Upcoming AV referendum: does AV mean that the people who vote for the party which comes last get the casting vote?

Giddy: you keep saying that there is tactical voting in AV and there really, really isn't.

A party saying "just vote for us" is not increasing their chances at all. I suppose they can then say, if someone else wins, that they have won with a smaller proportion of the electorate, and maybe that is a reason to ask them to do it. But the voters who do that are really just disenfranchising themselves - abstaining from what is effectively a run off round.

AV is not PR and the very small parties will be unlikely to gain. However there may be a surprising number of people who would put, say, Green ahead of one of the large parties if they knew this vote wouldn't be wasted if green was eliminated. So it does give small parties a chance of growing.

As you have said earlier it will make no difference in seats where one party already gets 50% of the vote - although, again, it is possible that some of those people may put a smaller party first, knowing that they will not benefit any other party by splitting their preferred big party's vote.

All in all this thread (and the other) where I started out saying AV is better but not as important as increasing the chances of losing Clegg ... perhaps I have convinced myself to stick to my principles. After all I wouldn't want to end up like Clegg.......

can I just add as a dad and newbie how very impressed I am with the whole mumsnet talk thing. if only politicians conducted themselves in this way. Yes I know there is the odd rant / troll / etc but basically it feels quite grown up here unlike the house of commons

'WSPU - sorry if I sounded insulting. You said you had never heard of the term "plumping" which I have seen all over Australian blogs and that you didn't believe the Just Vote 1 campaigning was common when again the press indicate it is very common under OPV style of AV'.

I didn't think you were insulting at all but I wanted to explain that I too understand the sytem: sorry if I sounded like that. I think plumping may be a more recently used term as I have not lived there for 8 years. But I never heard it. Language and terminology varies hugely across the states so that might explain it.

I didn't say that I didn't believe that Just Vote 1 campaigning was common. I know it is in some states. What I said was that it was not necessarily undemocratic or manipulative, at least no more so than FPTP. And it is not the only reason Queenslanders returned some One Nation MPs. I'm afraid that some people just like those kinds of politics.

I understand the differences in Australia thanks Giddy: I have a politics degree from an Australian university. I voted under both kinds of systems as I lived in several states and I used to LOVE numbering the candidates 1 to sometimes in the 30s and beyond. But I love voting and politics. Most people don't and in some elections, especially to the Aus. senate, voting 1 to 35 etc.. just isn't practical for most people. 'Plumping' as you call it (not used in my experience) is what most people do because they can't be bothered doing the long filling in, don't care or just want to get out fast. But it also happens, not necessarily because people are 'directed to' but because they agree with the suggested ALP/Liberal ranking. This is not undemocratic or lazy in all cases. I did a combination of the two kinds of voting plenty of times, depending on what I thought of various candidates. Simply writing 1 beside the candidate of choice rather than ranking is no different to many voters' absolute loyalty to the party they always vote for under FPTP.

Hi Giddy. The Irish example is STV with multi member constituencies, not AV.

Your quote about AV helping the One Nation party in Australia is taken from the Conservative Home site. I've googled elsewhere and can't find any figures at all but I have to say I think WSPU is right: the only way to do well in AV is to get people to vote for you, the system does not give anybody an advantage and nor is tactical voting possible.

Of course there are cases where a different party wins under AV than FPTP but I have yet to see an example where this isn't a fair result.

I still can't see how 'plumping' does any harm to anybody. I suppose in Australia where voting is compulsory it is one way of opting out - put a fringe party first and no other preference.

I don't see any reason to insist on people voting for more than one party - the point of AV is to allow people to make best use of their vote e.g. by voting green 1st and then some other party second, knowing that green is likely to get redistributed but they are not then wasting their vote.

Boulevard: STV is like AV in the way that you vote. Indeed for a single candidate constituency they are identical. But with multiple candidate constituencies (required for any PR system) what happens is that as soon as one candidate gets the proportion of the vote required to win, any remaining first preferences allocated to them are redistributed amongst the others.

Since you seem to know your onions, GiddyPickle

I'm originally from Northern Ireland where they use Single Transferable Vote. Think the voting procedure is the same, rank the candidates 1, 2, 3 until you don't care; why is it different from AV? Presumably it's in the adding up?

ALP=Australian Labour Party. More later.

sorry
Giddy have read your posts with interest and though still I am deciding about May 5, can I just say that as someone born and raised in Australia and always very politically active and involved, I don't recognise your characterisations at all. I have never heard of 'plumping' in my life for a start

The Queensland vote is not some weird democratic failure caused by AV: the state has a history of right wing governments, MPs and voters, and whether we like it or not it is almost certainly the case that the vote there reflected the genuine political view of the voters.

.

Giddy - you keep suggesting it is possible to "alter the outcome in their favour" by doing something other than "putting down their "real" first and second choices ".

It really isn't possible to do this - there is no such thing as tactical voting in AV. "Plumping" as you call it - just putting one choice - makes no difference if your choice comes first or second. But if your choice gets eliminated, it means you have no say in which other party wins. It cannot improve the chances of getting your preferred result.

In your example if UKIP voters didn't care who got in if UKIP didn't, and so didn't put a second preference, as you say Labour would have beaten the tories. Fair result based on what people said they wanted.

OK, GiddyPickle, I think I follow your logic.

But the outcome in your scenario is still pretty fair though, the Tories' 35% 1st choice plus 20% 2nd choice have beaten the LDs 10% 1st choice plus 40% second choice.

It gets more interesting* if you swap the LD and UKIP % votes, but keep the 2nd preferences the same; then Con wins with 52.5% (35 + 10 UKIP + 7.5 LD) although LD had "55%" (15 + 40 Lab)

It seems like the overall effect is essentially to weight first choice votes? And it seems to hold true if you jiggle the numbers around.

*Note: this definition of 'interesting' may not be the conventional one.

But thanks for this thread because I'm getting a better picture of how it could work now.

Argghhh!! I can see how it works, but people are going to tie themselves in knots trying to vote tactically.

How about the onagar system where we all get big sticks and beat the MP from the party we hate the most. All those left standing get to form a government.

No, the fringe party voters don't get a 'casting vote', and here's why:

because you need to get over 50% to win

Once a candidate has more than 50%, then by definition, none of the other candidates could have beaten them, so it doesn't actually matter what order the second-preference votes are re-assigned. Presumably they start with smallest parties for ease of re-counting.

(Caveat: if not everyone expresses multiple preferences, then it may not be possible for one candidate to get >50%. In this case, all the votes except those for the winner and runner-up will have been re-assigned, so again, the 'casting vote' scenario doesn't occur)

Come on though Giddy - ok you don't get your wish because you are outvoted.

But you can't argue that C should have won, or that D should have won. So you are allowed to be disappointed but you can't say it isn't a fair result.

And what if it had been slightly different - you still want C as your 1st choice, D as your second and you can't bear B. But this time 1st preferences are

34% A
36% B
20% C
10% D

All of the other C voters are like you and put D and A before B - in either order.

FPTP would mean B wins; AV means A winds.

You would be glad of AV then.