2 AV or Not 2 AV? There's Only One Way to Settle This...

It's sometimes easy to despair about the level of political debate in this country. We have the first UK wide referendum since 1975, on a subject as important as how we elect the people who represent us. How we elect those who set our taxes, take us to war, decide how we fund our services.

This is a referendum that should have serious debate. But we seem to be ending up with hyperbole and distraction: about how system X will destroy democracy as we know it, what other countries use which system, which groups support the different campaigns, and even what the cost of voting machines would be (for the record, having attended a number of Mayoral elections held under AV and counted by hand - zero). This debate - this referendum deserves better than becoming a misleading fact fight.

I've wanted to see electoral reform for 20 years - its one of the reasons I joined a political party in 1991, and nothing has changed my view in the time since. I've always believed more votes should have more say in who is elected to represent them. There are many different ways of reforming the voting system, and plenty of different systems I think are better than the Alternative Vote. But that's the option on the table today - politics as it is, or a changed politics. There is no third option. And given that choice, I back change.

First Past The Post has a big problem: with multiple candidates, someone can get elected with the support of WAY less than 50% of voters. Consider a seat in which there are 5 candidates:

Lib Dem
Conservative
BNP
Labour
Green

Under First Past the Post, it's perfectly possible for one candidate to be elected with 20.1% of the votes cast:

Lib Dem 20%
Conservative 20%
BNP 20.1%
Labour 20%
Green 19.9%

Does that seem fair to anyone? Using the example above, 79.9% of voters explicitly supported someone other than the BNP candidate - but the BNP candidate still takes the seat. A candidate does not have to reach out to the majority of voters - they just need to get one more vote than the other candidates. Why would a candidate try to reach out to more people than they have to? First Past The Post encourages lazy politics - politics where you can win with a minority of the votes cast. I understand why some politicians are attracted by that, but no voter should be.

Under AV, voters simply number the candidates they would support in their order of preference, as far as they have one. That's all. Simples. If your first preference candidate does not receive enough votes to stay in the race, then your preference transfers to your second placed candidate, and so on. Your second preference vote can NEVER count against your first preference - ONLY if your first choice is eliminated will your second, or subsequent, preference ever be counted.

So under preferential voting (AV) most candidates hoping to win most of the time have to think about the second preferences of those who cast a first preference for another party. That changes the style of politics where you seek to blow up any difference between yourself and another party.

It's bad news for extremists that hold views that most of us find unacceptable, but good news for those who want a more rational, grown-up debate. To get more grown-up politics, we need a more grown-up voting system.

Instead of voters having to choose between the Party's they think most likely to win, they will get to choose to support the Party they actually want to support, with a fall-back position. Under FPTP, many people vote tactically - not for who they want most, but who they think is most likely to beat the candidate they want least. AV allows voters to do both - vote with their head, AND their heart.

Instead of Punch and Judy politics where only candidates X and Y can win here, with AV, the preferences in voting will encourage better campaigning and communication.

AV is not perfect. But it is better than the current system. It does give voters more power. It will force politicians to keep in touch more, to reach out more. It should bring a better level of debate. That's why I'm voting YES to AV. If you want to see the same, I hope you will do so too.