UK AV Referendum Poll

[Smid]

I know this is exactly what I'm expected to say, but...

Hurry up and copy Australia's parliamentary and electoral systems, Britain. You'll like it, I promise.

I agree! I'm not overly fussed about whether or not you pick the compulsory voting, and I wouldn't object to you adopting Optional Preferential, but generally I think our system is pretty good.

[Smid]

Antony Green, on his blog dispels the myths (and outright lies) being peddled by some in the "no" camp. Apparently one organisation is quoting from the ACT Electoral Commission website, and saying that it shows how complex AV/IRV is... except, of course, that the ACT elections aren't AV/IRV, they're PR-STV...

Edit: The link goes to the blog, but not the main page of his blog, just articles tagged "UK AV Referendum"

[Smid]

I just wish the Yes camp would drop this myth that AV is somehow more proportional.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8506306.stm - Those results are way more proportional.

The problem is both sides tend to be peddling half-truths. I can't back AV because it's not proportional; if it's not STV on the table, I'll stick with FPTP where 'winner takes all' at least makes a resemblence of sense.

I like the idea of STV for reforming the Lords, while leaving some sort of single member districts for the Commons, to maximise the chance of majority governments. The Lords is meant to be a house of review, so minority opinions are best protected/heard there.

[Smid]

It seems to me that you're all essentially arguing either in favour of the Australian senate model or the Australian House of Reps model. I spot a solution.

Not a bad idea, as long as we can discard compulsory full preferencing and above the line voting.

I'm totally satisfied with OPV (optional preferential) as occurs in Queensland, New South Wales and the Upper House in Victoria (below the line, you only have to number five or more boxes - to elect five Members - so exactly like needing to number one or more boxes in the Lower House). Above-the-line isn't so bad, so long as there's also a below-the-line voting option.

[Smid]

Just to know, how many spoilt votes you get in Australia due to this silly rule ? I wouldn't be surprised if they reached 5%.

Which silly rule? There are some good reports into informal voting, and I could possibly find you an answer, but to which rule are you referring? Optional Preferential and Above-the-line voting both help prevent votes from being spoilt, although may have an effect on other elections (eg, people who just place a single preference on a House of Reps paper because they only need to number one box above-the-line), however it could then be argued that OPV in the House of Reps would prevent those votes from being spoilt...

[Smid]

He presumably means having to preference everybody, ie the not optional kind.

In that case, he has quite a strong argument - the VEC has some information in  Section 8 (Analysis of Results) from its Report into the 2006 Election.

Pages 91-93 deal with informal (spoilt) votes cast in the Legislative Assembly (which is Compulsory Preferential). Page 91 of the Report is page 5 of the PDF. In its report, the VEC questions whether informal voting has increased since the introduction of Above-the-line voting for the Legislative Council (which in turn was introduced due to reform of the voting system there - from single member provinces comprised of four lower house districts, to multi-member regions comprised of eleven lower house districts - if you want further info, I'm happy to elaborate, or you could read this fact sheet). Anyway:

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In other words, for the 2006 election, Optional Preferential Voting would have allowed at least 41.47% of informal votes in the nine regions studied (Ferntree Gully, Gippsland East, Melbourne, Mildura, Northcote, Richmond, Rodney and Shepparton). The rate of informality generally increases in line with lower levels of education, a higher proportion of people born overseas (generally), and a higher proportion of people who do not speak English. One would assume that these people are more likely to accidentally vote informal, so OPV may lead to them being more likely to have their vote count.

To bring this back to the thread topic, I believe that the system being considered by the UK is Optional Preferential, not Compulsory Preferential.

[Smid]

Conservative former Australian Prime Minister John Howard was in a video on the BBC correcting inaccurate claims made by the no campaign, specifically that Australians are confused by our electoral system and that we desire change. I'll see if I can find a link...

[Smid]

Australia currently has a hung parliament, so it does not deliver large government majorities in every election.