It looks like a solid majority prefer first-past-the-post to the alternative vote system for MPs in this week's Fun Online Poll.
What, I wonder, are people so scared of? Provided there is no obligation to rank all the candidates on the ballot paper, then people who prefer FPTP can just enter a "1" against their chosen candidate and leave it at that. What have they lost from this?
In fact, while I wholeheartedly support AV (it's not a very good system, but a darn sight better than FPTP), I can quite imagine myself just casting my first vote and leaving it at that. And other people may want to make use of all of their votes - who am I, or who is anybody else for that matter, to take this right away from them?
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Who's afraid of the Big Bad AV?
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8 comments:
Of course the question didn't offer an option for those who don't think AV is the best of the alternatives. No point fixing something with something else that's almost as broken.
FT, AV is 'almost as broken' but not quite, that's the point.
PS, if there were a number of alternatives, the debate would then rage on how we choose - FPTP or AV? And if the answer happened to be multi-member constituencies, we'd need another referendum on how many members (the more the better AFAIAC, up to about ten).
Quite simple why its a problem... People are too lazy to figure out why its better or worse. They choose not to think.
If they cannot be bothered it compels them to compromise on their own ideology when voting. i.e., stops them thinking even further.
FPTP is better in this respect because its the mostly likely way to get and ideological vote out of people. Can you think of a better reason to vote than what you truly believe is best for all people?
The problem we have today is that people are being asked, here too, to vote for themselves. An absurd thing. They will never get it!
Can you not see this?
Actually, AV is arguably "more broken" than FPTP in important ways. For example, under FPTP you're never forced to vote for your LEAST favourite candidate; under AV you are. Example:
45 Tory
18 LibDem > Tory
12 LibDem > Labour
25 Labour
In this election Lib Dems will win, unless 6 Tories switch their votes to LABOUR, their least favourite, in which case the Tories will win. It's utterly mental.
The only system that should be acceptable is nationwide Saint-Lague.
"Actually, AV is arguably "more broken" than FPTP in important ways"
AGREED!
But there is a single more supremely important way:
It compels folks to avoid voting for what they truly believe is good for all.
Anything else asks us to vote for what is best for me, myself, I. The most wasted kind of vote. A vote that asks for things to become harder... the individual life.
The Individual Life
RA, how on earth do you arrive at that conclusion?
The Lab candidate goes out in the first round (assuming no Lab voter cast a second vote), and then in the second round, the Lib Dem candidate has 36 first votes and Tory has 45 first votes.
That's a clear simple majority for the Tory in the second round, end of.
I was assuming you would fill in the gaps and realise it was:
45 Tory>LibDem
18 LibDem>Tory
12 LibDem>Lab
25 Lab>LibDem.
In which case the result is as I've explained it.
RA, indeed, in that case, the Lab candidate goes out in the first round and the Lib Dem candidate has 55 votes in the second round to the Tory's 45, so he wins. Is that really so terrible?
Can you explain to me which of those 55 voters will be wildly unhappy with the result, as opposed to FPTP which would see the Tory winning?
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