First Past the Post and AV - Time for Change of Name?

[steepholm]

It's always seemed to me that the choice between AV and soi-disant "first past the post" is, like the victim of a recent zombie attack, a no brainer. Not because I particularly like AV - ironically the AV system is no one's first choice, but may just get in anyway - but because even with its disadvantages it's clearly a far more democratic system than FPTP, in the sense that it delivers a Parliament that more closely reflects the choices of the people. Arguments against AV on the grounds that it's less democratic than FPTP tend to border on the ridiculous, as in Cameron's claim yesterday that AV is "so undemocratic that you can vote for a mainstream party just once, whereas someone can vote for a fringe party like the BNP and it's counted three times." That smacks of intellectual desperation.

The only halfway-plausible democracy-related argument against AV that I've heard is that coalition governments (which are certainly more likely under AV) are given to horse-trading, and end up delivering policies that no one voted for. And of course we have the current lot to prove that point, albeit they were elected under FPTP. However, this ignores how far politics is always about horse-trading - which, under the name "checks and balances" is sometimes thought to be a good thing - and how liable even single-party governments are to forget their policies when in power (as anyone who saw Labour break their promises on student fees not once but twice will recall). In any case, the remedy remains the same: parties that do this can be thrown out at the next election, if the electorate want to do it.

There's another kind of horse-trading, though, that AV does away with - namely tactical voting. While coalition negotiations about detailed policies take place behind closed doors, tactical voting under FPTP goes on in the even more confined forum of an individual voter's skull. It is also far cruder . You have to vote warts and all for one candidate/party or another, and will be assumed thereafter to have fully endorsed all their policies, even if you only did it in a sly, political way, to keep the other person out. Actually, it's not so much like horse-trading as getting taken to the cleaners at William Hill.

Other arguments against AV tend not to be about its democratic credentials. They are either very short term ("I'm not going to do anything that will please Nick Clegg!") or partisan ("AV will offer an advantage to [insert name of party you don't like here]")* or, slightly more respectably, stress the importance of having effective government ("Coalitions may reflect the wishes of the people, but they are weak, weak, I tell you! What we need is a strong Leader who will guide us out of this mess towards a New Dawn!"). Okay, I exaggerated that last one, but I do think that people who prefer Strong government to Democratic government should at least be clear that that's what they're advocating, even though it's not an all-or-nothing choice. In any case, their premises are far from certain, given that there are both strong coalition governments and weak single-party ones.

But I was spurred to write this post by something else Cameron said yesterday, later echoed by a "No" election broadcast. Both took the phrase "first past the post" and used it to make a horse-racing analogy. "If it's good enough for horses it's good enough for the voters," declared Cameron, before adding that candidates losing their deposits should be humanely destroyed. (Something like that, anyway - I can't find the link - but he certainly drew the analogy between FPTP and winning a horse race.) Which leads me to something I've occasionally wondered before: what is the "post" in "first past the post"? Clearly it's not any kind of percentage or numerical threshold of votes cast (that's the whole problem, from the point of view of those who don't like it) so how does the racing metaphor actually work? As far as I can see, AV is much more like the winning of a race. The "finishing post" is the 50% mark, and they keep counting votes until someone passes it. So, although it may seem a little late at this point in the referendum campaign, I suggest that the phrase "first past the post" should from now on be used exclusively of the alternative vote system, while the voting system previously known as FPTP should change its name to "More Votes than Any Other Individual Candidate", or MVTAOIC. Does that make sense?

* I loved Jason O'Mahony's observation on Iain Martin's recent Mail article: "the argument that FPTP should be retained because it is the only way the Conservatives can thwart the will of the British people is, to me, weak." Thanks to nwhyte for the link.

Comments

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Cameron said if AV isn't good enough for Aintree, etc, which is probably why you couldn't find it. Here's the link.

Not sure I follow what you're saying about AV being the one that's actually first past the post.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

The post being the 50% mark, because at present it's possible to win without getting anywhere near that post - say 36% to win in a three-way split? In which case no one passes it at all. Whereas with AV it's the first person to pass 50%, which can happen in the first round if the candidate is sufficiently popular, or the second, third etc on redistribution.

The one thing I disagree with above is that AV does away with tactical voting - I think it glorifies it, and that's what's so enjoyable about it. In the Labour leadership, I actually put my first choice second, so that I could use the top slot for a pity vote. If you know you're in a Labour/Lib Dem marginal, you can still put the Greens, say, first in order to indicate that you support their general aims, giving them a little more of the moral high ground, and then decide which of the practical outcomes you prefer. This does mean local opinion polls will be more important.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I see what you're saying about tactical voting. This is one of the ways in which AV is inferior to a PR system, though still far superior to FPTP (old style).

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Well, but isn't the 'post' just *not* a 50% mark, but another.. yeah, I see what you're saying. I think it's the 'first' part that's more misleading, in a way. I always mentally translated it anyway, as meaning that votes cast for anyone other than the likely winner or runner-up were thrown away because only one of those two had a chance of coming in first.

I quite agree that AV doesn't do away with tactical voting! Although I had to explain to my younger daughter before she voted for the first time that you did NOTNOTNOT give any votes to candidates you disliked, as she thought that voting them in last place would be indicating that they were the ones you least wanted to get in. Which also makes sense in a way, though she got the idea very quickly!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Does Ireland use AV, then? I'd thought it did, but then read in that link Cameron saying that the only countries using it were was "Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea"!

I think you may be on to something in that the FPTP metaphor may have more to do with gambling than with racing, alluding to the distinction between an on-the-nose bet (FPTP) and an each-way bet (AV). But that raises additional questions, such as why isn't the current system called the "on the nose" system? And does Cameron really think that high-risk, all-or-nothing gambles are preferable to spread bets? If so, what hope for the economy?

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Ah, Cameron... Apparently our system (like that used in Australia for the Senate elections and in some states for lower house too) - is actually called STV (single transferable vote, rather than anything to do with assault vehicles!), but I didn't have the energy to read a whole article on the differences between AV and STV. Also, my mind has started to go wobbly with all these letters, and I might have got the Australian system backwards.

I certainly wasn't alluding to any distinction between different types of bets, my knowledge of betting being very small indeed. But as to your final rhetorical question, well, quite! As many people, politicians and otherwise, have been saying since your last election.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Ireland doesn't use AV. Ireland uses a system technically known as "Single Transferable Vote", in which the voter chooses preferences just like AV, but they're counted entirely differently, because the object is to produce multiple representatives per district. If you think AV counting is baroque, STV counting is positively byzantine.

[dorianegray.livejournal.com]

Byzantine, but enormous fun. And lends itself very well to complicated tactical (or silly) voting. I know people who arrange the numbers on their ballot paper to get their vote to pass through the highest possible number of candidates before finally electing one, for instance.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

No, the post isn't the 50% mark. It's a bit misleading as a term, because in horse-racing "first" refers to the passage of time, but the idea of FPTP is that the first-place candidate wins all, regardless of by how far they were first. In horse-racing, the winner is the winner regardless of whether it's by a nose or a length. In FPTP voting, the winner is the winner regardless of whether the percentage is 78% or 36%.

Curiously, in the US, though FPTP is nearly universal, the term is never used. I don't think we even have a term, it's so default. In some jurisdictions in the US, if no candidate reaches 50% there is a later second round between the top N candidates (N usually being 2, sometimes 3), rather like a French presidential election, and perhaps for that reason AV is known over here as "instant runoff" voting.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, clearly 50% isn't the post under the current system. I was trying to elucidate steepholm's point.

I find the US system weird, particularly the bit in the presidential elections where most states allocate 100% of their votes in the electoral college on the basis of what may be only 50.01% of the actual votes cast. First past the post gone mad!

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Oh no, it's not 50.01%. It's FPTP again. In 1968, for instance, George Wallace got all of Arkansas' electoral votes on 38.65% of the popular vote.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Of course - I'm so used to it being a two-horse race I forgot the years when there's a third candidate. Even weirder, then.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can see the 'first' part, but the 'post' is still eluding me.

This reminds me by the way that, traditionally, British politicians stand for election, where American ones run - which says something no doubt about the youthful dynamism of your nation, but sits even more oddly with the notion of parliamentary candidates as glossy-coated thoroughbreds.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

A post is a starting gate at a racetrack, so presumably it also marks the finish line after a circuit.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I got that, I just can't see what the "post" is in an FPTP election. "Winner takes all" makes much more sense to me, btw.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

As I suggested in another comment, it's part of analogizing the number of votes by which one candidate exceeds the others to the physical distance by which one horse leads the others.

I am reminded again of Lord Salisbury's complaint that his colleagues had gone off to the races and "all political business is held up until some quadruped has run faster than some other quadruped."

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Actually, come to think of it, the Americans do have a vaguely-used informal term for FPTP. It's "winner take all." The allusion is probably to card-playing.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I thought I might be mangling his words slightly, though the meaning is pretty much the same.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

If Cameron tried to lie to us by saying that an AV vote can "count three times", that's enough reason for me to vote FOR AV.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's what the BBC quote him as saying, anyway!

[maellenkleth]

Elane here, from the westernmost edge of the Commonwealth (or so it feels, most days).

Here in British Columbia we 'enjoyed' a referendum on the prospect of a single transferable vote. The established parties wanted nothing to do with it, of course, and so the legislative bar for adoption was set at two-thirds of the electorate. Not two-thirds of the people who could be bothered to vote, but two-thirds of thems wot were on the official List of Electors.

Needless to say, the referendum was a wipe-out.

I'd suggest feeding all politicians to the sharks (especially the Tories currently infesting Canada), but I fear for the sharks' subsequent health....

Added you to my reading-list, for what it's forth. If at all curious, LJ:cmcmck could probably give a fair capsule description of my past maunderings.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Not two-thirds of the people who could be bothered to vote, but two-thirds of thems wot were on the official List of Electors.

Seems like they knew they'd lose if they held a fair vote! Seriously, I don't know of any genuine democracy where any party has passed that test, ever. Makes you wonder why they went to the expense of holding a ballot.

Oh - and nice to meet you!