee Griffin's excellent demolition of the article. It is ruthless. No punches are pulled. http://bit.ly/eNiajE
So I posted a couple of comments myself and got a reply, all of which I have quoted (paragraph at a time) as I responded. I replied again and below is what I have written. At the time of writing these comments are still awaiting moderator approval, but I hope that is a mere formality. In the meantime I thought I'd get the comments down here for future reference. In this dialogue, my correspondent gave his name as "Michael S".
"Firstly, not every constituent is entitled to vote (for example, under 18s are constituents but not eligible voters)."
Being a bit facetious there aren't you? A point that's true of every voting system isn't really worth making.
"Secondly, not every eligible voter chooses to vote. The winning candidate cannot be said to have the support of any of these people."
No, but neither can the losing candidate. You're really just being facetious again here as this is true of all non-compulsory voting systems, and I believe in the right not to vote (even though I would never dream of not voting myself).
"Thirdly, the situation where the winning candidate must have a majority of votes cast only applies if all voters are required to produce a full ordering of candidates. Otherwise, votes that were validly cast for one candidate will be redistributed to the 'Spoilt, Blank or Void' pile rather than to another candidate if no further preference is expressed once the preferred candidate was eliminated."
When it comes to the last round before a winner is declared, all the voters have either expressed a preference for one of the remaining candidates over the other(s) or they have no preference at all. If they have no preference then they will be equally happy/unhappy whatever the outcome. However of those who do have a preference, the majority prefer the winner to the others.
Consider what FPTP does. It basically eliminates all candidates except for one immediately. All preferences of all voters are ignored making all losing ballots under FPTP the exact equivalent of exhausted AV ballots. Bear in mind that for a ballot to be exhausted under AV the voter must vote exclusively for all of the least popular candidates, putting them in a tiny tiny minority. Add to this that these voters are completely indifferent to who wins out of the leading candidates and the fact that the majority of FPTP ballots are ignored in exactly the same way (except where a winner has a majority) and your point becomes rather negligible.
Also, the more candidates there are the less chance there is that the one with the most support has won. In fact it's perfectly possible (and occurs often enough) for an FPTP winner to be the most disliked by a majority.
"So the most that can be said for AV is that it ensures that MPs have the support of a majority of voters whose votes were still being counted at the end."
I don't see how this can be a major objection to AV, especially when the alternative is FPTP. Everyone has the right to a say. You can express as many preferences as you wish. Or as few. We're looking at a comparison of AV over FPTP because that's all that's on offer at the moment and your description above puts AV well ahead.
"Even this seems to be going too far. If my fifth favourite candidate wins, can I be said to support him, want him to win? 'Support' in this context does not mean 'I want X to win'. Rather, it means nothing more than 'I don't object to X as much as I hate Y'."
Given that we currently are used to seeing campaigners saying "Don't vote for your party, they can't win here. You have to vote for us otherwise you'll just be letting in that other lot that none of us want", being able to express your preferences in order is a MASSIVE improvement.
OK, let's say your 5th choice wins, and your vote went to him. That means that whoever came 2nd would have been your 6th, or 7th choice. You preferred your 5th choice out of all those who were available at the last round. BUT, a large number of people also put him 1st and 2nd. You don't get to win on 5th choices if you haven't already got loads of 1st and 2nd choice votes. Also, anyone who loses on 5th choices needed them too. They weren't able to get a majority on 1st and 2nd choices and were competing for the same 5th choices but didn't succeed. AV takes everyone's views into account and narrows down the candidates until one gets a majority.
Where AV and FPTP produce different winners, the winner under AV would win a head to head between the two because the winner under AV has a majority who prefer him to the winner under FPTP.
"Ben, do you not understand how bizarre it is that on the one hand you want people to be able to vote how they want to and not be 'forced' to vote tactically, yet on the other hand you urge people to vote for AV even if they prefer FPTP as it shows desire for 'change'?"
If you prefer FPTP, you prefer FPTP and voting No to AV will allow you to keep it and that is what I would expect you to do. However, FPTP is a massively inferior system to AV and the only people who would prefer it are the ones who stand to lose from fairer votes. They just happen to support a party that benefits from it. I'd warn them though that nothing is permanent. All parties wax and wane in terms of success. Polices change, leaders come and go, and situations and needs arise to which different parties are suited at different times.
It would be foolish to choose a system that is inflexible just because it suits one at the present. AV gives powers to the voters allowing them to vote for what's needed at any time. It's not the best system, but it is the best system currently on offer. If you don't like AV compared to FPTP you wouldn't like any of the PR systems either.
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