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This week, voters in the United Kingdom went to the polls and decided strongly against a referendum on switching federal elections to alternative voting, or “AV,” also known as “instant-runoff voting” (IRV). From the BBC:
UK voters have rejected a change to the voting system, a blow to Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg after heavy election losses.
Counting continues but more than 9.8m people have voted to keep first-past-the-post, more than 50% of votes cast.
The No campaign is on course to get 69% of the vote. Mr Clegg said it was a “bitter blow” but he had to accept the “overwhelmingly clear” result.
Currently, the UK House of Commons elections use basically the same system America uses for the House of Representatives: “first past the post.” Within a district, whichever candidate wins the most votes wins the seat, regardless of how few votes they get. What this means is that, in countries like the UK or Canada, vote splitting among multiple political parties can produce a party that wins a large governing majority with less than 40 percent of the popular vote.
Under alternative voting, people would mark their second and third choices. If no candidate gets 50 percent, the last-place candidate would be dropped, and his or her votes redistributed to those voters’ second choices. This would continue until one candidate finally got over 50 percent.
A tactical mistake for the Liberal Democrats
Agreeing to this referendum was a big concession the Conservatives gave to the Liberal Democrats last year to get them to sign on to a coalition government. Voting reform is hugely important to the Lib Dems because, as the third-largest party, first-past-the-post voting results in their share of seats being radically smaller than their overall share of the popular vote.
The defeat of the referendum is disappointing, especially because when the referendum was first agreed to last year, switching to alternative voting was popular. It would likely have been approved if put to the voters right away.
In retrospect, the design of this deal was a massive tactical mistake made by Lib Dems and an historically bad political move. By forming a coalition with the Conservatives for a year before the vote, the Liberal Democrats gave the Tories the ability to pursue some very unpopular legislation. These unpopular actions tainted the Lib Dems, and made the idea of coalition governments much less popular. This, in turn, helped make alternative voting unpopular, because it was seen as a way to help the Lib Dems and increase the likelihood of coalition governments in the future.
14 Comments
I really think IRV (AV) is the best way to get to the voters’ best choice — hope we get it here
I guess the Liberal Dems in the UK have been taking strategy instructions from the (Faux Liberal) Dems in the US.
I don’t understand it so I’m against it. hey, I should have been in nthjat debate last night.
Boy the Brits are dumber than shit. Their suckass-itude continues (W’s poodles). Talk about “short term”/”tactical” thinking. They shouldn’t really complain about their political system (and decline), if they refuse to vote to change it.
Their crappy political system is almost as bad United States’s despicable shithole sewer government.
Actually, you don’t… not since HAVA allowed the oligarchs to get their foot in the door on redesigning our voting systems.
The current e-voting mess in all too many states is bad enough but, in some of the places where they’ve tried it, piling IRV on top of that has resulted in disaster.
Before adding IRV nationwide can be considered many things need to be fixed first.
This is what happens when one gives in to the bond vigilantes and ratings agencies.
Last year at this time, Clegg was on the verge on joining forces with Labour. But then BNP Paribas threatened to downgrade the UK’s credit rating if he did — and bare hours later, Clegg and Cameron were in the midst of a shotgun wedding.
In exchange for what turned out to be a valueless promise to back IRV, the Tories got to ram through austerity measures that are sending the fragile UK economy into a tailspin and the LibDems lost whatever they gained last year.
I was thinking something similar although I wasn’t going to put it as harshly as you have. I was thinking: “Hmmm. A significant chunk of the voting populace in the UK are complete morons, just like in the US.”
“Historically bad” is putting it mildly. The LD helped Cameron’s Tories form a majority in Parliament. That coalition has pushed a scorched earth policy to denude the public sector.
In essence, the Tories are seeking to do what Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Heath and their successors chose not to do or failed to do – dismantle the social safety net put together with overwhelming popular support by Attlee’s goverment after the Second World War.
Cameron is resoundingly unpopular, but his Tories carried the day because the LD’s split the left. It ought to be the end of the LibDems. If only Labour’s public bona fides hadn’t been put to the sword by Blair and Brown, there would be an alternative to Cameron and his hordes.
They do prefer the tried and true. Sadly, all they get from Cameron is trying and true blue bloody Tories. His entire Cabinet is made up of Oxbridge dining club effetes. However many rugger tries they might be capable of scoring, if they ever used the term beyond its dating and lobbying context, none of them have ever needed and will never need to work a day in their lives. “Going without” for them means driving their own car or missing out on champers before dinner.
Britain is missing the same capable opposition that might keep Obama on his toes, too. Without a credible replacement government waiting in the wings, what would voters have been voting for?
In which case, you’ll see how hard it is to persuade an electorate that it should change a voting system they’ve been using since they got the vote. You’ll also see that only Naderites and lefty blogs would support PR here, and the PTB would vehemently oppose it, since it weakens the reliability of their hold on power and, hence, their ready access to lobbyists cash.
Thanks for the BNP Paribas link. That explains a lot!
Too bloody right. Clegg has been outmaneuvered and out-savaged by Cameron at every turn. Since neither of them would win an outright majority if a general election were held now, they remain together, but sleep in separate beds.
Pity is, Blair and Brown rid Labour of progressives and anyone with charisma who might outflank them from the left, which leaves the party without a top team or good story to sell. They don’t want a general election either. As always, muddling through is the order of the day.
the way to reform the US voting system is to allow voters to cast a negative vote, i.e., to vote against a candidate. Voters could do one or other: vote for a candidate or vote against someone – same one person, one vote.
Allowing negative voting would bring disgusted and conscience voters to the polls. Case in point, a significant number of liberals would far prefer to vote against obama’s opponent in 2012 than vote for obama. It would serve the main goal of keeping a batshit insane republican out of the White House without having to stoop to the morals-twisting endeavor of voting for the two-faced republican in sheep’s clothing obama. It could possible also allow viable third parties.
There are arguments for and against adapting this idea to American elections but it does have one advantage: unlike IRV, negative voting doesn’t give our owners an additional excuse to demand e-voting as a prerequisite for implementation… although they will do that regardless of what system is adopted.