James Duddridge, Member of Parliament for Rochford and Southend East, discusses the No to AV campaign and addresses some myths regarding AV.
Question : What is the AV?
Answer : The Alternative Vote system allows voters to rank candidates by preference (1 for most preferred, 2 for second, and so on) and the candidate receiving more than 50% of the vote would win the election. If a majority isn’t reached, the lowest ranking candidate’s votes are reallocated by the second preference to the remaining candidates until one receives a majority. This process goes on until a winner claims over 50% of votes.
Question : What other countries use AV?
Answer : Only 3 countries use the AV system: Austrailia, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji. Our current First Past the Post system is the most widely used electoral system in the world, used in 50 countries and by 2.4 billion people.
As demontrated on this map - the green countries do not use AV. The purple use AV and the yellow use AV and want to get rid of it.
Question : Is the AV a proportional system?
Answer : The AV is even less proportion than the current First Past the Post system. Three out of four recent British elections would have resulted in more disproportionate representation had the AV system been used.
Question : Will AV end ‘safe seats’ and ‘jobs for life’?
Answer : For up to 300 MPs already recieving 50% of the vote, the AV will make no difference in reallocating these seats. In fact, this system will actually create new safe seats since some second preference selections will serve to prop up another candidate.
Question : Will AV put an end to wasted votes?
Answer : For a seat won with 51% of the vote, 49% of these votes will still be ‘wasted’. AV does not solve the issue of ‘wasting’ votes, instead creating more spoiled ballots. In Australia, one of the few users of the AV system, 5 times as many ballots are spoiled as in UK elections.
Question : How will AV affect extremist parties?
Answer : Under First Past the Post, no extremist party has ever won a Parliamentary seat. Under the AV system, extremists parties will gain more influence because the lowest-ranked candidate’s votes will be ther first to be reallocated. This would create an incentive for mainstream politicians to try to win over extremists in order to gain their second preference votes.