Vote #yes2av so I can get some rest!
This is the last post I will make on this blog until, probably, Saturday. This is because I will be *busy*.
In a couple of hours, I will be making a two-bus journey to a target ward. There I shall deliver a couple of hundred leaflets, to go with the 500 I’ve already delivered this week. I will then come home and, if I’m lucky, get three hours sleep before getting up at 4AM to go out leafletting again. I shall then spend an entire day delivering leaflets, knocking on doors and tallying at polling stations. This will finish at 10PM, at which point I shall make my way to the Town Hall, to try to help supervise the council election count until maybe 3AM. At which point I shall go home and get some sleep before going out to the actual referendum count.
This is how I spend my holiday time from work.
And I would like not to have to do this any more. I’m not a natural campaigner – I simply don’t have the energy for it – and yet I’ve spent a huge chunk of my spare time in the last five years doing this kind of stuff. In the last year I’ve helped out at twenty Yes street stalls as well, lugging a huge table and big boxes full of heavy leaflets on buses. (And before that I helped out regularly at No2ID street stalls until we won that one).
And I’ve been doing this because we have an unfair voting system. The party I support needs to get far more votes per MP than the Tories or Labour – we have to make a Herculean effort to get the same results they get *without even bothering*. That means that if I want my vote to count the same as a Tory or Labour voter, I have to persuade another four or five people who otherwise weren’t going to vote, to vote the same way I do. And I have to do this even though I’m burned out.
I’m not a campaigner at heart. I just want to live in a world where I’m not raised to a blood-boiling fury by the government and totally impotent to get them out. If we can get AV in I might well help out a bit when I’ve got time, but I won’t feel the need to take election weeks off out of my small holiday entitlement and spend them doing heavy physical work, because we’ll have – not a totally fair system, but one where *my vote matters*.
Otherwise… well, there’s council elections next year, the Euro elections the year after that, more council elections the year after *that* and a General election in 2015. I’d better get that ‘holiday’ time booked when I get back to work on Monday, hadn’t I?
More Seven Soldiers posts on Saturday.
I Mean It, Get Out The Fucking Vote #yes2av
So the polls are showing the Yes campaign massively behind the No campaign. I’m already seeing people all over the place criticising aspects of the way the campaign’s been run, like they’ve decided we’ve lost.
We haven’t.
There are two very, very important points to be made here. The first is that polls are usually more accurate *before* an election campaign starts than during. Do you remember ‘Cleggmania’ last year? It evaporated – and the election came out almost exactly as anyone would have predicted in March.
The second is that it’s going to be down to who can get the vote out on the day. Most people don’t care about this referendum one way or another. THEY ARE WRONG NOT TO CARE – this is literally the most important decision they will ever make, and will affect everything from crime policies, to immigration policies, to tax levels, to how healthcare is run, for decades to come. But we’re looking at something like a 30% turnout. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. The No campaign have no real volunteers. They’re reliant on Tory activists and a few of the more moronic Labour people who can’t tell when they’re being used to entrench the Tories in power for another century. They’re winning the air war because they have money and we don’t, but we have volunteers. We need more though.
And this doesn’t even just affect the UK. I have seen two Canadian friends (Plok who comments here regularly and the comics blogger David Uzumeri) beg British people on Twitter to vote Yes, because then the Canadians will take notice and might be able to avoid ludicrous results like the one they just had.
The No campaign DO NOT DESERVE TO WIN. There have been faults with the Yes campaign, and whether we win or lose you can expect to see them gone over ad nauseam. But the No campaign has been built entirely on lies. The No campaign are liars, and they are lying to you in order to keep control over you. The one time I’ve met any No campaigners in real life (three local Tories who turned up for half an hour to do a spoiler stall near ours, before giving up), they joked about all the lies in their leaflets.
Understand this – the decision you make on Thursday will determine the make-up of the government for the next century or more. Do you want another century of the broad liberal-left being split between two, three or more parties, and the Tories winning two thirds of elections while getting around a third of the vote? Of ‘elected’ dictatorships with unshiftable majorities destroying industries or taking us into illegal wars when only 30% of people voted for that party? Because that’s what a No vote will mean. It’s what not bothering to vote will mean. It’s what not getting everyone you know out and voting yes will mean.
VOLUNTEER, NOW! Here’s a list of events in your area. Here are the phonebanks you can help out at. If you don’t do this, you forfeit your right ever to complain again that the government you got isn’t the one you voted for.
This image seems to be persuading people #yes2av
This image, sadly, seems to be far more successful at persuading people of the case for AV than anything the official Yes campaign have come up with. Reposting to boost the signal. 
(Not sure of the source of this, but @zombywuf on Twitter is the earliest person I can find to have posted this.)
Zatanna post in an hour or two. Klarion post (hopefully) some time tonight.
GET OUT THE VOTE! #yes2av
Before reading this, sign up for Yes In May Get Out The Vote campaigning on the fifth of May. You can come back and read why later.
I’ve not been online much for a couple of days, but even so I’ve seen quite a few people, in the lead-up to the referendum in May, complaining about the Yes campaign having not been hard-hitting enough.
I have my problems with the campaign, too, but I have a few things to say:
Firstly, the polls have us neck and neck – and that’s with polls currently biasing against people who say they’re Lib Dem supporters, to correct for over-weighting us in the last election. As Lib Dems are most likely to be in favour of electoral reform, it’s not looking bad at all.
But here’s the crucial thing – the No campaign just aren’t motivated. On the Yes side, we started organising street stalls nearly a year ago, and I’ve given up at least one weekend a month (two a month since January, and every weekend for the month leading up to the event) to stand outside accosting strangers with bits of paper, whatever the weather. By contrast, the No campaign have organised one street stall – at the same time as ours two weeks ago. Two members of the local Tory party turned up for half an hour, giving out leaflets about how Nick Clegg wanted us to spend fifty grazillion jillion quadrillion pounds on keeping him in power forever, and then left. They had a joke with us before they left about how they didn’t believe the rubbish they were spouting themselves.
The No campaign have had more money and more PR experience, but we’ve got people who actually care.
And that’s going to be the key – the No campaign’s whole thing has been about sowing FUD, and getting people confused and bored. Bored people don’t vote.
But people on the Yes side are going to be far more likely to be enthused enough to get up and vote than the No side – when was the last time you made an effort to enthusiastically endorse keeping things exactly the same as always? When have you marched, delivered leaflets, knocked on doors, or made phone calls for “don’t change everything, we’re fine as we are”?
We can win if, *ON THE DAY*, we get everyone we can out and voting. Get Out The Vote campaigns can win elections – I helped out in Northenden at the council elections in 2008 where the Lib Dems won by *two* votes, and I persuaded at least three people who weren’t planning on voting to vote that day (probably more, but those are the ones who actually said “I’m not going to vote” and who later said “OK, you’ve persuaded me” and went to the polling station). I made that difference.
And you can make a difference too. I don’t know exactly what the Yes campaign’s plans are for Thursday of next week, but from my experience at elections I can tell you that polling day is crucial. You need people to go door-knocking, people to make ‘phone calls, street stalls, people to tally at polling stations (so that the campaign knows who’s already voted and doesn’t knock on their doors and phone them up), people to deliver leaflets, people to offer lifts to the polling station. people to attend the polling station to supervise the counting. These are the MOST important jobs you can do on polling day.
I’m still working out exactly how much time I’ll be spending on specifically AV Get Out The Vote work and how much on Lib Dem (but Lib Dem voters will all be Yes voters anyway, so Lib Dem GOTV work works for both).
But understand this, if you’re a British voter, this may well be the single most important day of your life – the decision made on Thursday the Fifth of May will decide how elections are run for the forseeable future. Which means it’ll decide who gets to form every government for the rest of your life. Which means it’ll decide how much you pay in tax, whether we go to war and who with, whether the NHS stays public or gets privatised… this is the biggest decision you can ever make.
So if you can give *any* time at all – a couple of hours on the phones after work, a round of leafletting in the morning, the whole day door-knocking, volunteer here. If you’ve done nothing else for the campaign, do this. If you can persuade one other person who wasn’t going to vote to vote yes, you’ve doubled the power of your own vote. If you can get three other people to vote yes, you’ve effectively got four times the power of the No voter who can’t be bothered getting out of their chair and persuading people. I’ve already convinced dozens of people to vote Yes, and I plan on convincing many more on polling day. Will you be making that difference too?
No2AV Objections Answered #yes2av #no2av
I’ve been volunteering for the Yes campaign for a while now, and I’ve heard surprisingly few arguments put to me against AV and for First Past The Post. I’ll try, in this post, to answer all of the ones I’ve either seen online or come across while campaigning. Some of these arguments appear strong at first, others pitiful, but they’re all genuine arguments from genuine No supporters. I’ll try to put a case against the arguments, but you may, of course, remain unconvinced.
If you have other arguments, please make them in the comments. However, be aware that I have a fairly strict moderation policy – genuine discussion gets as much free reign as possible, but derailing and acting in bad faith gets you banned.
It’s Too Expensive
I’ll deal with this one first, because it’s the main plank of the No campaign’s advertising, and it’s simply a lie. They’ve taken advantage of the fact that there appear to be no laws regulating political referendum campaign advertising (as opposed to election campaigns) to simply make up a huge number as the new cost.
It’s Too Complicated To Explain
This one comes from none other than David Cameron, the Prime Minister, who has a first class honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford university. Shame that degree obviously didn’t require learning to count. AV is a simple system – it’s a run-off, where the least popular candidates get eliminated, like in X-Factor. Except you rank the candidates in order so you can have an ‘instant run-off’ as they call AV in America. Just keep knocking out the least popular candidates until there’s a definite winner.
FPTP is more complicated, if you’re a voter who wants to influence the result.
Only three countries use AV in General Elections
This is just the argument from popularity. It means we should never be the first to do anything, or even among the first.
AV isn’t a proportional system
No, but neither’s FPTP. However, AV is likely to produce a far more proportional outcome, most of the time, because more people’s votes will count towards the outcome. And it’s far easier to move from AV to a proportional system like STV or AV+ (both of which are very, very similar to AV and would require only minor tweaking rather than a complete overhaul) than it is from FPTP. Anyone who wants electoral reform should choose AV – it’s both an improvement in itself and (if the people of the UK decide it’s what they want) a first step towards an even better system than that.
Nobody likes AV
I do. I’ve dealt with this one here.
I Want To Upset Nick Clegg
If you want to upset Clegg, vote against the Lib Dems in the Council elections at the same time, instead. Clegg, to be honest, isn’t all that interested in voting reform – it’s a big issue for the Lib Dems generally, but his own policy interests have been mostly in the areas of foreign relations (especially Europe) and civil liberties. I’m sure he wants a yes vote, but he won’t be unduly upset if it doesn’t go through.
On the other hand, me, my wife, Floella Benjamin, Eddie Izzard, Tony (Baldrick) Robinson, the leadership of the Labour party, Tony Benn, Colin Firth and my mate Dave (to take a random sample of vocal Yes supporters) *will* be upset if the No campaign wins, while Nick Griffin, Ian Paisley, David Cameron, Simon Munnery and Mark Millar will be upset if the *yes* campaign wins.
But rather than making decisions on major constitutional reform based on which public figures it’s likely to upset or cheer, why not decide based on the issue itself?
I want to end the coalition government
Thought experiment. You’re a Lib Dem MP. Your party’s in the odd position of both being in government for the first time in its history and having the lowest poll ratings it’s had in twenty years. You’ve just lost a huge number of council seats in a horrible local election, *AND* on the same day you discover that people have voted to keep the same unfair voting system which is biased against your party and which you’ve campaigned against all your life. Do you:
a) think “Oh, well now’s the *perfect* time to force a General Election! I like nothing more than losing my seat and seeing my party wiped out for a generation!” or
b) Not do that, and keep your job for at least another four years?
I like strong government
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of strong government – after all, the strongest form of government is dictatorship. I prefer a weak government that’s the servant of the people, rather than a strong one that makes the people its servant.
That said, AV isn’t any more likely to bring in coalitions or hung parliaments. In Australia, they’ve had *one* hung parliament in the last ninety years. In Britain, meanwhile, four of the last ten General Elections didn’t lead to conclusive results, and led to a rerun a few months later, a Labour government propped up by the Liberals, a Tory government propped up by the Ulster Unionists, and now a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.
What causes hung parliaments and coalitions isn’t a particular voting system, but who people vote for.
The system we have has worked for centuries!
No, it’s worked for just over sixty years. Before that we had a weird hodge-podge system with some seats being STV or AV and others being FPTP.
It’ll help the BNP!
The BNP are one of only four parties against AV – the other three being the Tories, the DUP and the Communists. This is because AV is an anti-extremist system. It helps small parties that can still appeal to something of a broad base (e.g. the Greens), but small parties who appeal *only* to a small, bigoted minority won’t get anywhere, thanks to the need in AV to win the support of 50% of people who express a preference.
Some people get more votes than others
No, everyone gets one vote in each round of counting. Those whose top preference stays in for that round are counted as voting for that person again, while those whose top preference was knocked out get counted for their next preference.
Winston Churchill didn’t like AV
Churchill also didn’t like votes for women, supported sterilisation of the ‘feeble-minded’, held a number of racist views… and, in short, held all the views one would expect of a member of the Conservative Party who was twenty-seven when Queen Victoria died. While in many ways of course an admirable man, his views as to what was a suitable system for the Britain of the early 1930s might not be the best guide to what is best for the Britain of 2011.
Hitler liked PR, Superman doesn’t. Who do you prefer, Superman or Hitler?
This argument from the comic writer Mark Millar on Twitter was apparently intended seriously. He seems to have forgotten that Hitler was a fascist dictator, and one of the defining features of fascist dictators is their lack of support for democratic elections of any type.
Superman remains unavailable for comment as to his views on electoral reform.
ETA: wonderful Yes campaign postcard:
#no2AV myths busted 1 #yes2av
One thing the No2AV Campaign Against Democracy (principal funders the Taxpayers’ Allowance, political parties in favour – Tories, DUP and BNP) keep saying about the upcoming Fair Votes referendum is that ‘nobody really wants’ AV.
Now, like all myths, there is a tiny grain of truth here, in that some supporters of a Yes vote in the referendum would prefer a different system. The Greens would prefer AMS, the Lib Dems STV (AV with multi-member seats), some of Labour AV+ (AV with a top-up) and so on.
Of course, there are also plenty of people in the campaign – probably a plurality – who prefer AV to all other systems. But even ignoring that, let’s assume that *all* the people in the campaign prefer a different system.
If that’s ‘not really wanting’ AV then I’d love to be the No2AV people’s boss:
Boss Ah, Noddy, do come in. I’ve asked you to come and talk with me about your next pay-rise
Noddy No-Vote Wow! Great!
Boss Yes. What would you say if I asked you if you’d like a ten thousand pound raise?
Noddy I’d say yes, obviously! That’s fantastic!
Boss Ah. Oh dear. That’s a shame.
Noddy Why?
Boss Well, you see, you said you’d like a ten thousand pound raise. But I’ve only got five thousand pounds to offer you. Unfortunately, if you want a ten thousand pound raise, you can’t really want a five thousand pound raise. That leaves you with the only other option, which is a punch in the teeth.
Noddy That is entirely logical and fair.
Boss punches Noddy very hard in the mouth
Noddy Thank you, that is much better than giving me something I didn’t really want.
Of course, this is the basic difference between supporters of the status quo and those of us who want a more democratic system. First Past The Post, the current system, gives a plurality (sometimes as low as 17% of registered voters) exactly what they say they really want (assuming none of them are lying, or ‘tactical voting’ as it’s known), and the rest get absolutely nothing. It’s not surprising, then, that the people supporting it are unable to understand nuance, and degrees of preference. (This is, after all, a campaign whose supporters are Tories, fundamentalists, fascists, and a handful of New Labour dinosaurs like Blunkett).
AV, on the other hand, finds a compromise that’s acceptable to as many people as possible – not everyone gets their first choice, but most people will work out happier than they otherwise would. It’s not surprising that the people supporting AV would be flexible and work together for a goal that might not be everyone’s favourite system but is a hell of a lot better than what we’ve got now. The whole point of AV is that a lot of people getting something they can be happy with is better than a small number getting something they love while the rest lose out.
It might not be my very favourite system, but I wouldn’t be giving up weekends to go and stand in the wind and rain to try to persuade people to vote for it if I didn’t actually want it. It might not be my all-time dream favourite best thing ever, but the choice between AV and FPTP *is* as simple and clear-cut a choice as between a five grand pay-rise and a punch in the mouth. I know which one of those I’d vote for, how about you?
We have three upcoming street stalls in Manchester, incidentally. All are on Saturdays, between 11AM and 2PM:
Saturday 19th February, Saturday 19th March and Saturday 16th April in St Ann’s Square. I’ll be there – feel free to come along and help out.
For those who don’t fully understand AV, I explained it here.
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