A Small Change...

On May 5th, The Coalition government will hold a referendum on replacing the current First Past the Post voting system with that of the Alternative Vote. This is an issue I am passionate about and will attempt to explain here the differences between the two systems, why there is such a debate going on about it, and hopefully convince you to vote Yes to AV.

So, what is First Past The Post.
First Past The Post  (FPTP) is our current voting system, voting itself is simple, for each constituency there are a list of candidates, we mark an X onto the candidate we most want to win in our constituency, from there all the votes are counted and the candidate with the most votes wins the seat, seems simple enough. Only it's not an entirely fair system, if there are say 5 candidates in a constituency, it is feasible that the winning candidate could win with only 21% of the vote, meaning 79% of votes cast are wasted, leading to scenarios like this in 2005...

Because of this the system creates safe seats, where one party can keep control of a particular seat because of an above average number of their voters in that area meaning the rest of the population in that area have little chance of changing their MPs and can theoretically be ignored, not very democratic.

Other issues include the fact that smaller parties are excluded, especially if they have a support all over the country (rather than isolated pockets of support), in last years elections UKIP received roughly 1 million votes, compared to the Conservatives 10 million, but because the support they had was not enough in any one seat to get them an MP those votes are wasted, whereas the Conservatives currently have 306 MPs.

Tactical voting is widely used under FPTP, this occurs where voters vote for a party which they do not fully support in order to keep out a party they don't want to win, (I myself tactically voted Labour in an attempt to prevent the Conservatives taking my constituency), this blurs voting intentions and means many thousands of people in swing seats give up their preferred vote in order to give another party a boost.

The final issue with FPTP is that it only really works in a 2-party political system (such as that of the US), but in britain we're increasingly becoming a three or multi-party system. In 1951 only 3.2% of votes cast were for someone other than the Conservatives or Labour, skip forward to 2010 and that figure stands at 34.9%.


So, if First Past The Post is broken, what is the Alternative Vote, and why is it better?
The Alternative Vote (AV) (Also known as Instant-Runoff Voting), is similar to FPTP but improves upon its weaknesses, so instead of marking an X next to the candidate they want to win, the voter instead ranks the candidates in order of preference (if you only want to choose one you're still free to do so), from there all first choice votes are counted and if the winner doesn't have the vote of 50% of the electorate the candidate ranking last is eliminated and the second preference votes for that candidate are then counted and added to the totals of the remaining candidates. This process is continued until one candidate has over 50% of the electorates support.


Some benefits of this system are that it means MPs have to work harder to gain and keep their constituents support, the need for tactical voting is removed as voters can put an undesirable choice as their last preference (or not vote for them at all) under AV, removing the need to vote for a second favourite party in order to keep another out.

It also removes safe seats, so that all MPs have to work hard to get the support of the electorate. Another benefit is obvious, it gives the voter a greater choice to choose between candidates.

One of the nicer changes AV would bring is a drop in negative campaigning, a candidate is less likely to attack another candidate if they feel they may well end up receiving some of their second choice votes.

Many people who oppose the introduction of AV claim that it doesn't result in 'strong government' and leads to more hung parliaments, this simply isn't true, since 1910 Australia (which uses AV) has had two hung parliaments, whereas in the UK, we've had 4. If anything AV will help our electoral system as we move away from a two-party system and help prevent future Hung Parliaments.

Also remember AV is already used in the UK, Labour, The Liberal Democrats, and (yes) The Conservatives all use AV to elect their leaders, isn't it time the public got the same choice?).

I think i've laid out the facts here for you to make up your own mind (hopefully, like me you'll agree AV is better), but before I go i'd like to make one more point. This is not a referendum on either the Coalition or the Liberal Democrats, voting no to spite Nick Clegg may seem like a good idea, but it would delight the Tories and mean we lose out on this once in a generation opportunity to change the way our democracy is run,. as always, others say it better, so here's this weeks editorial for The Independent:

AV is a good change on its own terms. It ensures that voters have an equal chance to influence the outcome in their constituency, and to express their preferences honestly so that they can be counted, even if they do not support the winning candidate.

The alternative vote is not perfection, or a magic solution to the problem of disillusionment with politics. Yet it is an important step towards a better democracy that empowers the voter, and so deserves our wholehearted support.

Shep

Vote Yes on May 5th