UK to vote on preference voting

At the 2010 general election, the British House of Commons produced a hung parliament, the first one for over 30 years. The final result was a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, putting Labour out of power after 13 years, and putting the UK’s third party in government for the first time since the 1930s.

In the coalition negotiations it was agreed to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote, which Australian readers will know as optional preferential voting, the voting system used in New South Wales and Queensland.

The referendum will be held on 5 May this year, alongside local elections in England and elections to the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.

There have been campaigns for many years in the United Kingdom for some change to the electoral system. The Electoral Reform Society has campaigned for decades for a proportional voting system, specifically the Single Transferable Vote (STV), as used in Tasmania and Ireland.

The Blair Labour government established an inquiry into voting systems, the Jenkins Commission, in 1998. The Commission recommended a system they called Alternative Vote Plus (AV+). The model would see about 80% of seats elected in single-member districts using optional preferential voting. The remaining 20% were to be elected by local lists in 80 regions across the United Kingdom. While it would have slightly compensated for the imbalance of single-member electorates, it wouldn’t have resulted in the election of many minor party MPs, due to the small number of top-up seats.

In 1999, the new Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Greater London Assembly were all elected using the Additional Member System, which saw a small majority of seats filled by single-member districts using first-past-the-post, with the remainder filled by top-up lists.

Up to the 1994 election, UK seats in the European Parliament were filled by single-member electorates using first past the post. From 1999, these seats were filled by party lists in large regions – nine regions in England, as well as Scotland and Wales. Northern Irish seats are filled using STV. STV is also used for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

At the 2010 election, the Labour Party promised a referendum on AV, while the Liberal Democrats continued their long-term support for a truly proportional electoral system. Once they formed a coalition with the Conservatives, they compromised to support the more conservative AV system.

While the history of British democracy is one of gradual change from an absolute monarchy to parliamentary democracy, the vote on AV will be the first opportunity British voters have had to vote on how their national democracy works. There have been referenda on regional devolution and the European Union, but never on a key part of the British constitution.

The campaign, like any referendum campaign, has been filled with scaremongering and lies. Antony Green (who is currently in the United Kingdom following the campaign) has been working hard at rebuffing misinformation by the “no” campaign.

There have been claims that AV would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to implement due to expensive new machines (completely puzzling to any Australian voter) and that Australians overwhelmingly want to scrap the system (again puzzling), along with many others that would seem bizarre to Australians used to voting with preferences.

The No campaign has also claimed that preference voting saw turnout collapse in Australia, despite compulsory voting being introduced before preference voting. They have also claimed that AV would see the end of “one person one vote”.

The “No” campaign often ignores the example of Australia, a former British colony with a similar political system to the UK, by only comparing AV to those in Papua New Guinea and Fiji. John Howard had to point out to a BBC interviewer that Fiji  is a military dictatorship when she claimed that Fiji was looking to get rid of preference voting.

On the other hand, many of those campaigning for “Yes” have exaggerated the potential benefits of AV. Many AV proponents, including the Liberal Democrats and the Electoral Reform Society, originally supporting a proportional system, and many Yes proponents mistakenly believe that AV would produce a proportional result.

All that AV really does is gives people the freedom to vote for who they genuinely support rather than vote tactically. As Antony Green has made clear, the optional preferential system tends to see most seats won by the candidate leading on primary votes. At the 2011 NSW election, 92 seats would have produced the same result under first-past-the-post. But it does mean that in a seat like Balmain you don’t have a Liberal candidate winning when such a large majority of voters supporting a left-of-centre candidate.

AV would allow supporters of small parties like the Greens to freely vote Green without having their votes wasted, and would allow a fairer result in the many three-cornered contests in the UK. Yet, the Australian example makes it clear that, even if minor party voters are free to vote their conscience, it doesn’t mean those parties will win seats.

The main difference between Australian and British politics has been thee presence of a stronger third party, with the Liberal Democrats regularly polling over 15% in national elections, and winning in a lot more seats. This has tended to produce tactical voting, particularly between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with voters voting for whichever of the parties is in a better position than the Conservatives.

All the same, first-past-the-post has seen the left-wing vote split between Labour and the Lib Dems, resulting in greater results for the Conservatives, with the Lib Dems particularly suffering.

In the past, projections have shown that Labour and the Lib Dems would both benefit from AV, with their voters swapping preferences to defeat the Conservatives.

That said, polling has changed markedly since the 2010 general election. After the Liberal Democrats formed coalition government with the Conservatives their vote dropped remarkably – with many of their left-wing voters switching to Labor. The remaining Lib Dem voter base is more right-wing than it has been in the past, and this has meant that AV would likely have different effects than in the past.

A recent YouGov survey showed that AV would now benefit the Conservatives and hurt Labour, while the Lib Dems would continue to benefit. It’s worth noting, however, that the Lib Dems collapse in polling would see them lose many of their seats, regardless of the electoral system.

It is often difficult to conduct polling in referenda. When it comes to political parties most voters have already made up their minds and vote predictably, but often voters will only learn about what a referendum means late in the campaign, and can be much more influenced by the argument. Peter Brent points out that the referendum is following the pattern of Australian referenda: “High support for the proposal at first, but decreasing as the vote approaches.”

Yesterday’s Sunday Times/YouGov poll has Yes on 39%, No on 38% and 22% undecided, suggesting that it could easily go either way. Last week’s Populus poll suggested that the No vote is stronger. The No vote wins the vote when voters have the system described to them. The “No” vote is also more concrete, with more “No” voters suggesting their vote is final.

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