All votes are equal!

by Ed Bowsher on 04 May 2011  |  0 comments
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Don't listen to the propaganda. All votes - and voters - are equal under AV.

I’ve already written two posts on tomorrow’s referendum but I can’t resist one final bash. I’ll answer a few of the points that have been raised in comments on my previous posts. The comments from readers are in italics.

“How is it fair that some people should have their vote counted only once and other people can have their vote counted many times?”

This isn’t how AV works. If one candidate is eliminated before the winning candidate gets to 50%, every voter effectively gets their vote counted twice. Supporters of the weakest candidate get their second preference counted while all other voters have their first preference counted again. All voters are equal, all votes are equal. Everyone gets the chance to have their say.

“So you put forward an argument at the start saying that a fault of the current system is that it isn’t proportional and then show that in 1997, 2001 and 2005 would have given Labour even more disproportionately large majorities”

I said very clearly in my article that AV isn’t proportional. That’s a definite flaw and that’s one reason why my favourite system is the Single Transferable Vote (STV). Sadly, STV isn’t on the ballot paper so I’ll vote for AV which I prefer to first-past-the-post because it gives voters more power.

I gave some hypothetical results for previous elections under AV but I accept that they may not be wholly accurate. No one can be 100% sure what would have happened as polls can be wrong and voting behaviour could be changed by a new electoral system. As I said in my post, I think that hung parliaments are more likely in future regardless of the electoral system. AV will probably further increase the likelihood of hung parliaments but we won’t get a hung parliament every time.

A user called hometime hubby also attacked “coalition governments where bargains are struck behind closed doors and in an entirely non-accountable way.”

I can understand hometime hubby’s irritation on this point. During the last election campaign, voters had no idea that a Con-Lib government was a likely outcome and, on top of that, election promises have been broken. The only positive thing one can say is that the Lib Dems have dragged the government a little to the centre – but only a little – and that means that, to a small extent, the government better reflects the wishes and views of the British people than a purely Tory government.

If we get more coalitions in future, I’d hope that the political culture will change and voters would be judging a particular coalition during an election campaign. This is what happened in Germany for most of the post-war period and also happened in the UK in 1918 when Lloyd George led a Con-Lib coalition into an election. If you want to read a longer discussion of this issue, I recommend Vernon Bogdanor’s new book, The Coalition and the Constitution.

One more point on coalitions. A widespread criticism of coalition governments has been that they inevitably lead to weak government. That argument has been destroyed by what has happened over the last year. The current government is pushing through big spending cuts plus major reform in education and health. You can’t call it a weak government.....

I’d like to write more, but the day job is calling. I must go and do some personal finance stuff. Whatever your opinion, please do vote tomorrow. This referendum is more important than many people realise!