Is AV a step in the right direction?
No - for the most part the alternative vote (AV) is no better than our current voting system. Its few advantages are outweighed by its disadvantages. And it's no more a step towards proportional representation (PR) than our current system.
It will be said many times in the referendum campaign: "AV is not perfect but it is a step in the right direction." This is the stock position of those who actually seek proportional representation and who mistakenly see the alternative vote as "PR lite." In fact, it is a variant of our current single-member system. It is as if, to lure their true love, they are prepared to accept a marriage of convenience to an unattractive cousin while hoping for a quickie divorce after the honeymoon. We believe there is a far better electoral reform strategy (see A Plan For Reform).
The greatest problem with AV is that it fails to cure virtually every symptom of our current electoral malaise while producing unpleasant side-effects that make the medicine worse than the illness. AV will:
- Not achieve proportional or even fairer representation
- Not ensure a minority party gets even one seat in Parliament
- Not end majority governments elected on a minority of votes
- Not stop "landslide" elections (when a party gets a huge majority based on a minority of votes)
- Still be sensitive to boundary changes and constituency sizes (gerrymandering)
So we'll still be stuck with major problems. But there's more to come. Compared to our current system, AV will:
- Allow minority parties to exert potentially significant electoral power with no accountability (like lobbyists)
- Lead to "drone voters" copying party-authorized preference lists in the polling booths
- Most likely result in more pronounced landslide elections when they occur
- Introduce a new type of safe seat and possibly affect the status of marginal seats
- See a new kind of more complex tactical voting driven by political parties and their activists
Another stock position of the advocate is that AV prepares the way for PR. This is simply nonsense. In Australia AV is still used to elect members to the House of Representatives 90 years after it was introduced. In Western Canada AV for regional elections was dropped after 30 years ... in favour of first-past-the-post! If the ultimate aim is to move to a proportional system using preferential voting - the single transferable vote (STV) - it is clear that there is no need to first adopt AV. Ireland uses STV but did not introduce AV first.
AV is not a proportional system and not even a preparation for PR. The Electoral Reform Society states bluntly: "The electoral reform movement is not going to go away after AV and accept a permanent settlement that is not based on proportionality." AV is not even one small step for our democracy.
AV appears to be the worst of all worlds: it won't satisfy reformers, it is rejected by traditionalists and it will create more problems then it solves for our democracy.
