First Past the Post or AV

[James Barber]

Article in the Indie last Thursday. Until 1950's many towns returned more than one MP per seat - the winners were selected under a form of ....AV.

Universtires returned MPs who were selected under a form of ....AV.

They didn't have computers. No one decried the expense of selecting who represented those seats.

I've been a local election candidate and an agent in a recent by-election. Under AV the forms that would be used would remain broadly the same and the count would remain mainly the same. In certain respect the counts for MP's are simpler than local elections in that only one final winner. Whereas local elections people have three votes on the same ballot slip - much more complicated.

So the argument parliamentary AV counts would be more expensive than FPTP and more difficult to run are suprious from my experience.

[Loz]

silverfox Wrote:

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> Loz said:

>> "...Oh, come on. You've repeatedly complained that

>> AV confuses you and have continually demonstrated

>> that you have difficulty understanding its

>> relatively simple concepts..."

>>

> On the contrary, I've continually rejected its

> concepts and found them wanting - for example,

> The arguments you have put forward are dubious to

> say the least and intellectually wanting, while

> the insults from the yes camp above are the

> desperation of scoundrels trying to mislead the

> public.

Look - I spent ages explaining to you a very basic concept - the difference between 'preferred' and 'don't want'. For you to try to claim intellectual high ground now is a bit rich. Some of the posts you have made - the votes for Hungarian children being a particular low point - have been confused at best and downright daft at worst.

And as for the 'desperation of scoundrels trying to mislead the public' - have you seen the lie-packed No pamphlet? "AV will cost ?250m" - lie. "AV will help the BNP get elected" - lie. The No camp may yet be taken to court over the lies that it has used in the campaign. That is how low they have sunk

As I said, silverfox, you have struggled to understand the basic concepts of voting systems - there is 10 pages of evidence of that in this thread. And when I have challenged you for your 'big idea' on electoral reform you have continually mumbled some dubious excuse and changed the subject. It's put up or shut up time.

[Loz]

Marmora Man Wrote:

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> Why do the Tories not like AV? That's easy. Voting

> trends show that the country is, on the whole,

> slightly left leaning. That mean the Tories would

> struggle - at least in the short term - to gain

> the majority 50% support needed under AV. Needless

> to say that rather turns them away from AV.

>

> Loz - I take it that you are Australian. I further

> assume you have lived mostly in London over recent

> years. Within the metropoliltan, ethnic /

> political / cultural mix that makes up London's

> political geeks your comment would pass as

> received wisdom. However, I believe your view is

> slightly misguided or based on a misapprehension.

>

> Those of us that have lived in UK all our lives

> and are old enough to remember the 80s can recall

> a time when received wisdom was that the

> Conservatives were the natural party of

> government.

Sorry MM, you are quite right - there was an important word missing from my post. It should have been, "Recent voting trends show that the country is, on the whole, slightly left leaning.". I was referring to the last couple of decades. And yes, it is not evenly spread across the country - there are Labour, LibDem and Tory strongholds but, in general, the broad picture is a slight leaning to the left at the moment.

And, yes, I am an Aussie - but I have been here 20 years! I have voted in both Australian and UK elections and, as such, I am in a pretty good position to compare and contrast the two systems.

[mockney piers]

With not long to go until the AV referendum, the waters are muddier than ever. It's confusing. One minute the anti-camp claims a vote for AV would benefit the BNP. Then the pro-camp counters by pointing out the BNP are against AV. Therefore no matter what the outcome, Nick Griffin will both win and lose simultaneously. He'll exist in an uncertain quantum state. Like Schr?dinger's cat. I say "cat". I originally used another word starting with c and ending with t, but the Guardian asked me to change it. Suffice to say, Griffin is a massive cat.

It's depressing to see the campaigns on both sides treating the public with such outright contempt. Political ads have rarely been subtle in the past, but this current slew could insult the intelligence of a silverfish. It's not so much that they think we're stupid, but that their attempts to appeal to that perceived stupidity are so stupid in themselves; they've created a sort of self-perpetuating stupidity whirlpool capable of engulfing any loose molecules of logic within a six-mile radius. They might as well replace every billboard with the words VOTE LIKE THIS, DUMMY in four-foot high Helvetica.

The "No" campaigners are the worst offenders. It started with the adverts that pitched the purported cost of a new voting system against the needs of imperilled newborns. A photo of a delicate, salmon-pink baby was accompanied by the words "She needs a new cardiac facility ? not an alternative vote system. Say NO to spending ?250million on AV. Our country can't afford it." Apart from the dodgy arithmetic involved in coming up with that figure (the sort of magic maths which involves closing your eyes and repeatedly banging the calculator against your forehead), the idea that we can only have one thing or the other ? AV or healthy babies ? is such a preposterous argument, even the baby could see through it. And its eyes were covered with placenta. That poster made me resolve, early on, that I would definitely vote Yes to AV, if only as a protest vote against the evil dunderheads who dreamt up the baby campaign.

Having made my mind up, I figured I could then ignore the rest of the campaigning ? although in practice it got so noisily stupid, I couldn't. Recently, they've hit on the wheeze of using sport as a metaphor for elections, the idea presumably being that sport has clear winners and losers, and is simple enough for Andy Gray to understand. Different forms of sport show up in most of their recent efforts. There was a TV ad depicting a Grand National style event in which, thanks to AV, the horse in third place magically finished first. This was unrealistic on two counts: partly because the example they used was impossible, but mainly because all the horses survived.

This was followed by a billboard showing two boxers. One is lying battered and unconscious on the floor ? and yet the ref is inexplicably declaring this comatose man the winner. Why? Because, according to the slogan, "Under AV the loser can win". Since boxing matches only involve two people, this doesn't even work as a wildly strained metaphor. It's just a lie.

Then some well-known former cricketers popped up on YouTube to moan that AV just isn't cricket. David Gower said, "I'm used to a system in sport ? in cricket specifically ? where if you win, you win, and it's as simple as that." Cricket? Simple? Any sport in which the commentator routinely says things like, "England are currently 120 for 3 and chasing 257 ? so with 7 wickets in hand and 17 overs remaining, they need to hit a run rate of 8.1 an over" is far from bloody simple. Sometimes matches are called off prematurely thanks to rain, at which point the outcome is decided by the Duckworth-Lewis method ? which means the teams' performance thus far is run through an equation which looks like this:

Z(u,0,λ) = ZoF(w) λnF(w)+1 {1 ? exp(-bu/[λnF(w)F(w)])}

If Gower thinks that's simpler than AV, he's a genius.

Interestingly, if you imagine the political parties are cricket teams and run polling data from the last election through the Duckworth-Lewis equation, Nick Griffin wins the Ashes.

Anyway, just when you thought the No camp had a monopoly on absurd campaigning, the Yes campaign go and upload a video on an absurdly emotive par with the No camp's baby billboard. In it, a kindly-looking second world war naval veteran, slathered with hard-earned medals, explains, in a heartbreakingly fragile voice, that he fought the Nazis in the name of democracy ? yet, thanks to our current electoral system, despite voting in every general election for the past 64 years, his vote has always been "confiscated by the system".

As the camera pans over his medals and heart-rending personal memorabilia, backed with a moody piano soundtrack, he explains that "for all the say I've had, I might as well have died in the Russian convoys, or on the D-Day beaches, or in the Pacific after that".

Might as well have died? Thankfully he didn't, despite having his sense of perspective shot off at Dunkirk. No one's doubting his sacrifice, or his right to speak his mind, but the Yes campaign should realise that kind of OTT hyperbole is probably best saved for more cartoonish concerns. Like, say, the No campaign. Or newspaper columns by arseholes such as Richard Littlejohn. Or me.

[silverfox]

Loz said:

"...Look - I spent ages explaining to you a very basic concept - the difference between 'preferred' and 'don't want'..."

I know you have Loz, but you've failed. Preferred isn't the same as one vote. It's a false concept. And repeating it ad nauseum and calling others stupid because they don't accept it does not make it a valid concept.

If you vote for x and y and z that's three votes, not one. By claiming it's a simple concept a child could understand you are deceiving yourself and, by extension, the public by perpetuating the myth.

It's simple - even a child who didn't want a vanilla ice-cream, but has ended up with one, knows they don't want a vanilla ice-cream even if the AV camp tells them it's fair.

[mockney piers]

"It's simple - even a child who didn't want a vanilla ice-cream, but has ended up with one, knows they don't want a vanilla ice-cream even if the AV camp tells them it's fair."

Weird, because that perfectly describes FPTP; I've always ended up with bloody vanilla.

[silverfox]

Therefore AV is not an improvement and you've got to jump through hoops with extra pass the parcel votes for no gain Mockney?

[Loz]

silverfox Wrote:

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> If you vote for x and y and z that's three votes,

> not one. By claiming it's a simple concept a child

> could understand you are deceiving yourself and,

> by extension, the public by perpetuating the myth.

I'd like a KitKat. If I can't have that I'd like a Twix. If they are out of those I'll have a Mars Bar.

Have I had three chocolate bars? No.

Have I expressed my preferences? Yes.

It is really not difficult. Very young children understand it. Most adults have no problem with the idea. I really can't believe that after 10 pages you still can't grasp such a simple and basic concept. It is fairly typical of the poor level of argument put forward by the people who want to keep the unfair FPTP system.

It's worth saying again... "As I said, silverfox, you have struggled to understand the basic concepts of voting systems - there is 10 pages of evidence of that in this thread. And when I have challenged you for your 'big idea' on electoral reform you have continually mumbled some dubious excuse and changed the subject. It's put up or shut up time."

[mockney piers]

Well possibly yes and possibly no silverfox.

From my point of view ticking a couple more boxes of stuff i like is no extra hassle than ticking one box, as the hassle is trying to find a point in your day to go to the seemingly peripatetic polling booth in my ward.

Plus as I vote in both the Spanish national and Madrid Ayuntamiento elections it's a skill I'm quite used to (the multiple boxes, not the finding the booth as obviously this one is a postal vote).

I'm well used to the anarcho-syndicalist tutti-frutti and the happy-world strawberry flavours not having a cat-in-hell's chance despite my mischievous support, but in the case of this country I'm quite sure that my, let's call them the mint ice-cream, party might well have a chance as in the right area (and no, it won't be the awful Ms Harman's constituency sadly) they'll be plenty of people's second preference.

To use your analogy, and god knows i'm sick to death of the analogies on here, you may well disappoint a child who didn't want vanilla, but if you are looking after 10 children and have to buy a single tub you're going to buy the least hated flavour aren't you.

[silverfox]

Loz said:

"...But you aren't. You are voting for x or y or z.

I'd like a KitKat. If I can't have that I'd like a Twix. If they are out of those I'll have a Mars Bar.

Have I had three chocolate bars? No. Have I expressed my preferences? Yes. It is really not difficult. Very young children understand it. Most adults have no problem with the idea. I really can't believe that after 10 pages you still can't grasp such a simple and basic concept. It is fairly typical of the poor level of argument put forward by the people who want to keep the unfair FPTP system..."

I'm glad you've repeated this misconception Loz because this is the great fallacy of your, the AV, argument.

This is not what happens in fact - and I've been surprised how many otherwise intelligent people have been deceived by it.

Let me patiently try to explain this to you one more time using your example:

"...I'd like a KitKat. If I can't have that I'd like a Twix. If they are out of those I'll have a Mars Bar.

Have I had three chocolate bars? No..."

Yes, you have - you have had a bite from each of them. Why?

If you would like a KitKat and they don't have any in the shop you can't have a KitKat. Full stop. So if your next choice is a Twix and the shop doesn't have those in stock you can't have a Twix. Full stop. So you'll have to have the Mars bar. In short you can only have one of these chocolate bars.

But what AV does is allow you to have a bite from the KitKat, and then another bite from the Twix and finally to finish off with the Mars Bar. This is the fallacy of AV. Rather than only having one product like FPTP, AV allows you to taste all three. Rather than one vote you get three on this example.

This is why it is disingenuous to claim it's a simple concept that even a child understands. A child in a sweet shop who is told they can only have one chocolate bar understands what that means (like FPTP). You are trying to tell the child they can sample other chocolate bars before ending up with a Mars bar. The question then becomes, why should the shopkeeper allow you to give back your KitKat with a bite taken out of it and give you another bar, a twix for you to take a bite out of it before plumping for the mars bar. The shopkeeper now has three products he can't use and presumably you only want to pay for one.

Things don't work like this in the real world Loz. As they say, there's none so blind as those that won't see!

[Alan Dale]

removed

[mockney piers]

eh? you're deleting your posts without even posting them now?

[Alan Dale]

removed

[mockney piers]

moot or not, I for one am very very bored. The sooner the wedding and election are over with the sooner we can move on.

[Loz]

But what AV does is allow you to have a bite from the KitKat, and then another bite from the Twix and finally to finish off with the Mars Bar. This is the fallacy of AV. Rather than only having one product like FPTP, AV allows you to taste all three. Rather than one vote you get three on this example.

That make no sense and is the sort of convoluted rubbish that the No camp tries to put over. Had a bite from each? What rubbish. I've expressed three preferences and received one chocolate bar. However way you try to cloud the matter, that fact remains.

Or, looking at it a different way.

Child A says "I'd like a KitKat. If I can't have that I'd like a Twix. If they are out of those I'll have a Mars Bar."

Child B says "I'd like a Bounty. If I can't have that I'd like a Twix. If they are out of those I'll have a Mars Bar."

The shop has Mars Bars and Bounties.

Child A gets a Mars Bar. Child B gets a Bounty. One happens to get his first choice, one got his third choice. You don't get one of the children complaining the other got three chocolate bars, or three bites of chocolate bars because it didn't happen. Both get one chocolate bar. Both are happy.

It is very simple. Stop trying to make a simple system seem complicated because you don't understand it. Or, I should say, because you don't want to understand it.

[pontman]

Clearly what Loz's says is the case, your not about to end up with 3 politicians representing you.

[pontman]

It REALLY is simple and honestly the system makes a lot of sense. I think it does benefit smaller parties a lot, since people have the freedom to vote for and independent or smaller party, without, throwing there vote away if they have little change of getting in. Yes, this sounds like having your proverbial pie and also eating it, but this is really beside the point, since everyone gets to decide where ones preferences lay and in the end it benefits the country buy giving more chance to smaller players.

[Marmora Man]

Or, looking at it a different way.

Child A says "I'd like a KitKat. If I can't have that I'd like a Twix. If they are out of those I'll have a Mars Bar."

Child B says "I'd like a Bounty. If I can't have that I'd like a Twix. If they are out of those I'll have a Mars Bar."

The shop has Mars Bars and Bounties.

Child A gets a Mars Bar. Child B gets a Bounty. One happens to get his first choice, one got his third choice. You don't get one of the children complaining the other got three chocolate bars, or three bites of chocolate bars because it didn't happen. Both get one chocolate bar. Both are happy.

But one kid has what they really wanted and one has to make do with their third preference - which out of a choice of three "kinda sucks" as my children would have said.

[pontman]

But one kid has what they really wanted and one has to make do with their third preference - which out of a choice of three "kinda sucks" as my children would have said.

True, and I guess also the point. Your vote counts more towards what you want with AV then without.

For instance I may want Vegemite, Marmite then Jam in that order, now the problem is that I am with a 50/50 bunch of English and Australian people and we only have money for one spread, now, I doubt either of the Yeast extracts would win without AV, and indeed both majority of the English and Australians might be in the mood for a yeasty extract, but they will never agree on what.

So the AV may annoy a small minority of Jam lovers, but most of us got the type of spread we wanted, even if not the exact brand.

Now with politics you could view for instance the Jam as the Left and the Mights as the Right if you will.

[Loz]

But one kid has what they really wanted and one has to make do with their third preference - which out of a choice of three "kinda sucks" as my children would have said.

True, but if you believe silverfox, the other kid should be complaining that the first kid was allowed three choices of chocolate, which is clearly not the case.

[silverfox]

Loz said:

"...That make no sense and is the sort of convoluted rubbish that the No camp tries to put over. Had a bite from each? What rubbish. I've expressed three preferences and received one chocolate bar. However way you try to cloud the matter, that fact remains..."

Loz, I am absolutely astounded that you cannot see the stupidity in your logic.

If the shop doesn't have a KitKat or a Twix, only a Mars Bar you cannot do a 1, 2, 3 preference. You can only have 1 vote, for the Mars Bar. What is so difficult about that that you can't comprehend it?

Therefore, by voting 1, 2, 3 you have had KitKat, Twix and Mars Bar - you have sampled all three. How can that not be the case?

You cannot vote for something that doesn't exist. Voting for candidate 1 is taking a bite from the Kitkat and moving to candidate 2 is taking a bite from the Twix. How can this not be the case?

I am absolutely astonished by your wilful blindness to the obvious. And you wonder why I haven't troubled you with more meaty voting options ....

[pontman]

silverfox, clearly you don't get all 3, your just telling the shop keep in what order you would prefer, your going into the shop and saying, I will have some candy, the shop keep then asks what candy, you say KitKat, he tells you his out, so you say Twix, he tells you his also out then you roll your eyes and say how about a Mars Bar...

In your world you just sampled 3 bars, but in reality you only had one.

[pontman]

I wish I lived in your world, I would walk right into a Ford dealership then ask for a Ferrari then drive home in the free Ferrari that somehow appeared using your warped logic.

[silverfox]

Pontman, am I or am I not correct in saying that under AV my first preference is counted?

(Answer: yes, you are correct Silverfox)

Then Portman, if my first preference candidate is eliminated from the running because too few people voted for him/her is my second preference then counted?

(Answer: yes, you are correct Silverfox)

And, Pontman, if this person then drops out because I keep backing losers, is my third preference then counted?

(Answer: yes, you are correct Silverfox)

So Pontman, all three of my preferences that were given to three different people were counted, that is, played a critical part in the voting process and the ultimate outcome of the election?

(Answer: yes, you are correct Silverfox)

Okay, last chance Pontman, you are saying that all three of my prefernces were counted, not just one?

(Answer: yes, you are correct Silverfox)

Then please, Pontman and Loz, stop wasting my time and insulting my intelligence.

[pontman]

Silverfox, Yes you are correct, but, no you don't get 3 bits of candy, you just get one, just your most preferred of the available candy.

So stop being greedy and eating all my damn candy.