BlueSwirl

10:17 pm - Yes To AV - Please distribute!

In Defence Of AV

This is just a quick post to address what I perceive to be the one of the main arguments of the No To AV campaigns. To use their own ham-fisted analogy, the runner who finishes in second gets the medal.

What I thought I'd do, then, would be to demonstrate what would happen under First Past the Post and Alternative Vote in two situations. In the first, one party has more than 50% of the vote, and in the second, no party has 50%.

Scenario 1: One Party has more than 50%


Here you can see an election for which Party A, B, C and D is standing. Let's see what would happen under each voting system.

First Past the Post

Party A has more than 50% of the vote. Party A wins.

Alternative Vote

Party A has more than 50% of the vote. Party A wins.

Scenario 2: No Party has more than 50%


Here's the same election, but with different results. What happens under each system?

First Past the Post

No party has a clear win. Now, the parties enter into talks behind closed doors, making deals, making promises to each other, changing their election pledges, trying to form a coalition to get that 50% that they need. The people have no say in this. It's up to the parties alone. Will Party A join with B? Or C? Even D would give them enough votes to take power. What will Party B say to get power? Will they change the promises they made to us? Again, the people have no say.

Look at the situation we're in now. As far as I know, the Conservatives got approximately one third of the vote. They formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. For whatever reason, the LibDems have broken many of their election promises. What have we ended up with? A government for which only one in three voted for, a party that's destroyed their reputation, and a lot of angry people. What ever your political leanings, you have to agree, this isn't a great place for us to be in. It's not really democratic, is it?

Alternative Vote

Under AV, in this situation, we would look at the second choice of people who voted for Party D. Assuming they all didn't put Party A, we might end up with something like this



Still no clear winner. Lets look at the second choice of people who voted Party C. If that second choice turns out to be Party D, who've been removed from the running, we look at their third choice, and so on. We might end up with something like this:



Party B has just won, even though after the first round of counting they were in second. But it's more likely that we'd get something like this:



This is how we've ended up with the No To AV campaign's idea that the person in second would “win the race”. Sliding gently past the broken analogy, let's look at what really happened.

There was no clear winner, as no party had 50%. (I.e. no one had won the race, it wasn't over yet!) So we looked at the second and third choices of the voters, we looked at what the people wanted. No deals behind closed doors, no coalitions decided by the parties, no government formed by a party that got 33% of the vote.

In short, when we get a situation like we did after the last general election, we the people decide how to break the dead lock. Us. Not them. Remember, we elect them. We are their bosses, not the other way around. Under AV we would have got one clear winner, not a coalition.

To use the race analogy so favoured by the No To AV campaign, under First Past the Post, it's perfectly reasonable to give the gold medal to the guy that ran half way around the track and fell over wheezing, just because he ran further than the other guys.

Don't fall prey to the scaremongering. Vote Yes to AV.

Please distribute this as far as you can - tweet it, email it, post links in your blog! Download a .pdf here. Print it out and leave it in your place of work! Feel free to edit and redistribute! Attribution would be nice, but not required.

EDIT:

Some more links that demonstrate how AV really works:
Better than dogs**t when you prefer Smarties. (Contains naughty words.)

Betting on horses is not the same as democracy.

Is AV better than FPTP? A nice blog post explaining how most of the No arguments are wrong or flawed.

AV vs FPTP explained using cats. A cute video that explains why FPTP only works with two candidates. Don't let the country go to the dogs!

Current Mood: hopeful

07:41 pm - Why I Drew Mohammad

I recently made some people, understandably, really rather angry when I drew the prophet Mohammad recently.

Despite my best attempts, I think I was unsuccessful in explaining why I did it.

I found an article via one of the Twitter feeds I follow that explains it better than I could. I hope people will give it a read, and understand that what I was doing was not meant to be juvenile, or an attack, or insulting to any rational human being.

Islam: Relax, It's Just a Religion

Key parts:

Draw Muhammad Day was about freedom of speech, and an individuals right to challenge the idea of a god without being threatened, or forced, into compliance with another person’s ideology. It was not about race, ethnicity or nationality. It was about ideas, and the freedom to have them, and express them.

[...]

Drawing Muhammad was a peaceful protest against the threats, violence, and murder of those who have expressed their ideas peacefully. A violent reaction to a peaceful expression is not appropriate.

Links and emphasis added by me.


Remember, it's just a ride.

Current Mood: hopeful

11:46 am - Everybody Draw Mohammad Day

Wikipedia Article

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is a protest against Islamists who threaten violence against individuals that attempt to depict Muhammad. It originally began as a protest gainst censorship of South Park episode "201" by Comedy Central in response to death threats from radical Islamists. It started with a drawing posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, the suggestion in it that everybody create a drawing representing Muhammad, a prophet of Islam, on May 20, 2010, as a protest against efforts to limit freedom of speech, and the movement in support of that protest.

Here's my effort:


Back Up Link


And the original call to arms (pens?):


Back Up Link

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Misattributed to Voltaire.

08:38 pm - Halo 3 ODST Give Away

Okay folks, most of you won't be able to enter this, not being US citizens, but I'll advertise it anyway. I've been given some copies of Halo 3 ODST to give away.

Click here for details.

Good luck and all that jazz.

12:06 am - Internet image of the day

This is delicious!

11:09 am - Internet Image of the Day

Well, I'm convinced.

03:14 pm - Internet image of the day

10:56 am - Got a spare ten minutes?

Then you should watch this.

Trust me. :)

02:33 pm - In Soviet Russia, Moon Explores You!

Cool!

The Earth-orbiting version of the ship would have a mass of 12 tonnes, carry a crew of six, along with no less than 500kg of cargo; while its "lunar cousin" would weigh 16.5 tonnes, have four seats and be capable of delivering and bringing back 100kg of cargo.

100Kg! Holy Flirking Schnit, that's some kick ass sample return.

More info here.

01:25 pm - A Prime Example of Why You don't Read Online Comments

John Glenn reflects on 50 years since the Mercury program.

A great article spoiled by random twats off the net. Seriously, web 2.0 has a lot to answer for.