I'm saying that, each pub offers a completely different product, while it may still be beer. If we change it to "Lets have coffee or a coca-cola". If you give them a diet instead of regular. While you've given them coca-cola, you haven't necessarily given them the product they wanted. For all you know, if they'd wanted a diet coca-cola, they would have voted coffee. You see? You can't just ignore the possibility that the ones who wanted a beer at The Red Lion and get the Queen's Head, wouldn't have wanted coffee. This is my point. 2nd place isn't best, it isn't what the majority wanted. Because they came **** 2nd. Hence why I called it x-axis manipulation. You aren't voting for a beer and a coffee, otherwise we have a 2 party system and FPTP would have allowed beer to win. What we actually have is all of the different pubs and coffee shop as a party. I don't believe in having secondary and tertiary preferences. I have my view, and I stick to it. And I'll vote for the party that mostly closely represents my view. Do you go to a football match, watch your team lose and not care because your 2nd preference won the match? No, you're still unhappy. And I'd still be unhappy if my 2nd preference won, because I wanted my ****** 1st option.
But Joel you're missing the point of the ad. It is a hypothetical example. You can't criticize a hypothetical example for not being always universally correct or not playing out one way it
could play out. The ad isn't trying to claim that this is always the case, that people voting Queen's Head would always choose another pub over coffee (which is why you are incorrect in accusing it of manipulating the x axis). The ad is simply taking an example from daily life that shows that it is
possible for a very unpopular choice to win the plurality in a FPTP system. You can claim that maybe people would choose coffee over one of the pubs they didn't like, but first of all, in this scenario that's unlikely, since chances are, 70% of the people there wanted a beer and not coffee. But second and most importantly, that is completely irrelevant. In this ad we're assuming that this is the case. That 70% of the people were repulsed by the idea of coffee that late at night, and it won the plurality simply because the people were split among 4 other more reasonable choices. Remember, it's
their hypothetical example, not yours! Let us assume that this is the case. The ad simply is demonstrating that this situation
can happen in FPTP (a very unpopular choice winning the plurality of votes). It is not trying to state that this is always or even often the case, it is simply trying to demonstrate that this is a scenario that
can happen under FPTP that
could not happen under AV, and that that's what makes AV a better system.
Now, you could claim that this hypothetical example is extremely unusual, and that's cool, but that's a different argument. So argue that and instead of saying that the ad is BS because it's not, it brings up a valid point. As for the question of whether or not such a thing can happen (for example, a really unpopular choice such as coffee winning the plurality), I just provided a great example of when it did happen. Bill Sali was an awful candidate who got the plurality in the Republican primary and embarassed the state of Idaho (so much so that he ended up losing to the Democratic candidate, giving the Democrats an Idaho congressional seat for the first time in decades). The vast majority of the people wanted one of the 5 reasonable candidates, but they all split the reasonable votes (majority of the Republican population), and the wacko elected by the most conservative 26% of the Republican population in Idaho (and remember, Idaho is as conservative as it gets) gets elected because he had the plurality in FPTP. With FPTP, you can get someone like Bill Sali elected, but this CANNOT happen under AV. That's why I'd prefer AV to FPTP. If you can think of a scenario where AV elects a terrible candidate when that wouldn't happen under FPTP, than great, please do. But so far you haven't, which is why at the moment we're winning the debate.
As far as your claim that you don't like the idea of secondary and tertiary preferences, there's a few problems with that. First of all, may I ask why? I understand that you only want one football team to win, ManU, but politics isn't football. In real life, you don't have one candidate that you live and die for and have no preference among the other candidates. Surely you have preferences for who you would like to see elected. I'm guessing you'll vote for the Tory candidate in your district, but can you seriously claim that you have no preference between the Labor candidate and the Lib Dem (assuming your Tory won't win the election)? How about between the Lib Dem and the BNP candidate? How about between the Lib Dem and the candidate from the Green Party? Between the Lib Dem and the candidate from the British Anarchist Party?
Next, you can say that you personally don't like the idea of secondary and tertiary votes, but remember, you're not everyone. The vast majority of people might not have a problem with secondary and tertiary votes...why prevent them from expressing their political opinions more accurately because you personally don't like it? As we said before, no one is forcing you to vote for the second and third choices. If you don't have them, that's OK. But why restrict everyone else from being allowed to do so?
Also, you have stated at a few times that you wouldn't want to see AV because it would put certain people in power...surely this isn't the way to decide what voting system you should use. Shouldn't you decide which voting system is best based on which is best and not on whatever system your party benefits from at the moment? While it is true that the Tories, BNP, and British Communist Party benefit from FPTP at the moment (and the Liberal Democrats really don't and would benefit a lot from AV), that's only how it is at the moment, and in one decade, it could be the opposite. Maybe these groups would all get more representation with AV in the future. So you shouldn't decide that FPTP is the best just because it's good for the Tories/BNP at the moment.
Lastly, these points aren't even all that relevant because it's not about you or me. We're debating about which is a more effective method of democracy, of representing public opinion. It's not about whether or not you 'like' the idea of secondary and tertiary votes. Even if you don't like it, if it's proven that AV is a better method of expressing the will of the people, than wouldn't you concede that that's the voting system the UK should use? We shouldn't make the debate about what you or I like, it should be about what more accurately represents the will of the people. For the reasons I stated above, I believe AV more accurately represents the choices of the populace. Because in real life, people have preferences for certain candidates. It's politics, not football. They shouldn't be forced to vote strategically, and democracy is hurt by a FPTP system that often times splits the votes of the majority of the populace between a few reasonable candidates, giving one crazy guy the plurality.
Lastly, say we do decide that the idea of secondary and tertiary votes are a bad idea, than can't we use a run-off system? If there isn't a majority, than you eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes and vote again. You keep doing this until a candidate has a majority. At least under this system you have to get a majority to win. It provides the political system with legitimacy, since the candidates elected had the majority. It prevents Bill Sali from winning the election and the group of 10 from gettting coffee, when 7 of them really don't want to. Please tell me that you'd prefer this to FPTP? If not, why?
I swear to God Joel, one of these times there will be a debate and we'll be on the same side.
---------- Post added at 02:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:03 PM ----------
Also, do you people really think it would cost billions to reform the electoral system???????? I call BS on that one. Even if it is fairly expensive, isn't it worth it? Isn't it worth paying more for a better form of democracy? I thought British people treasured their political system and took it seriously.
