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AV vs FPTP
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May 04, 2011, 02:20:pm
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Just based in the chance that someone is still watching my journal over here :oP
FPTP is a perfectly okay system when it's an absolute choice between two options; the option with the most votes wins. Simple.
One example of this is the referendum itself. We are being given two choices; FPTP or AV. It's obviously fair that the one with the most votes is the one we should adopt. Imagine (just for the sake of argument) that the results came in as follows:
FPTP: 40%
AV: 60%
There's nothing complex in the above, we should adopt the option with the most votes, which in this hypothetical example is AV.
The problem with FPTP is when there are more than two options. Let's imagine that the referendum wasn't just offering us FPTP and AV but also STV and Party List. Those two extra options could radically change the outcome of the election. We might see the results transform into the following:
FPTP: 40%
AV: 25%
STV: 20%
Party List: 15%
What has happened is that the vote for AV has split. Now the option with the most votes is FPTP and, by FPTP rules, that means that the 'winner' is FPTP. Notice that FPTP 'wins' despite the fact that 60% of people still prefer AV over FPTP and that AV would have won in direct context. The problem is that not everyone who would vote for AV in a direct contest would vote for AV given a wider selection of options.
That means that FPTP works fine in a two-party system. However, if more than two candidates are running for MP in your constituency (which is just about every constituency in the UK) then it doesn't work. You may end up with a candidate that wins based on a minority vote despite the fact that a majority of people would have agreed on a different candidate in a direct contest.
What AV takes into account is how people would have voted in such a direct contest by eliminating unpopular candidates until a majority agreement is arrived at.
It does this by asking you to number your candidates by order of preference and then conducting a number of rounds.
In my example, FPTP is winning the first round. In the second round, Party List is eliminated as an option. Votes for remaining options stay where they are and votes for Party List are redistributed to the voter's second choice.
This leaves FPTP at 40% and AV at 40%, meaning neither has majority support yet, so we go into a third round.
In the third round, STV is eliminated and it's votes moved. Now we're looking at a two-option referendum again; FPTP vs AV. The results are now FPTP: 40% and AV: 60%, AV now has a majority of votes and wins! Notice that this is the same result that would have occurred has it just been a direct context between FPTP and AV; that's basically all AV does - it works out how people would have voted had they been given less options.
There are other problems with FPTP that also apply to AV, which is why some people prefer other voting systems. I do think we need more reform than just adopting AV but, in the meanwhile, FPTP vs AV is the choice we've been given now. If we don't take it then we probably won't see any more referendums on reform for at least another generation.
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