So that's clear then


still don't understand a bloody word.

That would be telling now, wouldn't it. Always got to keep a couple of steps ahead of 'The Man' (or possibly the 'The Woman' for equal opportunities paranoia).

I think that you have being associating with bobbdobbs for too long.

Lets try it again from the top then:

Current system - First Past the Post.

On election day (or by post) you are issued with a ballot paper.
You mark your candidate of choice with a cross and put your ballot paper into the ballot box.
Once the polls close the votes are taken to be counted.
Each paper is inspected and sorted into piles based on the number of votes each candidate receives.
The candidate with the biggest pile of votes at the end of the count wins the election.

Alternative Vote system:

On election day (or by post) you are issued with a ballot paper.
You may rank one or more candidates. You mark your paper in the order in which you think the candidates represent your views and opinions by putting 1 against the candidate that most represents your views, 2 against the candidate that next best next candidate and so on then place your paper in the ballot box.
As I understand it there won't be a 'none of the above' option so if none of the candidates sufficiently represent your views then you can spoil you ballot or not bother at all (just like the current system).

When the polls close all the ballots are taken for counting.
The ballots are sorted on the First preference votes only (i.e. the 1 choices) and put into piles.
If, at this stage, one of the candidates has accumulated more than 50% of the votes cast then they are declared the winner.

If no candidate has achieved 50 % of the vote then the candidate with the lowest proportion of the vote is eliminated from the competition. Their votes are taken to be counted again.
The smallest pile of votes is redistributed amongst the other candidates based on the Second preference votes on those papers. If there was no second preference vote shown on one of these ballots then it's 'out' and will not be used again.
The piles are counted again. If one candidate has now got 50% of the total remaining votes they have won. If there is still no candidate with 50% of the votes in the second round of counting then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Their votes are redistributed based on the third preference (if there is one).

This process is repeated until either there is a candidate with 50% or more of the vote or there are no more votes left to be redistributed (i.e. you are down to only 2 candidates) in which case the candidate with the highest proportion of the votes is declared the winner.

HTH

there in a nutshell is the biggest problem with AV. The amount of bloody explanation need to try and understand it as well as the idea that those who vote for the least popular parties erffectivly get another "vote". This sits uneasy for a lot of people and helps to explain why the NO campaign are ahead on the latest polls (or were when I last saw them).

I blogged about this the other week:



(http://hairydalek.posterous.com/more-on ... ive-voting)

In summary: I can’t help thinking that if you don’t fill in all the boxes, your vote is of lesser value than those who do. I’ve yet to hear this concern satisfactorily put to rest.

Pretty much any electoral system requires more explanation than FPTP. Complexity, in and of itself, isn't an issue unless it excludes a large majority of people from understanding and I don't think this does. The electoral reform leaflet explains it pretty well.
Would there be problems if was introduced? Yes, of course there would be. Any new system is going to have some teething problems. On the other hand, the AV system is already in use in several parts of the country and works.

As for less popular parties supporters getting more than one vote. By definition, if their vote is counted a second (or third or fourth...) time they've already lost their first choice. Isn't it better for the person who 'wins' the vote to have been supported, however loosely, by an actual majority (i.e at least 50% of the people who voted) than for someone who was only supported by a third of the people walk off with it?

AV is far from perfect but right now it's the only game in town and is, IMHO, as step in the right direction towards having the nations politics more accurately reflect the actual views of the governed.

But they wont have been supported by the majority.
To me it would be like getting 2nd, 3d, 4th of 5th (or even worse!!) best
now you are truley being niave if you think that will ever happen Western "democracy" is about avoiding the wishes of the electorate until Election time <super cynical hat on> and then ignoring them as soon as the votes have been counted.

In an absolute sense, you are correct (unless the winning candidate has won by securing more than 50% of the first round votes). However, when second, third... counts are used then the winner has at least achieved support, all be it grudgingly, from 50% in order to win.
Nobody every claimed it was a perfect system (it's not and there isn't one). You have to decided whether it is better than the one we've got at the moment where the winner can win without having appealed in some way shape or form to at least 50% of the voters.

Naive? I'll go with idealistic if it's all the same to you. Whether it's naive/idealistic depends very much on the outcome of the vote and subsequent general election. If No/Tories win then electoral reform is pretty much dead for as long as they stay in power. If No/Labour wins then it might be a bit more interesting as Milliband actually support some sort of electoral reform (whether he could pull off an actual vote without Labour imploding is the question). If it's a Yes vote then the likelihood of a coalition increases and the chances are that it will contain the LIb Dems who also support electoral reform.
I agree totally that politicians are, by and large, scum and change to electoral system, if it happens at all, is unlikely to change that in the short term. However, baring an actual revolution, reform is a long term game.

The simple thing is, someone has to have a cumulative total of 50%. That is democracy to me and that doesn't happen at the moment.

AV is not the ideal end point but it's a step towards it. It's not difficult to understand and it's not that one persons vote counts more than anothers, it doesn't. Those whose first choice gets knocked out don't have more votes, in fact they lose out because their first choice is no longer an option. So, where some people say they are getting a second vote, to them they will only be getting second choice.

It's not difficult to grasp.

IMHO thats not democracy thats the tyranny of the mediocre and compromise. We have enough problems getting politicians/parties to agree on doing the right thing and not the popular thing.
I personally believe that AV will just breed even more mediocre and bland politics, whereby parties will be trying to target 2nd and 3rd preference choices instead of getting on and doing the job.


either go for full PR (and that has its own set of issues) or keep the system we have.
If its not difficult to understand or grasp (and Im assuming your not being condescending there ) why isnt the Yes campaign streets ahead?

I could counter that by saying that if I have voted for a candidate who is not last, then my second choice is less likely to be taken into account during the second round. Someone whose first choice is knocked out, gets another go. In essence, their vote gets counted twice, or at least considered twice during the counting process.

So far we are considering how this affects a single candidate’s standing. However, we still have the thorny issue of the resulting mix of MPs. Will we still be in the situation where the government can be made up of MPs for whom a minority of voters selected? This is where we are at the moment, and where we have been in the past. Even with a majority government, it’s likely that fewer people voted for them than didn’t. I am not sure if AV will solve that one, as regardless of methods for choosing an MP, that returned MP will fall into a party’s pool of seats in the commons, and that will dictate the split of power. That is still a “first past the post” scenario where the largest majority can be called on to form a government - the Tories could have done so alone, even with a minority. They would not have lasted long, but constitutionally, it’s possible.

I understand what you're saying, hell AV is probably the least attractive of all PR based systems but there is no other choice on the table but between that and FPTP it is the lesser of two evils IMO.


I didn't mean to be.

The reason why they're not streets ahead, well, it's because full PR is the way to go. The thing is the tories would never have agreed to that and I only see AV as a stopgap to full PR. I'm banking on this being a step in that direction but I won't be unhappy if it doesn't quite succeed but enough there's enough of an indication that people want change in order to start a proper discussion and head us on that path.

Whether the majority really give a feck is a different matter but it may encourage more people to turn out to vote. In the last two elections I voted in there was no point in me voting, absolutely none. Some constituencies votes are effectively worth more than others, parties don't get represented proportionately and until they do we won't have a proper democracy.

You're assuming they vote for more than one person.

In reality I won't vote for more than two parties at most, there's no way tory or BNP will enter my rankings. Many of the scare stories are based on the assumption that everybody will rank every candidate, that won't happen.

Right. NOW I get it. It was all this discard this and recount that that I didn't get. but I have issues.

If I use the following as an example.

There are fifty voters and five candidates.

At the first count, the Conservatives come first, but only with 20 votes. Labour have 18. Lib-dems have 6. The Greens have 4 and the BNP come last with only 2

The BNP are discounted, but their second place votes are one each for Labour and the Conservatives. Now Labour have 19 and Conservatives 21. Am I right so far?

Still there is no clear majority, so the Greens are discounted and what comes next- the third count?

So, the BNP's third places are discarded completely at this stage, yes?

So it is just the Green's papers that are counted at the third stage, but is it their second or third choice? Assuming that whichever is counted amounts to four votes for Labour, they now have 23 to the Conservative's 21 and Lib-Dems are out.

Finally, the Lib-Dem papers are counted and Labour come in with 29 and the Tories 26 which- in the first instance is stupid because there were only 50 people eligible to vote and in the second instance, Labour have got in despite the fact that they were behind in the first count and mostly fourth place votes for the other voters.

If you do the math, It might not be possible for it to work out like that, but I still don't see why a party can't get in with a minority of first place votes.

You can pick holes in this anywhere you want, because I clearly still don't understand all of the possibilities.

The only way that any voter can ensure that the less popular candidate doesn't get in is not to vote for more than one person and THEN we are back to first past the post!!!!!!!!!