A good reason to vote "Yes"

According to research undertaken by ippr the alternative vote system would not hand undue influence to the BNP. Their study looked at results in all constituencies if the last election had been run under AV. Researchers at the think-tank ran a series of tests on two different facets of the claim by those who oppose the move to AV that the BNP would be able to "pick a winner". IPPR looked at whether there could be a mass transfer of BNP supporters' votes pushing one candidate over the 50% threshold, and that BNP voters' second preferences could overturn a favourite and help someone placed second or even third to come first. The research comes as both the “No” and “Yes” campaigns mark the four-week countdown to the AV referendum. The “No” campaign have previously aired concerns that a change in the voting system would boost minority parties, with their campaign director, Matthew Elliott, saying recently AV would "[give] BNP supporters more power at the ballot box". In an AV system, voters rank candidates instead of voting only for their chosen one. If no single candidate has secured 50% of the vote immediately, the candidate who has received fewest first preference votes is eliminated and the second preferences of their voters are redistributed to other candidates. The “No” campaign fears the second preferences of those eliminated – likely to be those who back minority parties – could go on to have profound effects further down the reallocation process. They have published a list of 35 seats in which the BNP's share of the vote was greater than the winner's margin of victory. Now researchers have looked at this assertion in two ways. They show there to be 56 seats where the share of the BNP vote exceeds the gap between the first-placed candidate and the 50% threshold they need to cross and where, if all BNP supporters transferred their second preferences as a bloc, it could help the lead candidate win. They then showed that the 2010 British election survey – which asked 13,356 people to take part in a mock election run under their AV system – found the number of seats where the second preference of those voting BNP push a winning candidate over the 50% threshold fell to 25. However, the IPPR researchers demonstrated that in all 25 seats the second preferences of the BNP are not "decisive" and the second preferences of others just as critical. They explain that in the 25, the first-placed candidate is within "spitting distance" of the finishing line and the average gap between the first and second placed candidate is 24.52%, which they say is "larger than the share of the vote of any third-placed candidate whose votes would be needed to change the result". "In other words there is no chance that BNP second preference votes could alter the outcome in any of these seats. In all of them the winner on first preferences will be the winner once votes have been reallocated in subsequent rounds irrespective of the role played by BNP votes." The IPPR researchers also dissected the idea that BNP voters could change the balance of power in constituencies by pushing a second or third place candidate into first place and over the 50% threshold on the back of its transferred votes. Results from the 2010 election show that there is not one constituency where the BNP vote share is larger than the margin between 50% and that received by the runner-up. Their researchers say: "Given the marginality and distance from 50% for both the first and second placed candidates it is true that BNP supporters' second or third preferences will be counted in the 35 seats listed by the 'No to AV' campaign. "However, the BNP vote is still very small in each of these seats, averaging a vote share of just 4.5% – yet the average distance from 50% for the winning candidate is 11.3% and 14.2% for the runner-up. Even if we assume all BNP preferences go to a single candidate (which they wouldn't) they would still require more than twice the number of BNP supporters to win under AV. BNP voters cannot therefore single-handedly change a result." The IPPR details some high profile cases: Barking The IPPR said: “The constituency [in] which the BNP has its highest proportion in vote share, it is a clear safe seat for Labour achieving over 50% of all votes and very unlikely requiring the need for 2nd preferences. All additional party votes summed – including the Liberal Democrats – would not be enough to elect the Conservative runner-up”. Morley and Outwood IPPR argued: "The BNP additional vote preferences would be counted but as the race is highly marginal – both winner and runner-up maintaining votes shares in the mid-30s – the race will be decided by the 16.76% Liberal Democrat supporters whose second preferences are more likely to go to Labour than the Conservatives." Burnley On this constituency ippr argued: "The race is between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The BNP additional vote preferences will likely be counted but the 16.61% of Conservative voters will be the decisive group who strongly favour the Liberal Democrats over Labour thus, likely retaining the seat in Liberal Democrat hands". The “No” campaign maintain that BNP voters will still have undue influence in any AV election compared with those who vote for one of the three main parties. Recent research by them showed that if the 2010 general election had been run under AV, in 70% of seats those who backed the three main parties would have been unlikely to get a second vote. Launching that research, Matthew Elliott said that in some constituencies supporters of the BNP would have had their preferences counted six times before a winner was declared. All of which assumes that those second, third, fourth and fifth preferences would go to other extremist parties. The reality is the far right are extremely sectarian and many BNP voters would rather vote Labour or Conservative than put their second vote with an NF candidate. Given this, there seems little to worry about regarding the distribution of BNP supporter second preferences. With a few weeks to go the “No” campaign has been insipid and fundamentally dishonest. They have so failed to answer the claims made by the “Yes” campaign that a move to AV would produce a fairer electoral system. This blog has been reluctant to support the “Yes” campaign because of my passionate belief that the correct voting system would have been the Single Transferrable Vote STV). This is not going to happen, so we must make full use of the opportunity to dump the defunct First Passed The Post system and change it to a more democratic approach that allows voters the opportunity to elect members of parliament who more fully represent the views of the majority. Given the options, the Alternative Vote is the only way forward and I would urge readers to vote “Yes” on May 5th