ALTERNATIVE VOTING

Our masters have decided that we should vote in a referendum to determine whether or not we, the people, want to change our voting system. The suggestion is that our existing 'first passed the post' arrangement is unfair and unrepresentative, and ought to be replaced by 'something better'; the 'something better' currently under debate is called the 'Alternative Vote' or 'AV'.

Under the current system, and given that we have numerous political parties, and independent candidates, in most of our elections, it is inevitable that there will be many occasions on which the winner in a poll will receive less than half of the votes cast. Those who support 'AV' seem to believe that this is inherently unfair. Their solution is to get us all to rank the candidates in order of preference and for the votes to be resorted and recounted until one candidate received more than a 50% share. This, they argue, ensures that the most preferred candidate eventually wins.

To be clear, 'AV' is not actually the preferred system, even of those who want a change; they really want a wholly proportional system in which members of Parliament are appointed in proportion to the votes cast for each party. However, a wholly proportional system has drawbacks that make it a non-starter with the 2 major parties and 'AV' is seen as a step on the way, even if not really desirable, by the proponents of change.

To me, 'AV' is complete nonsense. Instead of each poll being a simple horse race, with the winner being the candidate who gets the most votes, in the event that no candidate gains 50% of the total votes, the votes gained by the candidate at the bottom of the poll will be reallocated according to the next preference of those voters. Thus, if the bottom candidate was an Independent, and all of his supporters expressed a second preference for the 'Monster Raving Looney (MRL)' candidate, all of his votes would then be added to the first preference votes of the MRL candidate. The result is then re-examined and, assuming that no one has 50% of the total votes, the same process is repeated; this time, let's say that the bottom candidate is another independent, whose supporters also prefer the MRL candidate to the others. With still more votes, the MRL candidate now moves above the BNP and the Greens; further reallocation sees them gain more votes and move above UKIP, etc., etc. Take note that if your 3rd, 4th, 5th preference etc. is for a candidate who's already been eliminated, it isn't counted at all. Overall, some voters have more effective votes than others.

Eventually, one of the candidates will reach the 50% threshold and be declared the winner, but what a convoluted process to get there. There is no compulsion to vote for more than one candidate, so everyone could, actually, continue to cast a single vote; what would happen then, with no second preference votes to reallocate, is anyones' guess. It is argued by some that 'AV' will lead to permanent coalition government, while others claim that, while its is fairer, it will not make much difference to the final election outcome. If the latter is the case, why do we need to change ? If the former, it is a recipe for weak government in which decision-making is dominated by the need to hold the coalition together. Either way, how is it better than what we currently have ?

It is clearly the case that the winner of each poll will be the least disliked candidate, but whether this is the same as the best liked candidate is a moot point; it is perfectly possible that the winner could be a candidate who was only 2nd or 3rd, or even lower down the order, in terms of first preferences. Is this really 'fairer' ? 'AV' would mean an end to the traditional 'Election Night' excitement as the counting of votes would have to be delayed until at least the following day, due to the nature of the system; in the event of a recount, the result may well be delayed until the following week, giving rise to potentially damaging uncertainty. Of course, we could always invest in expensive voting and counting machines, but to what real benefit ?

Over the years, fewer and fewer people have voted as they feel less and less connected to their political masters. Most Members of Parliament stick slavishly to their 'Party Line' on most if not all issues, and pay little more than lip service to their constituents' concerns; most are relatively wealthy and, increasingly, have little real understanding of the lives of the ordinary people of the country. It has been argued that 'AV' will increase their accountability and encourage people to vote in greater numbers; personally, I'd think it's more likely that the additional demands and complications of the system will encourage even more people to stay away from the voting booths.

A final interesting question is 'What will the turn-out be for next week's referendum vote ?' Current opinion polls seem to be showing that people are tending increasingly towards voting to retain the current system, but this outcome could be heavily affected by the turn-out on the day; a very low turn-out could favour the 'Yes' campaign but, either way, we could be faced with a decision based on a choice made by, perhaps, 30% of the population of whom 50.1% vote for the winning side. In other words, our future voting system could be in the hands of as few as 15% of the population, surely something that the proponents of 'AV' should find unacceptable. They may well do so, if they lose, but I doubt there'll be a murmur if they win.