Britain Votes on Voting

Our Commonwealth forebears could change the first-past-the-post voting system tomorrow for another that promises to counter partisanship.

The United Kingdom is set to vote in a referendum on electoral reform that could ditch the country's first-past-the-post (FPTP) system – the same one used in Canada – for the so-called “alternative vote." If AV passes, voters would rank the candidates in their riding. The first round would count a voter's first selection, but if no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote, the candidate with the fewest votes gets dropped and the second choices would be distributed among the other candidates until someone eclipses the 50 per cent mark. The Telegraph features a primer on what's at stake for each party and why they're supporting or opposing it.

For the “yes” camp, which seems headed for defeat, Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, argues in the Guardian that AV “will also be a step towards improving our arid and divisive political culture.” Under FPTP, candidates have no motivation to seek common ground with their rivals; under AV, MPs-to-be have to reach out to other voters to get their second-place ranking, which would change “the way we conduct political debate between and before elections, and whether we can claim that all political wisdom resides in one party.”

And over on the "no" side, the Daily Mail's editorialists make the case that “the reallocation of losing votes, until somebody gets 50 per cent, wrecks the historic principle that every citizen has one vote of equal value, which can be counted only once.” Minority or coalition governments would become the norm, and the attempts to find common ground between parties would cause a stagnation of ideas, much like the old adage that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. AV “favours bland, common-denominator politicians over bold, decisive leaders,” say the editorialists. “It rewards those who cause minimal offence – rather than those who have the courage of their convictions.”

For voters turned off by the pettiness of Canada's parties, AV poses an interesting thought experiment: Would the politics of compromise at the local level temper hyperpartisanship, or would it further the indecisiveness that was the hallmark of the last decade?