OK, this post is another for the Brits, since it’s about the upcoming voting reform referendum. There’s a great YouTube video by CGPGrey on AV versus FPTP. (Hat-tip: @sneeu.) The big take-homes for people who are undecided but who haven’t written off AV:

  • AV is able to simulate a bunch of elections, where the least-popular candidate is eliminated after each round, without the time and expense it’d take to run a bunch of campaigns one after another.
  • AV is a better system, because it produces winners that a larger number of voters can agree on.
  • While the AV system has its flaws, any problems AV has are shared by FPTP: susceptible to gerrymandering; not proportional representation; trends towards two parties over time.
  • AV has no spoiler effect, where a third candidate splits the majority vote. This has long been a massive problem in the UK, where the liberal/left vote has been split between Labour and a version of the Liberal party, whereas the conservative right has been unified. Under AV, assuming the ties between Labour and Liberal Democrat voters remain somewhat intact post-coalition (and therefore vote for each-other as second choice), AV would lead to the Commons reflecting the political make-up of the UK more accurately more often.
  • Using AV, citizens can help support and grow smaller parties they agree with, without worrying that they’ll put someone they don’t like into office.
  • AV requires bigger parties to be less complacent and campaign harder to get more people to vote for them (which is why the Conservatives are so rabidly anti-AV and why some Labour MPs are against it).

To my mind, AV is far from perfect. I would still prefer a proportional system, where the votes cast lead to a Commons that reflects those votes. However, AV is a step in the right direction, which is why I’ll be voting in favour of it.

Whatever your intentions, though, please ensure that if you vote you do so on the basis of the system you believe in, and not propaganda. At the moment, much of the debate centres on Nick Clegg, and the referendum appears in danger of being some kind of national Nick Clegg approval rating generator. Clegg is politically toxic; unless the coalition becomes massively popular by 2015, Clegg’s dead in the water from a political standpoint and won’t even be leading the Lib-Dems into the next election. To that end, he really doesn’t matter. Ditto the Lib-Dems as a party. The no-to-AV campaign seems to think it’ll propel the Lib-Dems into some kind of equality with the Tories and Labour—it won’t. Under current polling, AV might help the Lib-Dems save a few seats, but they’ll still be down by over 60 per cent under either system. And said saving would be ‘fair’ anyway, since it always takes way more votes to elect a Liberal Democrat than a Labour or Conservative candidate.

If you favour First Past The Post, that’s fine. But vote for it because you believe in what the system is and what it represents, not because you hate Nick Clegg. And if you’re undecided, watch that YouTube video, because it might make you think a change is just what’s required to make British voting a little fairer.

EDIT: Nice overview of no vote tactics here from @unloveablesteve.