The toxic legacy of the AV referendum campaign

If I am honest I am still quite bitter about the 2011 AV referendum campaign and its outcome. Let's not kids ourselves that AV would have been a panacea. It definitely wouldn't have been. But it would have been a small step in the right direction, introduced people across the country to the idea of preferential voting and helped to ensure our MPs had a moderately stronger claim to each be there with in some cases broader support than they get under first past the post. So I am disappointed about the legacy the loss of the campaign has bequeathed us.

But what I am despondent about is the legacy that the winning No2AV campaign has bequeathed us.

Because that camp has post-hoc legitimised the misleading and outright stupid tactics that they pushed. Never mind about the truth, let's just pretend that AV is going to cost £250 million. By the time the Yes side has come up with a response the lie will have taken hold and they will be on the back foot. I've got a good wheeze: Let's publish a picture of a soldier and strongly imply that if people vote for AV they will not get the bullet-proof vests they need.  No, no hang on! I've got an even better one. Let's publish a picture of a new-born baby and even more strongly imply that if people vote for AV, sick children will not get the equipment they need. Oooh, I've got it! Let's come up with a spurious and tendentious set of reasoning that suggest the BNP will benefit from it. Oh, hang on the BNP are against AV. Who gives a shit! Let's say it anyway! Once we've released the boogeyman from the jar the Yes campaign will be playing catch-up trying to rebut it.

And so on, and so on.

I'm not saying the Yes campaign were perfect, they certainly weren't. But the No side exhibited all the characteristics of a "Whatever we need to say to win and hang the truth" campaign.

And of course they did win. Massively.

So with the Scottish independence referendum campaign coming up next year and a likely EU in/out referendum campaign in the next parliament I genuinely fear what sort of utter bollocks is going to be pushed, probably by all sides.

We've already seen huge arguments over North Sea oil where as far as I can tell misinformation is being heavily pushed by both sides and also scare stories about Sterling (Scotland could easily carry on with the pound if they wanted but why let the truth get in the way?).

And with the incipient EU campaign there are signs of where this is all heading with Nigel Farage leading the charge claiming that 75% of our laws are made in Brussels. This is simply a lie. It is 10% at the absolute most. And the pro-EU side has been at it too with Nick Clegg claiming that 3 million jobs are at risk if we withdraw which is such an extreme reading of the possibilities that it is effectively a parody.

I'm not saying the AV referendum campaign has caused all of this. But it has taught everyone involved in politics a toxic lesson. No matter how ridiculous the lie during a referendum campaign there is no effective oversight or consequences so make em big and make em scary.

All that matters is that you win.

Outline of a No2STV campaign

Now that the AV referendum has been lost, those of us who supported the change are licking our wounds and wondering when the next opportunity for electoral change for the Commons may present itself.

At the moment it is looking like a long way off. However I think in the aftermath of the failed AV bid it is worth having a look at what those of us in favour of electoral reform can learn from this campaign to be borne in mind in the future, whenever the next opportunity may present itself.

The system I and most other Liberal Democrats (and more generally most in favour of electoral reform) favour is Single Transferable Vote. It is much more proportional than FPTP (or AV) but importantly it is similar to AV in that you rank candidates in order of preference. The big difference being that more than one MP is elected for each larger constituency (between 3 and 6 is optimal).

Having witnessed at close quarters the tactics used by the No2AV campaign I think we are in a position to at least have a stab at predicting what the outline of a No2STV campaign may look like further down the line. I think this will be a useful exercise in order to ensure that those campaigning for a Yes vote are ready to handle the sort of things that are likely to be thrown at us.

Here are variations on five campaigning messages that I expect we would face:

1) "It's too expensive". This was one of the No2AV campaign's most pushed lines certainly in the early days. Having spoken to people it would seem that this message was resonating. The claim that AV would cost £250 million was bunkum. But it worked this time so you can expect it will be tried again. And of course next time it is likely to be harder to rebut as we already know that counting machines are used for some STV elections. I would suggest that the response to this has to be firmly and consistently on the basis of principle. Moving to STV may cost a little more but what price democracy? I have made the point previously that moving to the universal franchise (twice as many ballot papers to print, issue and count) was more expensive but nobody seriously argues now that women should not have the vote. I have found when trying to make this point that I have faced scorn for appearing to try and conflate votes for women with electoral reform but I maintain it is a fair comparison because to argue it is too expensive to change the electoral system is a diversion and this highlights it. A Yes2STV campaign would definitely need to get on the front foot regarding this message from the off.

2) "It's too complicated". Again, this is a message that was used to apparently good effect against AV. And let's be honest, if AV is considered too complicated then STV could arguably be even more so. Even though I certainly think most people can grasp the concept of what is going on in both cases, a big failure of the Yes2AV campaign was in educating people about how it works. Instead of the first referendum broadcast featuring people shouting at "MPs" using megaphones they would have been much better off explaining how AV actually works (there was none in that broadcast) and highlighting a small number of key reasons why it is better than FPTP. Similarly for STV it will be vital that the system is concisely explained as often as possible and with key messages as to why this is better. With STV I actually think the second part of this will be easier because there is a very clear message regarding fairness with the proportionality factor.

3) "It will help the BNP". Or substitute BNP for whatever extreme party (or parties) exist at the point of the campaign. It proved remarkably difficult to shake this accusation against AV during the recent campaign. This was particularly surprising to me because the BNP was actually in favour of keeping FPTP. However the No campaign rather deftly managed to sow confusion by discussing how lower preferences from those voting BNP as their first preference could end up "deciding elections". I am not going to deconstruct the counter arguments here, it has been done elsewhere many times (best example I have seen is here in this excellent post by mathematician Tim Gowers which incidentally rebuts pretty much all the No2AV campaign's claims) but I will make the point that if the No2AV campaign was able to make this message stick when the BNP are against the change themselves, then I think we can have a pretty good guess at how hard they will push this message when the BNP are likely to be for the change. And I would imagine moving to a more proportional system, even STV would be something that extremist parties like the BNP would be in favour of. I actually think it would be pretty hard for parties like the BNP to get any MPs under STV because it is preferential and therefore makes it very hard for parties that are actively strongly disliked by most people. However having seen what happened during the AV campaign I would expect this message to be drowned out as it relies on a fairly detailed understanding of the underlying counting process for STV. What I would suggest for this message right from the off is that it needs to be rebutted with the argument that the way to beat parties like the BNP is not to rig the electoral system against them. All that does is make them look like martyrs. Instead the way is to beat them by arguing against their extreme and unworkable policies. There are other arguments that can be deployed here too but I think the one of principle is the one that is on strongest ground and should fit in with other campaign messages well too.

4) "Under STV, candidates that come first can end up losing". This was another effective message from No2AV. Of course it all depends on what your definition of "coming first" is. No2AV was relying on the number of votes after one round of counting which is what we are all used to under FPTP. Because under STV there would be multiple seats up for grabs it would be a little different. But I can certainly imagine them trying to argue that STV is "unfair" because a candidate that is way behind when first preferences are taken into account could still eventually end up getting a seat. I expect because the move would be to multi-member constituencies that the change is quite wide reaching and therefore a direct comparison with FPTP is harder. But I am certain No2STV will find a way, and probably quite an effective way of portraying this as unfair. It would be tempting for Yes2STV to try and rebut this claim with technical details but I think instead the "fairness" mantle has to be seized immediately by Yes regarding the proportionality argument. Once people understand that the proportion of MPs elected will be much closer to the number of votes cast, any claim about fairness regarding second, third and so on preferences would hopefully have much less potency.

5) "It will lead to weak and unstable government.". The Yes2AV campaign expended quite a lot of energy trying to claim that coalitions and hung parliaments were no more likely under AV than FPTP. This was a very defensive approach and they may well have been better off trying to argue in favour of coalitions in principle rather than the rather muddled messages that ended up coming across. At least a Yes2STV campaign would have little choice but to argue from the off in favour of coalitions as STV is certainly much more likely than FPTP to produce them. Indeed that is precisely why most campaigners for reform want it!

This is obviously just a very first pass by someone who is admittedly biased but followed the campaign from both sides with great interest. I was disappointed by both AV campaigns as I have blogged about in detail previously. But I still think it is worth thinking ahead whilst the wounds the Yes campaign are licking are still very fresh! I expect others will have their own ideas and I have almost certainly missed some important lessons here. One that springs to mind instantly is the "multiple votes" argument. But I am very tired of rebutting that particular one and let's face it, we have a lot of time to learn all of the lessons!

In conclusion, in some ways STV will be easier to argue for than AV. It has some advantages over FPTP (from a reformer's perspective) that are probably easier to sell than AV. Its proportionality is whatever your view certainly a clear change, rather than the rather mixed change in this respect that AV would have given. However the counting process is harder to explain than AV and that is the area in which I expect No2STV would try to make the most capital (I plan to come back to this point in a future post where I will discuss some other potential broader consequences for the electoral reform movement from the AV No vote). I think another thing that is clear from the AV failure is that more time would be needed to ensure the new system could be explained and understood much better than AV was by 5th May 2011.

Oh, and one more very important lesson. Please, please, please let's not have the referendum on the same day as any other elections!

FOOTNOTE: I have made the assumption for the purposes of this post that an STV campaign would follow roughly the same blueprint as the AV one did, i.e. a single question referendum with only two choice with a No and Yes campaign batting for each side. I actually think there are much better and more sophisticated deliberative processes that could and arguably should be used for something as important as changing our electoral system but that argument is for another day.

This post was first published on Dale & Co.

There are more important things than AV, so....

One of the arguments I keep hearing against the Lib Dems regarding AV is that there are loads of more important things than electoral reform (the economy, the health service, schools etc. etc.) and that it is disgraceful that the party should have insisted on a referendum on AV as part of the coalition agreement above all these other things. Margaret Beckett was at it on Any Questions this week, although Lynne Featherstone rightly pointed out that lifting the lowest earners out of tax and the pupil premium and green investment were all considered of equal importance too given they were the 4 things on the front of the manifesto.

So straight away this line of attack is untrue. However I accept the point that some people will view wanting to change the electoral system as of less importance than various other things. The problem is that is not peculiar to now. There are always things that need to be sorted out and the argument that "now is not the right time" could be used in perpetuity.

And this is why that particular argument irritates me. Because it is a cheap way of trying to retain the status quo without even trying to argue based on the merits or otherwise of the systems on offer. It is simply an attempt to paint those who advocate change as doing so in bad faith and distracting from "real" issues. Like the method used to elect our primary legislative chamber (that the British people have never had a say on) is completely unimportant.

Anyway, I have a suggestion for all of those in the No2AV camp who think the referendum is a distraction and that there are more important things to focus on. If you take an average of the polls it would appear that a majority is already in favour of AV. So how about we change the voting system to AV without a referendum? This will certainly take less time and be less of a "distraction" from other legislative priorities.

We can keep it for future elections and then, at some point in the future where everyone agrees that there are no other pressing priorities, we can have a referendum to see if we stick with AV or switch back to FPTP.

Does that sound fair?

No, didn't think so. I think we all know we would never reach that mythical point where there were no other issues that some would consider a higher priority than voting on the electoral system.

As I keep saying, the No camp should be arguing for the merits of FPTP. After all, that's what we will be stuck with if No wins the day next month. Instead they seem determined to argue on spurious costs, illogical nonsense about multiple votes, erroneous claims about the influence of the BNP under AV (in that case why are they campaigning against it?) and arguments that we shouldn't be having this vote in the first place.

Oh and the latest one that Yes leaflets are somehow dodgy because the people used on them have been regionalised and hence a black Londoner is not on the West Country leaflets.

I just hope the level of debate gets better in the remaining weeks of the campaign. I suspect my hope is forlorn though.

How a campaign against women's votes could look today #Yes2AV

Inspired by:

Could the 40% threshold tactic badly backfire for the #No2AV camp? (#Yes2AV)

Morus has a fascinating post on Political Betting today where he highlights a rather obscure feature of the AV referendum legislation which is that Nick Clegg, who is responsible for the bill and its implementation is actually more empowered by the 40% threshold clause. It means that he can make a judgement call about whether the turnout justifies the change. The 40% threshold is not binding.

Of course if the turnout is very low and the victory is small, with the threshold amendment in place it may be politically very difficult to put the change through. However I can well imagine were the amendment to stand that because the No camp would then have a real incentive to dampen down turnout that we could well find a large majority for change albeit on a turnout below 40%. Let's hypothesise that the turnout is 32% (a good few points below the 40% threshold) but that the figures are 65% for and 35% against. Were the threshold to stand, an outcome like that would be very possible because of how the voting dynamics could be affected. However if you then look at what the actual percentages of those voting yes would be compared to the voting register it would actually be 65%*0.32=20.8%. In other words more than enough to have won the referendum even if the final 8% of abstentions that would have taken us up to the 40% threshold had all voted no. Under circumstances like that I would expect implementing the change would be widely seen as democratically and morally correct.

Of course this is all speculation and the most likely scenario is that the amendment will be overturned and no threshold will apply. That is basically what David Cameron said would happen at yesterday's PMQs.

But there is another twist here. Because the 40% threshold has had so much publicity over the last few days even if/when it is overturned there will be some people who will not be aware of that fact and will still think it applies. Therefore some who were planning to actively vote "no" may well be tempted to sit on their hands assuming an abstention is tantamount to voting "no" or at the very least is a help to the cause. They will be wrong about this and will in fact be helping the "yes" camp. At the same time, of those who were planning to vote yes, if any mistakenly think the threshold applies the incentive will work in the opposite direction and they will be more inclined to vote! And with things so tight, that could make all the difference.

It could be that the 40% amendment tactic by the Lords, even if it doesn't actually make it onto the statute books is the thing that helps this referendum to pass.

Wouldn't that be an irony?

#No2AV Finance Director is ambivalent about preferential voting (#Yes2AV)

Recently I have had a number of Twitter debates about the AV referendum with Charlotte Vere (@CharlotteV), the Finance Director of the No2AV campaign. They have usually consisted largely of her claiming that nobody really wants AV and me pointing out that most reformers, and certainly all of those backing Yes2AV genuinely think AV is an improvement over First Past The Post.

However yesterday the discussion took a turn for the interesting. I realised that Charlotte was the Conservative candidate in Brighton Pavilion in the general election last year. What makes this pertinent is the fact that the Conservatives ran what they called an "open primary" in that constituency to choose the candidate (it was actually more like an open caucus as the voters had to attend a meeting but it was still an open process with any voter from the constituency able to attend). And in this selection process, they used, wait for it, a "run off" system. The way it worked is that there were 6 candidates and the voters chose the one they wanted in the first round. The lowest placed candidate was then eliminated and the voters then voted again for one of the remaining 5 candidates. Then the lowest placed was eliminated and the 4 remaining candidates were voted on etc. etc. until we ended up with two candidates and ultimately one winner.

Sound familiar? It sounds remarkably like the Alternative Vote to me. The only real difference with the run off system is that the voters vote in multiple rounds. With AV all the rounds are combined into one ballot with all the preferences (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.) listed at the start of the process. I really cannot see a fundamental difference between the systems. They both allow the voters to choose 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. preferences to ensure that their views can influence the final round of voting.

From this report in the Brighton Argus it would appear that the vote during the Brighton open process was quite close. Two of the lower placed candidates were eliminated simultaneously and there were audible gasps when one of the lower placed candidates went out suggesting there was significant support for them. We do not know the exact numbers as the totals from each round were kept secret but I think it is fair to say from the way the voting went to the final round that no single candidate had a big lead throughout the process. Therefore there is a significant chance that if instead the winner had been chosen at the end of the first round of voting which is what happens under First Past the Post, Charlotte may well not have won at all and the candidate could have been someone different. Ironically had that happened, her profile would not have been so raised and she may not have been chosen as the finance director of the very organisation that seeks to deny the electorate a very similar preferential process for Westminster elections!

Charlotte herself claims that different elections require different systems but when I pressed her on the specific reasons as to why an open primary type vote and a constituency election should use such differing systems she did not respond. To be fair, she may have been pressed for time and of course Twitter is not the ideal medium for lengthy explanations so Charlotte is quite welcome to use the comments below this post to respond. I hope she does as I am genuinely interested to know what her reasoning is on this.

Whatever the response is though I think it is fair to say that Charlotte Vere, such a vocal opponent of a preferential voting system for Westminster is actually pragmatic enough to recognise that such a system has real strengths. Which suggests to me that in reality she is fully aware of the benefits of such a system having been the beneficiary of it herself just over a year ago. I am basing this on the fact that as far as I can tell she has not decried the system used to select her and her opposition to preferential systems was certainly not strong enough for her to refuse to participate in the selection process.

So why do the Conservative party more generally so vociferously oppose a preferential system for Westminster whilst simultaneously using a preferential system for their own open selection contests? I suspect it is down to the dynamics of the two processes. In the case of an open selection, what they are trying to do is select a candidate with the broadest appeal. After all they want that candidate to ultimately win the subsequent election. Therefore if they were to use FPTP for the selection there is a real risk that the candidate selected would appeal to a minority of the electorate in the constituency but a majority of that same electorate would not want to vote for them. By using a preferential system for the selection they try to ensure that their candidate has broad appeal. Or at least the most broad appeal of the 6 or so candidates they put up. It is a good indication that they are likely to be fairly popular.

However when it comes to the election within the constituency, they think the best way to ensure a win is to use First Past the Post. And in a good year for the Conservatives they are correct. Last year they won just over 47% of the seats on 36% of the vote. A significant number of their MPs did not get at least 50% of the votes cast. Which means a majority of the voters in the seats of many of their MPs did not vote for them.

I of course understand that political parties want to win seats and the Lib Dems are often accused of wanting to change the electoral system to suit them. I think the big difference is one of consistency. The Lib Dems always advocate preferential systems. We use AV for our internal committee and leadership elections and ultimately want STV* for all other elections, both local and national.

Whereas the Conservative Party seem to want to have their cake and to simultaneously eat it. They choose a preferential system where it suits them in open selections and strongly oppose it where they think it would not benefit them for Westminster elections. Which suggests to me that deep down they are not opposed in principle to preferential voting. Only when they think it will not help them.

If one of the leading lights of the No campaign is ambivalent about the benefits of preferential systems, which also reflects the inconsistent view of her party does this not undermine the credibility of the Conservative opposition to a change?

*STV is AV with multi member constituencies.

UPDATE: After a further Twitter chat with Charlotte she has declined to come onto the blog to give her side. She claims that this post is a "ridiculous personal attack" which makes me look stupid. I of course disagree! She also claims that AV and runoff in rounds are different systems and that AV is not suitable for national elections. I am still none the wiser as to how she justifies the use of a preferential system for a selection and yet fervently opposes a similar (albeit not identical granted) system for a constituency election. And it looks like I will remain none the wiser as she is not going to explain. Which I think is a pity.

Dr Phillip Lee MP writes to me about AV

I recently asked for the views of my local Conservative MP Dr Phillip Lee regarding the potential change to the AV system. I was hoping for some measured and nuanced views on this from someone who is undoubtedly an intelligent and thoughtful man. Instead I got a list of recycled canards which look like they have been cribbed directly from the No2AV campaign literature.

You can judge for yourselves as I have scanned the letter in and included it below. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

MPs against AV were on average worse expenses offenders

In May 2009 I caused a bit of a stir when some analysis of the expenses scandal I published on this blog suggested that there was a correlation between the safety of an MPs' seat and their likelihood of having been involved in the expenses scandal.

Now we are less than 4 months away from what is likely to be the date of the Alternative Vote referendum, and given the noise the No to AV campaign are making about which MPs are against change I could not resist having a look at the data to see if there was any link between the size of the amount that MPs were made to repay by the Legg inquiry and whether they are for or against a yes vote on AV.

As my source I took the data published following the Legg inquiry. I then filtered out all the MPs who had either retired before the 2010 election (taken from this Wikipedia page). Then I filtered out all MPs who lost their seats in the 2010 election (using this Wikipedia page as a starting point to see which MPs are still around). The purpose of this was to come up with a list of MPs from the current parliament for whom we have a definitive ruling from Legg about how much they had overclaimed and for whom we also have a good idea what their views on AV are.

For the views on AV I applied the following:

1) I have taken the list of Labour MPs that the No2AV campaign recently claimed as against AV but removed those 5 MPs that Left Foot Forward since revealed are actually for AV. I have assumed that the rest are in favour of AV.

2) I have assumed all Conservative MPs are against AV.

3) I have assumed all Lib Dem MPs are in favour of AV.

4) I have assumed all Plaid Cymru, SDLP, and Green MPs support AV based on this article.

5) I have taken out of the equation all SNP, DUP and Sinn Fein MPs as they are declared as undecided at the moment based on this article.

Before the results, the caveats. I accept that this is preliminary and incomplete data. We do not yet have an absolutely definitive list of which MPs are for and against AV. What I have done is the best I can with the available data. There may be a few Conservative MPs who come out in favour of AV and there may be a few more Labour MPs who are against. However I did feel that we are pretty close to what the final position is and it may be the case that we do not actually get a definitive picture before the vote.

Using the above described data I found that there are in total 412 MPs whom we can consider having been in the previous parliament (and hence we have Legg expenses data for them) and for whom we have a good idea of their views on AV.

The average amount repaid by the MPs who according to my rules above are against a yes vote on AV is £1,784.34.

The total for those MPs who are for a yes vote on AV is £1,195.70.

Which makes MPs who are against AV on average almost 50% worse expenses offenders.

It also occurred to me that because many of the worst expenses offenders actually retired from parliament before the 2010 election, if we had been able to take a snapshot of opinion from the 2005 intake it is likely that this picture might have been even more stark. As a quick experiment I added back in all the MPs who I had filtered out as retired or lost in 2010 and indeed using the same assumptions as above, the figures were £2,408.30 on average for the No to AV MPs and £1,431.99 for the Yes to AV MPs. In other words on average the MPs against AV from the 2005 parliament are nearly 70% worse.

I am not sure what to make of these figures. There could be various reasons why the No MPs seem to have been on average worse offenders. I am also mindful that these figures could change a bit as a fuller picture of which MPs are for against emerges but I expect the final figures will be similar to this.

The fact is that neither camp comes out of this analysis looking great. The MPs in the Yes camp still on average had to pay back over £1,000 each. However at the very least I think we can say that the judgement of those in the No camp, (given the apparently significantly higher figure for them) is open to question. If they could not be trusted on their expenses, why should they be trusted on their views about the electoral system that gives them their job in the first place?

As I have stated before I want the AV campaign to be fought on the arguments, not personalities. However the No campaign seem determined to use lists of which MPs are against AV as some sort of argument to try and persuade voters to be against it. They should think long and hard before continuing this approach because as I have demonstrated here, it may backfire on them when those same voters see exactly which MPs are in the No camp.

Note: If anybody wants to contact me about this please e-mail me at markreckons@live.co.uk.