Alternative Vote (AV) Yes or No?

[IR35 Avoider]

Twenty years ago I was interested in alternative voting systems as a means for improving democracy. Now it seems a ridiculously old-fashioned and trivial issue. A few years ago I sat down and thought how, starting with a clean sheet, I'd design a democracy in the internet age. The exact details of what I came up with don't matter, since it was only one of many possible systems, and my point is merely to highlight how different things might look if we don't start from the status quo. In my system:-

1. There was no physical parliament, only a hierarchy of on-line forums, each forum corresponding to a geographical location. (So UK forum would have England below it, then London below that, etc.)
2. There were no general elections, you could go on-line and change your vote for the person you wanted to represent you at any time.
3. There were no political parties. This wasn't an explicit goal, it was just a side-effect that in my clean sheet approach they weren't needed. (I'm sure I could come up with equally attractive alternative systems where political parties are actually more important than they are in our antiquated reality.)

If we are just going to reform voting within our current system then I prefer the system that I think I may have posted about after the last general election: let the first-past-the-post winner represent each constituency, but introduce electronic voting within parliament and let each MPs vote there be weighted according to how his party did in the country as a whole.

From the voters point of view, this would mean that even if you didn't get the candidate you voted for, your vote would still count equally with everyone elses in parliament, as long as the party you voted for got at least one MP elected.

Based on the result of the last election, if each thousand votes cast by voters in the country as a whole resulted in one unit of voting power being allocated to that party, and all such units were equally divided between the party's MPs, I calculated that a Conservative MP would have 35 votes in parliament, a Labour MP 33, A Lib Dem 120, and the single Green MP 286. (In addition to representing her constituency, she would be representing everybody in the country who voted Green.)

This system gives proportional representation to the parties, while retaining many aspects of the simplicity of the current first-past-the-post system, from the point of view of voters, who don't have to do anything different.

[Doggy Styles]

Internet voting is not very transparent is it.

Without parties (or other groupings) there are no coherent manifestos to vote for.

MPs cannot plan their work when anyone can start a mischievous internet campaign at any time and change them.

I can imagine the abuse.

[BlasterBates]

Twenty years ago I was interested in alternative voting systems as a means for improving democracy. Now it seems a ridiculously old-fashioned and trivial issue. A few years ago I sat down and thought how, starting with a clean sheet, I'd design a democracy in the internet age. The exact details of what I came up with don't matter, since it was only one of many possible systems, and my point is merely to highlight how different things might look if we don't start from the status quo. In my system:-

1. There was no physical parliament, only a hierarchy of on-line forums, each forum corresponding to a geographical location. (So UK forum would have England below it, then London below that, etc.)
2. There were no general elections, you could go on-line and change your vote for the person you wanted to represent you at any time.
3. There were no political parties. This wasn't an explicit goal, it was just a side-effect that in my clean sheet approach they weren't needed. (I'm sure I could come up with equally attractive alternative systems where political parties are actually more important than they are in our antiquated reality.)

If we are just going to reform voting within our current system then I prefer the system that I think I may have posted about after the last general election: let the first-past-the-post winner represent each constituency, but introduce electronic voting within parliament and let each MPs vote there be weighted according to how his party did in the country as a whole.

From the voters point of view, this would mean that even if you didn't get the candidate you voted for, your vote would still count equally with everyone elses in parliament, as long as the party you voted for got at least one MP elected.

Based on the result of the last election, if each thousand votes cast by voters in the country as a whole resulted in one unit of voting power being allocated to that party, and all such units were equally divided between the party's MPs, I calculated that a Conservative MP would have 35 votes in parliament, a Labour MP 33, A Lib Dem 120, and the single Green MP 286. (In addition to representing her constituency, she would be representing everybody in the country who voted Green.)

This system gives proportional representation to the parties, while retaining many aspects of the simplicity of the current first-past-the-post system, from the point of view of voters, who don't have to do anything different.

The German system does PR and representation at the same time.

So there is an MP for each consituency then each party sends in extra MP's to make up the proportions. Ocasionally a party will have 2 or 3 members more than they should have, because they won more constuencies than their proportional vote, but it usually makes no difference to the majority.

This would be the PR system.

The Lib-Dems think they would win out, and they would in the first election probably, but the truth is like the German liberals they'd quickly lose their role as "King-makers". You'd see more parties coming in.

[DodgyAgent]

Also, I look at the people who support AV and It's the usual suspects; Fry, Izzard et al.

Also, the Vote No campaign's political broadcast featured Rik Mayall as Alan B'stard. That alone got my vote.

Well said
Good enough for me
"no" from the DA

[IR35 Avoider]

Internet voting is not very transparent is it.

Without parties (or other groupings) there are no coherent manifestos to vote for.

MPs cannot plan their work when anyone can start a mischievous internet campaign at any time and change them.

I can imagine the abuse.

I agree with your comments in general - my system was designed to to avoid these issues.

For example, it had indirect election as a substitute for fixed-terms as a mechanism to insulate the elected from popular opinion, and allow them to do difficult things. In other words, you didn't vote for Prime Minister of UK, you chose someone you trusted to represent you locally, who voted for someone else at the next level, who voted for someone else at the level above that, etc. (Not that I believe in indirection as a principle, and I'm sure many won't like it, it was just that it was an idea that seemed to address the constraints, which included the kind of worries you mention.)

Every layer in the hierarchy is an opportunity for a sensible intermediary to moderate popular opinion towards that of better informed, more sensible and intelligent opinion.

There was no popular democracy in my system, of the kind that has blighted California (see the latest Economist) you only voted for a single person, who (presuming he/she was of relatively sound mind) presumably doesn't simultaneously support contradictory policies, like California voters who might simultaneously vote for initiatives that increase spending and cut taxes. (Even if such an idiot was elected at the lowest level, there were several layers of selecting the best mind/manifesto above that which should have sorted things out by the time you get to someone with real power.)

I should stress (for those that don't like the sound of the above) that this was mainly chosen as the simplest system that met all the constraints, if "we don't like indirection" was brought in as an additional constraint we easily come up with the next simplest system that incorporated that, along with the original constraints, which included concerns about direct/popular democracy.

[IR35 Avoider]

On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong to think political parties wouldn't exist in my system. They would provide a quick and easy way for representatives at all levels to attach themselves to a brand, and save them the effort of developing their own manifestos from scratch.

I think it was evolution rather than design that put political parties into the current system, so who knows what might happen in any other.

[PRC1964]

In the interest of balance, I give you:

[xoggoth]

If we get AV nobody here will ever get the chance to vote for a better system in their lifetimes. If we stick with first past the post the issue may arise again and you could get a chance at a significant advance towards a real democracy, a system that gives real proportionality or as near as is practical.

Some of the arguments on either side of the current poor choices are nonsense. Both claim they will exclude extremist parties but that is the last thing we should we be doing. We should have a written constitution to exclude any parties from actual power who do not commit to certain principles eg, secular, democratic, all British citizens equal, but only by allowing all views to be voiced can you get a real balance.