Alternative voting – why it is not desirable
XXX
XXX
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.XC_E12
November 1st 2012
Word count: 2187
STU count: 13.647
November 1st 2012
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.LA_E12
Alternative voting – why it is not desirable
What is a desirable electoral system? How does it secure a strong link between the
electorate and the government, legitimacy and proportionality?
Today it seems that there are mainly two kinds of systems in function. On the one
hand majoritarian systems, which includes, amongst others, First Past The Post(FPTP) and Alternative Vote- (AV) systems where the winner takes all, and on the
other hand proportional systems in which both the winning and the losing parties, so
to speak, are represented according to their share of the votes. Both systems are
considered to have their advantages and disadvantages in terms of securing a link
between local constituencies their MPs and in the end the government, legitimate
winners, and proportional representation – locally and/or nationally.
With Britain as the case this paper will examine the pros and cons of three different
systems, FPTP, AV and PR and argue why Britain should not go for the AV-system,
but instead work towards a PR-system or stick with its current FPTP-system. This
will be done by an analysis of the FPTP- and the AV-systems on the basis of relevant
theories and concepts. This will be combined with an analysis of the potential
advantages of shifting from a majoritarian to a proportional system.
In order to establish which system is desirable we need to have an idea about what
constitutes a good electoral system. Electoral systems are in place because democratic
legislatures are considered desirable. Therefore the systems are ought to convey the
ideas and principles of democracy. Accounting for them is a paper in itself and won’t
be covered in detail here, but Dahl’s notion about the second milestone of
development of democracy, representation, is relevant to include (Mair 2011, pp. 9094). He argues that the adoption of PR-systems over majoritarian systems was an
important step in the democratisation process in that it secured greater participation
and equality in access to parliament. Furthermore it should be mentioned that this
paper will accept Lijphardts overall conclusion, that consensus democracies are
preferable over majoritarian democracies as there does not seem to be a trade-off
between having a proportional representation in parliament and the effectiveness or
quality of the policy outcome. (Lijphardt 1999, pp. 301-305).
3
November 1st 2012
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.LA_E12
We get an idea of other important qualities of electoral systems from the writings of
Kreppel and Gallagher. They can overall largely be derived to be systems that deliver
an effective parliament and government whom voters feel represented by and in
connection with and therefore accept as legitimate leaders. (Kreppel 2011, pp. 125129) and (Gallagher 2011, pp. 182-188). It is worth noting here that Kreppel stresses
the importance of representation of critical groups and consideration for minority
groups’ interests as a significant criterion for legitimacy. Logically majoritarian
systems tend not to encourage such aspects. This broad definition only serve as a raw
sketch of what is perceived as desirable, and it is not easily translatable into real life,
as the weighing of representation and legitimacy/decisive outcome and linkage is
subjective.
In order to secure that most parts of a disparate electorate is represented according to
its share of the population there must be multimember constituencies with
proportional representation. That on the other hand according to Duverger’s, Sartori’s
Rae/Riker’s and Cox’s laws and theories (Caramani 2011, pp. 249-250) produces
fractionalised parliaments with multiple parties which inherently encourages hung
parliaments, and thereby, at least in theory, less legislative efficiency, albeit the
degree of inefficiency is debatable (Maer 2010, pp. 25-26) and (Lijphardt 1999 301305). On the other hand majoritarian systems tend to produce two-party systems,
provided that parties are nationalized and receive somewhat homogenous support
nationwide. In such systems there will naturally be a winning side, which more easily
will be able to rule uncontested and decisively due to its majority in parliament. But it
also produces a losing side, which might make up 49,9% of the voters, and whose
influence will be very limited. What remains is that in order to secure that a larger
part of the whole electorate is represented; also in the individual constituencies and
not just in parliament, a PR-system is required.
That said all electoral systems are majoritarian in the sense that they serve to establish
a decisive and leading majority in parliament, PR-systems and majoritarian systems
alike. The majoritarian systems establish this at the earliest possible stage, at the
individual constituencies whereas PR-systems seem to establish a majority, and
thereby the potential exclusion of parts of the electorate only at the very last stage - in
4
November 1st 2012
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.LA_E12
parliament. There is arguably a difference in how well represented voters will feel if
they are excluded already in the earliest stage of the political system compared to the
last due to the subsidiary principle that implies that decisions should be made as close
to those they affect as possible (Loughlin 2011, pp. 202-203). Denying up to half of
the electorate a local representative will hardly serve to enforce joint ownership of the
decisions, and thereby legitimacy decreases. Another important aspect according to
Lijphardt is that it is important that everyone affected by a decision have had a
meaningful possibility of influencing it and to participate in its creation (Lijphardt
1999, pp. 30-33). Again, excluding up to 49,9% of the electorate already at
constituency level seems to work against this notion.
Has diversity within the British electorate increased substantially since the formation
of the electoral- and party system? If we are to believe Lijphardt, then no. He argues
that Britain has a rather homogenous cleavage-constellation based on the left/rightcleavage. This is backed by Bartolini and Mair who argue that party system-volatility
in western electorates has not increased significantly from 1885-1985 (Caramani
2011, pp. 243-244). But one cannot help but questioning this claim due to the rise of
the Liberal Democrats (LD) in Britain, or for instance the 1973 landslide election in
Denmark and countless other examples of changes to party structures. Furthermore
the analysis is based on data that does not cover the last 25 years of European history.
Also there seems to be consensus amongst sociologist that especially class voting in
capitalist democracies has decreased over the course of the last 50 years (Manza
1995, pp. 141-147). In addition it is also granted that especially voters’ identification
with specific parties decreases (Caramani 2011, pp. 243-244). Therefore it seems
legitimate to question whether Batolini, Mair and Lijphardt are completely correct.
If we assume that the electorate has become less homogenous one must ask what can
be one to improve representation, proportionality and legitimacy. Is FPTP in keeping
with the times or is it time for reform? Some claim an AV-system is the answer, but it
is highly doubtful that it would solve any of the substantial problems people seem to
have with FPTP. First lets have a look at how AV would improve representation
compared to FPTP. According to The Alternative Vote Briefing Paper the effect
would be very little and almost limited to psychological aspects such as voters’
5
November 1st 2012
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.LA_E12
perception of having increased choice between parties even though it is highly
unlikely that the introduction of an AV-system would increase any party but Labour,
Conservatives or Liberal Democrats representation in parliament (Renwick 2011, p
2). The biggest impact would be on LD’s number of seats in parliament, which
according to simulations would increase significantly. (Renwick 2011, pp. 13-14). In
other words the actual outcome of elections would be almost identical to that of
FPTP-elections, only with a stronger LD. This is echoed by the independent think
tank Policy Exchange (Mcllveen 2010, p. 2). So voters might feel freer to vote as they
please without having to worry about voting tactically or “wasting” their votes, but in
reality their votes would most likely end up benefitting the same party as it would
have under FPTP as tactical voting now has been systematised in that voters can cast
a first priority vote on a party without hope of gaining a majority, and still be sure to
support their second priority with greater chance of gaining a majority. In the end it is
exactly the same outcome. Therefore AV will not benefit minority parties
substantially (Renwick 2011, pp. 14-15).
AV would not help secure a more proportional representation in parliament compared
to the parties’ actual percentage of received votes. Interestingly AV seems to actually
enforce disproportionality and may even increase the bias towards centre-left parties
(Renwick 2011, pp 13-14) and (Mcllveen 2010, pp. 7-11). Again disproportionality is
the logical outcome of a majoritarian system. The correlation of the total vote share
nationally and the number of seats in parliament is not strong as it is decided entirely
on constituency level. The only way to avoid disproportionality would be to ensure
that all constituencies have almost the same number of voters, often referred to as
district magnitude in the literature, or by introducing a PR-system. What AV actually
would do would be to make it possible for parties to form alliances and encourage
their voters to vote in certain ways, so that e.g. Labour and LD could make sure to
benefit from whoever gets the least number of votes’ second priority votes, and
thereby knock out a Conservative candidate even if he/she received a greater vote
share than the two others respectively. One can argue that this is both less and more
proportional. It really comes down to whether one perceives 1. and 2. priority votes as
equal. Again it must be concluded that the most effective way of securing greater
proportionality is to introduce a PR-system.
6
November 1st 2012
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.LA_E12
This leads us to whether AV would produce more or less legitimate winners. AV is
often held forward because it decreases the likelihood of winning with less than 50%
of the votes, but it is still possible though as voters are not required to fill out more
than one priority. Again AV does not seem to offer a definite solution to this problem.
On the other hand PR would make the entire problem obsolete, as there in terms of
representation would be no disproportionality and no one would be able to govern
without at least not having a majority against him or her. As mentioned AV entails
another somewhat debatable phenomena being that voters’ lower priority votes would
count just as much as other voters’ 1. priority votes. It can be argued that this is unfair
as it sort of goes against the notion of one person, one vote, at least in the sense that
voters can cast a vote on several candidates. It might only count once, but voters can
still affect the result with a lower priority vote, which must mean less to them than the
1. priority vote of another voter. Whether this is a problem in terms of legitimacy is
subjective, but as it is argued it is questionable whether a candidate elected on 50,1%
after 3. preference votes is more legitimate than a candidate elected on 49,9% solely
on 1. preferences (Mclveen 2010, p. 2).
Overall when it can be argued that AV would change very little compared to FPTP.
AV would to some extend increase voters’ choice among parties, or at least make
them think so, but as it has been shown the effect might very well be limited to
theory. Also AV will potentially exaggerate landslide elections and perhaps even bias
the electoral system in favour of centre-left parties, which can hardly be desirable, as
neutrality must be considered crucial. These are important points to remember when
deciding whether AV is a good idea or not. But perhaps it is even more important to
remember what AV would not improve, or at least not substantially. It is highly
unlikely that AV would eliminate safe seats (only reduce them slightly), end tactical
voting (tactical voting would be systematised under AV) or improve MPs linkage to
their voters (Renwick 2011, p. 2). On the other hand there is a system which would
improve, if not cure, most of the problems there seem to be with majoritarian systems,
and that a proportional electoral system which is in use in most of continental Europe.
PR would greatly improve representation, as it would allow more voters to have their
candidates elected into parliament and at the same time voters would be much more
7
November 1st 2012
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.LA_E12
proportionally represented. It would be neutral in the sense that there are no peculiar
systemic features build into the system that would facilitate disproportionate or nonmonotonic outcomes. It would effectively eliminate tactical voting. Voters could vote
for any candidate and be sure to support him/her and have a much higher chance of
having this candidate elected.
Therefore it must be concluded that introducing AV is not desirable from a
democratic or rational point of view. If the British people wish to improve basic
democratic elements such as representation, proportionality and legitimacy, they will
be far better of with aiming for a more ambitious reform. A reform that would
introduce real proportionality and not just theoretical improvements. If moderation is
preferred over improved proportionality and representation, then Britain should stick
with its current FPTP system and perhaps even out the magnitude of the
constituencies in order to secure greater proportionality.
8
November 1st 2012
Political Science
HA-POL_PSPT.LA_E12
Bibliography
Caramani, Daniel (2011), Comparative Politics 2nd edition.
Oxford University Press
Mair, Peter (2011), Democracies, pp. 84-101 in D. Caramani, Comparative Politics
2nd edition 2011
Oxford University Press
Kreppel, Armie, Legislatures, pp. 121-140 in D. Caramani, Comparative Politics 2nd
edition 2011
Oxford University Press
Gallagher, Michael (2011), Elections and Referendums, pp. 182-197 in D. Caramani,
Comparative Politics 2nd edition 2011
Oxford University Press
Loughlin, John (2011), Federal and local government institutions, pp. 198-215 in D.
Caramani, Comparative Politics 2nd edition 2011
Oxford University Press
Caramani, Daniele (2011), Party Systems, pp. 237-258 in D. Caramani, Comparative
Politics 2nd edition 2011
Oxford University Press
Lijphardt, Arendt (1999), Patterns of Democracy.
Yale University Press
Renwick, Alan (2011), The Alternative Vote A briefing Paper.
Political Studies Association
Mcllveen, Robert (2010), The Alternative Vote – the system no-one wants.
Policy Exchange
Policyexchange.org (accessed 31/10 2012)
Manza, Jeff, Hout, Michael, and Brooks, Clem (1995), Class Voting in Capitalis
Democracies Since World War II.
Annual Reviews
Anualreviews.org (accessed 31/10 2012)
Maer, Lucinda (2010), Hung Parliaments.
House of Commons Library
Parliament.uk (accessed 30/10 2012
9