2015 UK General Election

[Tiberius]

I remember that and blogged about it at the time. Basically we were given the opportunity to decide whether we wanted to keep the present first past the post system or the shiny alternative vote one. The result would be tallied and the one with the most votes would win.

You know - first past the post.

Yes, but first past the post is a fair method of voting when there are only two options, as was the case with the voting referendum. It was a choice between two voting systems, the one which got the most votes won, and even if the vote had been 50.1% to 49.9%, we can all agree that most of the voters got their way.

However, when there are more than 2 options in a vote, strange things can happen. You can have a vote where one option gets 33.3%, another gets 33.3%, and the third gets 33.4%. Under first past the post, the third option is the winner. Like the previous example, they got more votes than the other option(s), if even by a small number, however unlike the previous example, they did not get an outright majority. In fact, 66.6% of voters voted against option 3. This doesn't mean that option 3 shouldn't win, but it does mean that in order to have a fair vote and properly represent the majority of the people, another voting system is needed which takes into consideration that fact that there can be more than 2 options.

This is where AV would have been great. It solves the problem of candidates winning despite not having the majority of the vote by allowing people to vote for multiple people, ranking them in the order they wish to be counted. In the first round, everyone's first preference votes are counted and tallied up. If one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, huzzah, we have a winner! If not, we move to the second round of voting.

In the second round of voting, the candidate with the least amount of votes in the previous round gets eliminated, but the people who voted for them don't have their votes discarded. Instead, their second preference votes are counted and distributed between the remaining candidates. If one candidate now has more than 50% of the vote, huzzah, we have a winner! If not, you move to the third round of voting...and the process continues, until either one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, or until there are two candidates left (which can happen if people limit their preferences), in which case the candidate with the most amount of votes wins.

Is it perfect? No. But it's a hell of a lot better and a hell of a lot fairer than first past the post. It's also the system that the parties use internally for voting their leaders! It's good enough for the main parties, but apparently it's not good enough for the people!

Oh, and before someone accuses me of being pro-AV because it would help certain parties, that's not the reason I support it. I did the math; it's a fairer representation of people's preferences. I also voted Conservative in the election the referendum was in, and AV wouldn't have benefited the Conservatives much at all (probably why they were against it).