Vote YES to AV

[Guy]

At the end of the day AV is better; it ensures all elected mps represent over half their constituencies views and thus better represents them.

It is all very well and good for you to continually tell me that over and over again. What you need to do to in any way convince me is take a look at mine, as well as other peoples, arguments on this matter and respond to them. This hasn't been done.

 

Anyone who thinks an mp who only speaks for 30% of their people is fairer or better at representing peoples views has serious issues. It just promotes inequality, minority rule, tactical voting and voter disdain with the political system.

 

You can arguetil your blue in the face; mps voted in by AV ARE more representative of the peoples views and thus the system is fairer to the voter.

They are not representitive of the peoples MOST FAVOURED views, so if 40% adamantly want A, 25% adamantly want B and 35% adamantly want C, then A should win because they have a majority of people who would elect them and only them. With AV, B would go out here, and for arguments sake say they all side with B. That way A is 40% and C is 60%. However, that 25% from B do not want C to win as much as they want B to, and so 25% of that support is 'half-hearted', for lack of a better phrase, and not actual true representation of their views. AV is a system whereby smaller parties who get less votes (10%) in inital rounds can beat parties who get 30+% in initial rounds. This seems fundamentally unfair.

 

 

Again, this thread doesn't really work if the only points being debated are minor points that are debated down right to the smallest little details.

[Furah]

People don't vote randomly. They vote for people they support on varying levels.

Here in Australia they do, as voting is compulsory. The number of people who either do a donkey vote (just number each candidate from 1-whatever in order of who is first on the list) or write "[bleep] you" on the ballot papers is appalling.

[Sy_Accursed]

This thread will go nowhere because people opposed to AV no matter what you say view it as fundamentally unfair that someone who did not get most in the first round might win. Despite the fact they ARE supported by 50% of people on some level.

 

You can waffle on all you like about how 50% support from 2nd choices is not the same as 30% support from first choice; that is true.

But thats where the views differ.

 

As anti-Av you think it is fairer that someone with 30% first choice support can fairly speak for all 100%

As pro-AV people think it is fairer that someone with 50% support, even if some is second choice support, speaks more fairly for the 100%.

 

Everything has been debated and responded to properly, but the fact remains a fundamental difference in views exists.

 

To me and all other AV supports an mp who has say 30% first choice votes and 30% second choice votes may not be the absolute perfect mp for all 60%. But it is still an mp all 60% approve of and support on some level. Opposed to a FPTP mp with just 30% vote where the other 70% can be strongly opposed to them, but be stuck with them.

You can waffle on all you want about unfair and two votes; pro-AV supports do not see it that way; pro-AV supports believe it is far better to have mps elected with over 50% support to make sure it is an mp the majority of the people approve of opposed to an mp favoured by the largest minority.

 

You say we haven't "debated the issues" yeah cause you have clearly done so much better what with just repeating the same "unfair" "two votes" they are the peoples "favourite" etc. Your argument has progressed as much as pro-AV.

 

@Furah no wonder aussie wants rid if u r forced to rank everyone. Thats stupid!

[joke_slayer]

At the end of the day AV is better; it ensures all elected mps represent over half their constituencies views and thus better represents them.

It is all very well and good for you to continually tell me that over and over again. What you need to do to in any way convince me is take a look at mine, as well as other peoples, arguments on this matter and respond to them. This hasn't been done.

 

Anyone who thinks an mp who only speaks for 30% of their people is fairer or better at representing peoples views has serious issues. It just promotes inequality, minority rule, tactical voting and voter disdain with the political system.

 

You can arguetil your blue in the face; mps voted in by AV ARE more representative of the peoples views and thus the system is fairer to the voter.

They are not representitive of the peoples MOST FAVOURED views, so if 40% adamantly want A, 25% adamantly want B and 35% adamantly want C, then A should win because they have a majority of people who would elect them and only them. With AV, B would go out here, and for arguments sake say they all side with B. That way A is 40% and C is 60%. However, that 25% from B do not want C to win as much as they want B to, and so 25% of that support is 'half-hearted', for lack of a better phrase, and not actual true representation of their views. AV is a system whereby smaller parties who get less votes (10%) in inital rounds can beat parties who get 30+% in initial rounds. This seems fundamentally unfair.

 

 

Again, this thread doesn't really work if the only points being debated are minor points that are debated down right to the smallest little details.

 

in that case what do you think is going to happen in the next elections

an increasing percentage of B voters will start voting for C because they would rather see C in power than A, and over the course of a few elections C will get 41+% and A will stay on 40% therefore C will win, while B will just be ignored

now you may ask, if that is the case why change the system

 

well, in this case B will be ignored, if more people start liking party B over party C, to the point where B becomes more popular than C, B will not be voted in because people will not realise how popular B has become and will keep voting C to keep A out

 

With AV people will be able to say that they prefer B over C, and in case B doesn't win they want to see C in power, and if B happens to become more popular, they will get elected under AV, and not under FPTP

[Ginger_Warrior]

In gambling I think it's called 'Hedging your bets'.

 

No appeal to fairness arguments will convince me that that's a particularly good way of choosing someone to represent me.

[joke_slayer]

In gambling I think it's called 'Hedging your bets'.

 

No appeal to fairness arguments will convince me that that's a particularly good way of choosing someone to represent me.

 

considering the whole point of introducing AV is to make the elections fairer and the MPs more representitive, what kind of argument would you accept

 

i agree that AV is not the best/fairest/most representitive system out there, but it is much better than FPTP

[Ginger_Warrior]

Fairer?

 

If I vote for the Labour Party, chances are my second preference won't be counted.

If I vote for the Green Party, chances are my second preference will be counted.

 

I'm baffled as to how that's fair. Someone else's vote has been given special treatment.

[Sy_Accursed]

I still fail to see the logic in:

My party is doing well and therefore my second choice is not counted its unfair.

 

HOW is it "unfair" your party is winning?

 

Also its NOT special treatment because the SAME rules are applied to all votes.

I mean it's like university exams where if you're ill or grieving or fail you can do them in the later referral period.

It's not "special treatment" if you do cause it's the rules everyone is under.

Also it's not "unfair" if you don;t do exams in that period cause it means you done well in life/exams.

[Ginger_Warrior]

OK well if you can't see how it's unfair that a part of one person's vote is counted, but another person's isn't, then I can't really make it much more simplier than that.

[Sy_Accursed]

If you can't see how its ridiculous to be annoyed that your vote hasn't had to go to second choice as it means your party is doing well it can't be explained any simpler than that.

Afterall if you WERE given the choice for each subsequent round if you are a true support and not voting tactically you'd stick with the same vote anyway until that party is knocked out.

 

All AV does is speedily simulate several elections in order to achieve 50% majority.

I bet if we kept FPTP but upped it to 50% needed to win and whenever a place didn't get that had a second, 3rd 4th or 5th vote a few days later (with the losing party eliminated) you wouldn't care half as much.

 

All AV does is simulate this without the flaw of people tactically swapping their vote as rounds progress.

 

After all if in a vote under FPTP requiring 50% to win:

A got 33%

B got 33%

C got 10%

D got 24%

 

So a few days later it was re-run with only A B D. Assuming no-one tactically swapped votes you'd still get something like:

A 40%

B 35%

D 25%

The extra 10% being redistributed subject to how C supporters had re-voted.

But of course doing it that way people would tactically vote swap and skew results.

 

So you might actually get:

A 42%

B 56%

D 2%

As D supports don't mind B and know most C supports are likely to vote A

 

In AV you get the same thing but all compiled into 1 ballot paper to speed up the process and avoid tactical vote swapping between rounds; so you can't get 1 party suddenly crashing out as voters swap votes to tactical oppose a party they dislike.

[Furah]

@Furah no wonder aussie wants rid if u r forced to rank everyone. Thats stupid!

Why is it stupid?

[Sy_Accursed]

@Furah no wonder aussie wants rid if u r forced to rank everyone. Thats stupid!

Why is it stupid?

 

Because people don't want to HAVE to rank/vote for a party they strongly oppose.

[joke_slayer]

it is fairer because people can make their voices heard properly, rather than voting for a candidate thats not their favourite, just to keep another one out

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/04/do-av-votes-count-more-than-once.html

 

 

and with regards to the australian voting system

 

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/04/a-summary-of-the-misrepresentations-of-australias-voting-system.html

[Furah]

You put them as last, I put the Labor party below the Christian party last year because I'd rather fundies in than those stupid [bleep]s in. In the end they got in anyway, and now everyone is crying about how they're [bleep]ing up. Wish the Greens had given their preferences to Liberal. Liberal would never try to [bleep]ing sell of parts of the government to make their budget look better.

[Racheya]

I really want AV because if a Pirate Party candidate ever came to my constituency I could vote for them and not worry about 'wasting' my vote. I can still vote knowing that even if the Pirate Party don't rank anywhere, I can still have a say and not have wasted my vote.

 

You have no idea of how many people around here only vote Labour not because of any particular support of their policies, but just because they want to keep the Tories out.

[Sy_Accursed]

I really want AV because if a Pirate Party candidate ever came to my constituency I could vote for them and not worry about 'wasting' my vote. I can still vote knowing that even if the Pirate Party don't rank anywhere, I can still have a say and not have wasted my vote.

 

You have no idea of how many people around here only vote Labour not because of any particular support of their policies, but just because they want to keep the Tories out.

 

Same here. So many gardens have lib dem or green party flags/signs but most vote labour to try n keep tories out.

[Ginger_Warrior]

So they'll all now just put Labour second and Labour will keep the Tories out on second preference anyway. Only the difference is that those Lib Dems or Green Party members will never feel obliged to challenge the Labour Party over its policies because they'll feel they've "had their say" at the election, and so the Labour Party itself would become more insular and disconnected from the non-Labour electorate.

 

Again, I'm not seeing the progressive element of this voting system or how this trumps PR. What I am seeing is the systematic destruction of grassroots politics and the encouragement for parties not to nail their colours to the mast.

[Sy_Accursed]

No-one said it trumps PR.

PR is technically the perfect system; just unfortunate extremists ruin it.

 

and they won;t become insular from non-labour supporters.

If they do they won't get 2nd choice votes and thus won't win.

FPTP promote more insular-ism as you only have to appeal to the people who 100% support you and absolute no-one else and rely on your opponent's policies to drive opposition to vote for you.

[Ginger_Warrior]

So you're happy to vote for a system which all but kills the debate on PR which, by your own admission, is better than what you're campaigning for?

 

Talk about the turkey voting for Christmas.

[Sy_Accursed]

It doesn't kill the debate on PR.

Regardless of which way the vote goes PR and other methods will debated and regardless of which way it goes the odds of government changing system (or offering to) again for many years are slim.

However AV gives better representation to peoples voice than FPTP does. so given the choice I'd much rather have AV.

 

Also if we ever did get a chance I doubt I'd be pro PR. While technically the best system the way it opens doors to extremist parties that can end up in power and corroding rights is a big issue in my book.

[Sy_Accursed]

Yes rocoo but if 49% hate them and 51% do not they still can speak for the majority.

How is that worse than FPTP where a party can win with 30% and therefore 70% could hate them?

 

and counting them as fractional is done.

They are used to simulate a 2nd election where the losing party did not run.

If your first choice did not run you would vote for your 2nd choice.

 

It's no more fractional a vote than say you support BNP and theres no bnp candidate in your constituency. You'd vote for you're second choice party.

Thats what Av simulates.

 

Also what you are calling "true AV" is actually ranked voting, totally different method.

[Guy]

and counting them as fractional is done.

wat? Fractional as in second vote 1/2, third vote 1/3? That isn't what is planned at all, and you are agreeing with it..? The point is that if someone puts down a '2' next to a party, it is most definately not full support in any way at all, it is 'fractional' as someone else put it very well. As such, it should most definately not be counted as a full vote, as that goes contrary to what the first round of voting established, i.e. who was the most popular.

With AV you will end up with one party with 50% support, but with only 30% true supporters and the remaining 20% people who are represented to no larger degree than people in that situation (ie not supporting the party in power) are now under FPTP.

 

They are used to simulate a 2nd election where the losing party did not run.

Perhaps there is a small amount of sense in this, but the way it is intended to be carried out is ludicrous and unfair.

 

To your point about people voting tory simply to keep labour out (or vice-versa, I forget). They aren't using their vote to vote tory per-se, they're voting against labour. That brings into question negative voting, so I can vote against labour because I don't like them - but I dont care who gets in apart from that. i can see that becoming very unfair though.

[Furah]

2) Like someone said before, they hate the Labor party. I don't know what that means, but let's make an example anyway. Let's say it's [Generical Left Party], Labor, and Party X. Party X loses and decides to give all their votes to Labor. Well, I [bleep]ing hate Labor, so I would much rather give all of Left's votes to Party X than have Labor win. I don't see what's so complicated about this. A true "AV" system would just add up the rankings with rank 1 counting as 1 vote, 2 counting as 1/2, etc. and whoever had the biggest number would win. Maybe even make it so that rankings after a number, let's say five, subtract instead of add, so maybe 5 rank takes away 1/5, 6th takes away 1/6, etc. etc. last rank takes away 1.

Err, that's not how AV voting works, out of the 3 your preferences would be like this:

 

BALLOT

[2] Generic Left Party

[3] Labor

[1] Party X

 

Party X does not gain enough votes, and so they're out of the race. You had Party X as 1, and so your second preference now gets your vote; which, would you look at it, is Generic Left Party! Now lets say that the number of supporters for Party X would have given them enough votes to win, but because you only get 1 choice with FPTP and most people thought Party X wouldn't win, enough people instead voted for Generic Left Party to put Party X in 3rd place, knocking them out. With AV, people don't have to do that and can put Party X as their first preference, and still put Generic Left Party as their second preference, should Party X not get enough votes. FPTP heavily favours the two-three major parties.

[Distracted]

This is probably a dumb question, but what happens to the party that had the least votes? Do all the votes that they had just become worthless? Because to me it seems like the weaker parties are the ones being disadvantaged by this system. Feel free to correct me.

[joke_slayer]

This is probably a dumb question, but what happens to the party that had the least votes? Do all the votes that they had just become worthless? Because to me it seems like the weaker parties are the ones being disadvantaged by this system. Feel free to correct me.

 

the new system would help smaller parties

 

with the current system, the party that gets most votes wins, and that is the end of it, everyone else gets ignored, so people often vote for the one of the 2-3 big parties in their constituency to keep the one they really hate out, this sometimes even happens when there is more support in the constituency for a smaller party, where people don't vote for it because they don't realize this and think it would be safer to vote for one of the big parties

 

with the new system, people will be able to vote for whatever small party they like and still put one of the big parties they can deal with as second or third preference.

then when the votes are counted, the party with the least amount of votes gets eliminated and their vote gets redistributed according to their second preferences, so the people who voted for them will still have a say, while the totals of first preference votes will show the real support for the smaller parties, which will most certainly be greater under the new system.

 

this means that people can show their true support for the smaller parties and still keep out the party they hate, this will lead to a much greater first preference vote for smaller parties (in some places even greater than for 1 or 2 of the 3 main parties), and if they do well enough, they could even get in power if they get enough second and third preference votes (this will not work for small parties that are to the extremes such as the BNP, because people either love them or hate them, therefore they may get an increase in first preference votes, but everyone else would hate them therefore they would get no more votes and would eventually be eliminated)