The Alternative Vote

[Hammertime007]

No

[Singhstah]

Most certainly yes to AV

[singh211]

in theory a good idea but in practice will likely lead to more coalition governments like this one

for sikh lobbying it could be beneficial in certain constituencies where politicians would have to work harder to gain the minority vote

[Hazoor]

No no no!

[SinghWarrior]

Yes - it will make politicians work harder for votes as they will require a 50% majority of votes to be elected. This will make the Sikh vote bank more influential. We should persuade others around to say Yes to AV!

[Gurmat Sangeet]

Hell No!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dalsingh101]

Could BNP types get more power using this?

[singh1986]

I SAY YES! DOING A SHORT ESSAY ON THE TOPIC... I PUT FORTH MY ARGUEMENTS WHY... JUST ROUGH DRAFT

This essay will look to explore the 2 most commonly used electoral systems in world in relation to Britain. Ultimately any electoral system internationally looks to introduce a high level of proportionality and any democratic nation would hold this objective paramount in order to calling itself a truly democratic organism. It can be argued that amongst all the democracies present in the world, some nations do have its similarities in their electoral process but nevertheless variations do remain. On the other hand, practicalities and just general organisation has be taken into account, for instance having an electoral system that works well for a population of just under 300,000 in Barbados might be impractical to impose on India with its 1.21 billion people . Furthermore, there are sometimes religious, ethnic and cultural implications that have to be taken into account for making sure each community is represented in any national government. Within Britain consideration has to be made to constituencies, each constituency has its own elected MP. With a referendum to be held in May, as to whether Britain should change its electoral system this essay will look to analyse the current systems already in existence with the possible replacement. Essentially any system that is to be bought in has to be more proportional for it to be considered to be any improvement. In order to measure proportionality, political scientists use deviation scores to measure “deviations from proportionality ”. Currently the British use of the single member plurality system is considered to have the biggest deviation score amongst all liberal democracies for the past 25 years. The substitute option to the current first past the post being touted at the moment is the majoritarian electoral system under the alternative vote; which is a variation available that could work within the British framework of constituencies represented by MP’s. This essay will compare and contrast the two and see if alternative vote (AV) would be considered an improvement.

A single member plurality system is an electoral system that can take place in constituency or area that elects one candidate from a list that can be represented by various parties or individuals . The electorate simply put a mark next to the individual they would like to cast a vote for. This does not mean that the candidate has the candidate has more votes than all the others combined, or an overall majority of the vote, they just need to have more than another candidate. In essence the candidate is after just receiving the largest plurality of votes to win a position or a seat within their respective country. The system is used within a wide array of countries but is mostly prevalent in former British imperial colonies such as the India, Jamaica, Canada as well as the United States of America. Within Britain the system is often referred to as first past the post. The British variation to the single member plurality system has nearly always created a stable government that has been able to push through party led reforms that would be difficult under a coalition government where the views and needs of smaller coalition partners need to be catered for. One of the concessions the current Conservative government has had to make was give into Liberal demands to hold a referendum on having a voting reform.

In order to sustain a degree of proportionality in the current British elections, constituency boundaries are drawn up to reflect the population in the area. In recent boundary changes a decision was made to cut the House of Commons by 50 seats so that there would be more proportionality in the sense that constituencies that had lower electorate population would be merged with other constituencies so that there would be similar numbers across the country that could elect an MP. Nevertheless this system in use within the British General election is often criticised for not being proportional. Any analysis of General Election results will illustrate this. In instance the most recent General elections held in 2010 clearly highlight the argument that the current situation is not proportional. The largest seat taking party, the conservatives, received 10, 726,614 votes receiving 36.1 % of the vote taking 307 seats. However in comparison the Liberal Democrats who finished third overall received just over half of the votes the Conservatives received with 6,838,824 votes given them a national share of 23% but only 57 seats . The situation is further exasperated from the Liberal Democrat perspective as the 2005 general elections showed for each MP that was voted 26,906 for Labour, 44,373 for Conservative and 96,539 for Liberal Democrats. With such a difference in the votes received and how these votes are actually translated into seats it is inevitable that the British system is criticised for not being truly proportional . In order to try and make a difference to the current British electoral system the Liberal Democrat Party have been able to use their leverage as the junior partner in the coalition government to push through reforms that would try and change the current system to something where ballots cast for them will count for something. In effect it can be argued that a large number of votes are wasted, in the 2005 British General elections 19 million peoples votes did not count towards anything, which accounts for 70% of the people that voted. This is particularly problematic in areas considered as safe seats. Within these seats candidates consistently receive the largest plurality of votes making any vote to opposition candidates wasted. This can in turn increase voter apathy in the constituency and can discourage people from taking up their right to vote. As a result, minor or lesser parties’ supporters may not turn up an election as their vote will mostly likely not have any significance.

A Further disadvantage of the system is the fact that the member, who does receive the highest plurality, may have had votes of the electorate split. This is especially the case in constituencies where large amount of candidates are standing, hypothetically a large amount of the population in the area may have an extreme dislike for a labour candidate but they could have the vote spilt between Liberal, Conservative, UKIP or any other party. These votes will all be wasted if the Labour candidate simply received the largest plurality. Although the system is argued to have a lack of proportionality, the system is useful as it is often categorised within nations that only really have 2 main parties that fight it out to win nationally. The question is whether under a majoritarian electoral system through AV will be able to take away all the criticisms first past the post attracts.

As similar to the First past the post system used in the British elections, the alternative vote still sustains a bond between members and its constituents therefore this advantage of the single member plurality system is not lost . In addition all MP’s or candidates that are elected will have the support of the majority of the voters in their constituency or area. Albeit a voter’s first choice may not win, a contribution is made by ranking a second and third choice, consequently the vast majority of individuals who has cast a ballot will feel like they have contributed to the position a candidate holds. There will also be a reduction in the form of negative voting where just to keep a candidate out a voter will not necessarily vote for their preferred applicant but for the nearest perceived threat. Candidates would need to receive 50% of the vote. This would essentially be decided by the ranking system. The least favourable candidate overall will be eliminated and the people who put this candidate as their 1st choice will see their vote redistributed to their 2nd place and so forth until a candidate receives over 50% of all votes cast in the constituency. The process is essentially repeated until a candidate receives an overall majority.

However the system cannot be argued to be any more proportional compared first past the post, analysis of the 1997 General election win by Labour was conducted to see if results would be any dissimilar if different electoral systems were in place. Analysis showed that if the alternative vote was the electoral system in the 1997 general elections, there would be 23.5% deviation away from proportionality than what was only 21% under first past the post . On the other hand this was a very small case study after the general elections had already been conducted; it is difficult to predict results on proportionality nationwide unless the system is actually in place. In addition there would not be this feeling of any safe seat in as many constituencies as there is now. Currently parties are often accused of not campaigning enough in constituencies they deem to be safe where they always receive the largest plurality or even in constituencies where they feel they have no hope of winning a seat. The Alternative vote electoral system will still have a degree of not being truly proportional but is labelled as majoritarian. As similar to the first past the post extremist parties who don’t have popular support will find it difficult to get any national representation as their support if any will be spilt amongst various constituencies. However supporters of less popular parties can be perceived to have a 2nd, 3rd or even a 4th vote as hypothetically each candidate they ranked and cast a vote for gets eliminated and their next choice counts.

Overall weaknesses of both the system will still persist. The issue that does remain is that Britain will still operate on a constituency based electoral system. The advantage of such a system is that the population will feel like they have a close geographical link with the candidate that they have voted for. However a party that is popular in some constituencies may not reflect the feeling of the electorate nationally. As long as the electoral system within Britain continues to operate with single member constituency led politics this problem will still continue to persist. The only advantage AV would have in this regard is that the overall majority in a constituency contributed to a candidate’s position.

Findings made by the democratic audit concluded that after testing various international electoral systems on their proportionality “only one voting system, the additional member system (AMS) used in Germany is consistently proportional in its results. ” However having a German system in place within Great Britain could categorise the House of Commons being dogged down by coalition governments that could break which seems like the main feature of successive German Bundestags . This would in turn create a parliament that is not strong and stable enough to push through party led reforms, similar to the situation in Belgium.

In conclusion when analysing the two electoral systems it becomes apparent why only Alternative Vote (AV) at the moment, is being touted as a possible replacement to the first past the post system. Both systems will work within the constituency framework and therefore the electorate would not feel like they have lost connection to their elected MP. Having a system where votes simply transfer to seats nationally without constituencies can be complicated as there would most likely be a very long list of political parties and individual candidates a person can vote. This would be very time consuming and complicated to select a preference. However by having the alternative vote in place it will ensure vast majority of people have contributed to a candidate’s position and will reduce the issue of safe seats, which could all result in a reduction in voter apathy. The referendum to be conducted will decide whether people are happy with the current situation or would like to make this transition. Supporters are most likely to come from parties that have always had their votes count for nothing, consistently finishing in 2nd place and it is no surprise that the Liberal Democrat party are pushing for any sort of change to deal with their un-proportional results in comparison from votes to seats.

Bibliography

1. David M. Farrell, Electoral Systems: A comparative Introduction (Palgrave, 2001)

2. Patrick Wintour, Electoral reform: Liberal Democrats push for 2011 referendum on AV, 25/05/2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/25/electoral-reform-referendum-av , accessed 31/03/2011

3. Kate Connolly, Angela Merkel's government threatened with collapse, 14/06/2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/14/angela-merkel-germany-coalition-collapse, accessed 01/04/2011

4. No named Author, Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bb.html, accessed 31/03/2011

5. No named Author, BBC NEWS, India census: population goes up to 1.21bn, 31/03/2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12916888, accessed 03/04/2011

6. No named Author, Electoral Reform.org, Critical overview of electoral systems, http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/x-change%20website/documents/systems.pdf, accessed 25/03/2011

7. No named Author, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/, accessed 25/03/2011

8. No named Author, The Democratic Audit, http://filestore.democraticaudit.com/file/e1e3f22a18d844aca545f1a38762dfd7-1282565514/making-votes-count-df2.pdf, accessed 26/03/2011

[singh1986]

Could BNP types get more power using this?

Not really, because they would need to gain an overall majority within a consituency, the only problem could be is that people who vote for them would get a 2nd or 3rd vote... as their alternative vote would count.

[genie]

Can we have a poll on this?I'm leaning towards a NO vote because only 3 other nations in the world use AV and I dont want extremist fringe parties getting a say in government.