Philobiblon

(This reflects a speech I gave at an Enfield Civic Forum meeting on electoral reform this week.)

I speak often at women’s events, and one topic that comes around regularly is the vote, and its (non)utilisation.

The discussion usually goes:
Young feminist: “I don’t vote because there’s no point. My vote doesn’t make a difference.”
Older feminist (who could be her grandmother): “How can you not vote?! My grandmother fought to get the vote, and women died for it.”
And I say: “You both have a point; what we need is a system where everybody’s vote counts.”

And then I talk about proportional representation, and how it can ensure that everyone’s vote has an equal weight.

Unfortunately, proportional representation for the House of Commons is still not on the table – although not for want of effort: Caroline Lucas proposed an amendment that would have given voters that option in May, and was backed by MPs from all parties except (astonishingly) the Lib Dems, just not enough of them.

So we’re probably going to have a vote on May 5 on two options: the current first past the post system, and “AV”, the “alternative vote”, in which voters mark candidates in order of preference, so that if their first choice candidate is not elected, their second choice vote is counted, and so on…

So what’s wrong with first-past-the-post?
Let me count the ways:
1. A candidate not preferred (or actively disliked!) by a majority of the electorate can get elected. Let’s go to Wikipedia: “If candidate A1 receives 30% of the votes, similar candidate A2 receives another 30% of the votes, and dissimilar candidate B receives the remaining 40% of the votes, plurality voting declares candidate B as the winner, even though 60% of the voters prefer either candidate A1 or A2.

2. Many people live in seats where in Westminster seats – “safe seats” – where their vote never has and never will have any impact (and you’re right AV won’t eliminate this entirely – but it will significantly reduce their number) – or they feel obliged to vote for a candidate/party they dislike, in the hope they’ll beat a candidate/party they like even less.

3. It produces dreadful political leaflets. No, really! No more badly cut out pictures of horse-racing, with the oh-so-tired caption “it’s a two-horse race here”. Well, okay, they mightn’t disappear straight away, but as voters, and politicians, come to understand the system, they’ll realise they have to reach out to 50% of the voters – perhaps with some actual real-to-life policies. I’m not saying it would be a panacea, but certainly a start.

4. It produced the politics we have now, politics that clearly aren’t working.

What about AV?

1. You get to put a lovely big NUMBER 1 beside the candidate you actually want to be elected. Maybe you, and they, know that they’re not likely to be sitting on the green benches any time soon, but you’ve been able to express your honest view (and quite possibly help save that candidate and their party a whole lot of dosh – their deposit). And you won’t fear that you’ll be letting in that dreadful candidate from the other party who you HAVE to vote against.

2. MPs are going to have to win at least some degree of support from at least 50% of the people they are going to represent. Barely one in three have that backing now. You’ve heard the sayings: “you could put a red rosette on a donkey”, or “a blue rosette on a frog” and they’d win here – a lot fewer donkeys/frogs (and I bet an MP or two has come into your mind as you read that) would be able to gaily munch/swim their way through a parliamentary career under AV.

3. You get to put one candidate LAST on your list. (Okay, perhaps for the politically-interested, but deciding who you’re going to rank the lowest is rather fun, and satisfying when you get to put pen to paper.) In Australia, for the Senate vote, I used to vote “below the line” (technical explanation here), for the joy of putting the truly dreadful Rev Fred Nile, whose aim in life was to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, number 120.

4. A “yes” vote sends a message to Westminster that you’re not satisfied with the status quo. There are people saying “if we make the change now it will be decades before we get a shot at PR”, but if the political class gets the message that first-past-the-post is just fine and hunky-dory with the electorate, it’s only going to take even longer to get real change.

So what claims do the “no” camp make?

1. You’re more likely to get hung parliaments. Two answers A. Have you looked at the parliament now? (and in the 20s and the 70s). Australia has had AV for the best part of a century and has had fewer hung parliaments. B. Hung parliaments are actually how the majority of Europe, and a large number of other countries, are used to operating. It requires negotiation, compromise and flexibility. Are these really bad things?

2. It will let in extremists. ENTIRELY wrong. There were real fears, happily not realised, that the BNP or UKIP might have got a third of the vote in a seat or two in the last election, and so ended up with seats. The 50% level is tougher, and in any conceivable future insurmountable.

3. It’s a tradition. Tradition is fine in its place – bog snorkelling, warm ale and pancake day may keep you entertained and your tummy temporarily satisfied, but we’re talking about a broken political system here. It’s past time to fix it.

4. The Lib Dems are in favour of reform. Yes – but please don’t hold that against it; lots of other people are too!

Links
More about AV
The Electoral Reform Society case for AV.
The Green Party view