On page 7 of their leaflet, they proclaim that "The winner should be the one that comes first" (thus using the s-word and thereby invalidating their own argumen, as well as using 'that' instead of 'who'), which they illustrate with a picture of four sprinters crossing the finishing line.
Even though they explain patiently and correctly on page three how AV works, i.e. in a close election without a clear result, the lowest-scoring candidate is eliminated etc, to illustrate the supposed unfairness of AV, their arrow points clearly to the runner who is last and labels him "The winner under AV" despite there is no earthly way he could win under AV as he would be eliminated.
Tuesday 3 May 2011
NO2AV - Epic Propaganda Fail
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Generally speaking more than 50% of the electorate vote for left wing parties and other associated loonies. So Av will undoubtedly favour them so that is a negative for AV (a somewhat selfish and self interest view I agree). However FPTP does not return governments usually when they are right wing that is, that the majority of the electorate would vote for (unless of course Westminster was a purely English parliament). So is not a very democratic form of voting because it does not reflect the majority view. Another anomaly is that areas other than England, Scotland in particular, Wales and Norther Ireland less so have a disproportionate influence on the voting system so AV favours them to the disadvantage of the English. The answer it seems to me is not that the voting system is wrong but that England does not have its' own parliament. If it did then the voting system would largely be irrelevant and everyone would live in an area where the majority would have a government that the majority found acceptable.
You'll have to excuse me if I've missed something appallingly simple - but why is the No to AV campaign being run in UKIP colours? Esp. since UKIP are pro-AV, I thought.
Oh well. Just another Great Universal Mystery.
"Generally speaking more than 50% of the electorate vote for left wing parties and other associated loonies.
HOWEVER, not all lib-dem voters are left wing by nature, it was lib-dem defectors that swung 2nd place in the Barnsley by-election UKIPs way.
Mark, the more you bang on about 'should', the less I understand your objection. At one point I thought I understood it in part, but now I just think you're being contrary.
A 'should' statement is not an argument in and of itself, I agree with that, it is a summary statement of a previously or expected argument (in this case one should statement is for an expected argument and one is for a previous argument). That doesn't make it wrong to make that summary. What's wrong here is that the summaries do not match the argument (and that the argument itself is utterly incoherent).
'Eliminated'?
That's a bit harsh, surely? A spell in the re-education camps, bit of air-brushing and Photoshopping of pics etc sounds a lot more 'on message.'
Naked Majoritarianism (Democracy) is far less important the individual rights (although the two mostly go together).
"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
H. L. Mencken
I notice they also repeat the hoary old chestnut about under AV the choices of supporters of extreme parties ... are counted "again and again and again".
The "No" campaign really is unbelievably shabby.
They always use the metaphor of the race.If they used a picture of a prize fight with a rather groggy looking boxer surmounted by the caption "And this bloke won on points", fans would assume he had won a majority of the rounds before some late showboating from his opponent, all worked out from a quite tricky count of the judges' cards - which is more like AV.
Anyway first past the post should mean first to an outright majority.You can't be said to have beaten abybody till then.
John Redwood nailed it this morning, AV is being marketed as the anti-establishment almost anti-political option, despite the fact that most parties support it.
Clearly then AV is the choice of the political classes (what politician in their right mind would turn down a guaranteed majority!), therefore I won't be supporting it.
@adamcollyer, under AV a BNP supporter's second choice is deemed as legitimate as a lib/lab/con voter's first choice.
That doesn't seem right to me.
Imagine if there were 3 candidates (lib/lab/con) and every voter put Lab 1, Lib 2 and Con 3, Labour would be elected and the others eliminated. Despite them all obtaining exactly the same number of votes.
What this means is that AV sometimes treats a 2nd/3rd choice as equal to a first preference and sometimes it doesn't.
Well is it or not?! Because otherwise AV is internally inconsistent.
CD, you haven't understood the system.
Let's assume some people vote "BNP 1, Labour 2" and others vote "Labour 1" and leave it at that.
In the first round, we can safely assume that BNP comes last and ballot papers redistributed in second round.
We then look at people's SECOND votes. A "Labour 1" vote is conceptually the same as "Labour 1,2,3,4,5..."
So we then look at Labour voters' second votes (also for Labour) and at BNP voters' second votes (also for Labour). Their second votes rank equally.
It's like run-off voting, e.g. French presidential election. Do you think it would be right to say to French voters "You can vote for le Pen in the first round, but if you do so, you will be prevented from voting in the second round between Sarko and Sego"?
CD: "Clearly then AV is the choice of the political classes (what politician in their right mind would turn down a guaranteed majority!), therefore I won't be supporting it."
That's a funny definition of 'political class' if it excludes the Tories and half the Labour Party. Like I say, it's more fun giving the Tories and half of Labour a kicking than it is giving the much smaller Lib Dems a kicking.
MW, four out of the six major parties (inc. the greens & UKIP) support AV, it's definately the choice of the political class!
Ok well if al votes are equal then answer me this, if Labour win with 60% 1st preference votes, libs get 20% and cons get 20% but they all vote BNP as their 2nd choice, why under AV would the Labour candidate win?
100% of people voted BNP but Labour won.
This eliminated and resdistribution exercise is arbitrary.
CD: "why under AV would the Labour candidate win? 100% of people voted BNP but Labour won."
Because 60 per cent of voters prefer the Labour candidate to the BNP candidate.
MW: Because 60 per cent of voters prefer the Labour candidate to the BNP candidate.
I don't really want to play word games so I'll leave it at this. Sometimes AV counts a 2nd/3rd/4th choice as being of equal value to a first choice and sometimes it doesn't.
AV then is internally inconsistent, which is another good reason why people should go out and vote NO on Thursday.
CD - The point about AV is that to be elected you should have the support of the majority of the electorate.
If that happens on the first round then fine, if it doesn't the least supported candidate is eliminated and we all have another vote.
Every time there's a round of voting everybody's vote is equal.
chefdave,
John Redwood nailed it this morning, AV is being marketed as the anti-establishment almost anti-political option, despite the fact that most parties support it.
That's Redwood had a right whine in 2010 about how UKIP had stood against Conservatives, letting europhile parties in, yet here he is, supporting the system that allows that to happen.
I'd love to see a UKIP election win, but the next best thing is that they take enough Tory vote that the fuckers get hoisted by their own petard.
Scottie, I understand how AV works I'm just highlighting some it's design flaws. AV fails to live up to the claims of it's supporters.
I've already outlined a scenario whereby the BNP obtain 100% of the vote (albeit 2nd preference) Labour obtain 50% yet the Labour candidate makes it to office. Ah, say the AVists, it's about the first preference votes you see. If that's the case then why not stick with FPTP? You don't understand comes the inevitable reply, it is about the first preference votes, but it's also about the second preference votes when we say it is.
AV doesn't set the benchmark for fairness, it's an arbitrary voting system that's a bit worse (imo) than all the others.
CD, knowing full well I'm not going to convince you, I refer you to one single statement "60% of people preferred the Labour candidate to the BNP candidate".
On that basis, why is it unreasonable for the Labour candidate to win the seat rather than the BNP candidate?
In terms of competition, AV is actually like "Strictly Come Dancing": the weakest competitor gets knocked out each week until we are left with the winner. If SCD consisted of one episode at the end of which the winner was picked it would be like FPTP. But we would be less likely to have the strongest dancer as the winner.
chefdave,
Ah, say the AVists, it's about the first preference votes you see. If that's the case then why not stick with FPTP?
Because FPTP can end up with votes for parties of similar philosophy being split.
We don't know if 69% of people in Brighton are reasonably happy with Caroline Lucas (Green) as their MP. That 69% might think she's a total moron who they'd absolutely not like as their MP, but we don't know that. We just know that they voted for quite mainstream parties.
If 69% of people in that constituency think she's a total moron and unfit for government, do you think she it's right she should be their MP?
Now, I'm not saying that's how they feel. I'm saying we have no idea how they feel, and only a system like AV will actually give you that information.
D, excellent point.
If millions of people are prepared to spend tens of millions of hours deciding who is the best dancer using a run-off system, is it really too much to expect that millions of people spend a few minutes deciding who is the least-worst party to be in government for the next five years?
JT, C Lucas probably is a moron, but this makes her different to all the other MPs in which way, exactly?
Does it matter that BNP voters might get a second vote? It won't be for the BNP.In aggreragte their 2nd votes would be fairly random but ptobably favouring the Tories.Which is peculiar since it is they who have raised this particular objection.
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