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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
7 4 October 2016
his is a saga of sadness, a tragic tale of three
‘whiches’, a fairy ‘which’, a whichsoever
‘which’ and a wicked ‘which’. In initiating each
of three referendums, David Cameron said,
“You have a choice, ‘this’ or ‘that’, which do
you want?”. So all three ballots were binary, and while
the first two delivered what he wanted, the last one was,
in effect, political suicide.
All three outcomes were inaccurate reflections of ‘the
will of the people’. Let’s have a look, and then let’s con
-
sider a better methodology.
After the 2010 general election, the UK had a coalition
government: Cameron’s Conservative Party (Tories) and
the Liberal-Democrats. And he probably thought to him-
self, “How can I rid myself of the Lib-Dems’ persistent
pursuit of proportional representation,
PR?” Hence the first ‘which’, so to silence
any further debate on electoral reform.
Some people liked single-seat constit-
uencies, either the UK’s
first-past-the-post, FPTP, a plurality vote;
or France’s two-round system, trs, a plu-
rality vote followed by a majority vote;
both are single preference systems; or
again, there is the Australian alternative
vote, av, a preference vote which is like a
knock-out competition – in a series of plurality votes, the
least popular is eliminated after each round and his/her
votes are transferred to the voters’ second or subse-
quent preference… until a candidate gets 50%.
Meanwhile, many wanted PR in multi-member constitu-
encies. There is the German half FPTP and half PR-list
system called multi-member proportional, mmp. There
is PR-list – in Israel, you vote for a party; in the Nether
-
lands, for a candidate of one party; in Belgium, for one
or more candidates of one party; and in Switzerland, for
those of more than one party. Or there’s the Irish PR-sin
-
gle transferable vote, PR-STV, where voters can vote
cross-party in order of preference; STV is like AV except
that success depends on (not a majority but) just a quota
of votes. Overall, then, the choice was huge.
But Cameron’s 1st preference was FPTP and his 2nd
av. So that was the 2011 referendum, the first ‘which’:
“FPTP or AV, which do you want?” For countless (and
uncounted) supporters of pr, this was like asking vege-
tarians, ‘Beef or lamb?’. Now maybe FPTP was the most
popular but, based on data from just a two-option poll,
impossible to say.
For Cameron, however, it was a dream: he chose the
question, and the question determined the answer, just
as any fairy godmother would have wished: a massive
67.9 to 32.1%. Magic. Furthermore, the Electoral Com-
mission said the question was fair. Amazing. The
Ombudsman agreed. Incredible. And many thought this
was all democratic. So that was the end of that argu-
ment. So why not a second fantasia, another
referendum?
“Double, double, toil and trouble”, said the witches in
Macbeth. The Scottish Nationalist Party, (SNP), always
on about independence. How can I rid myself of these
skittish Scots? This was Cameron’s second problem, and
so, as if on a broomstick from the darkest recesses of
David Cameron (remember him)
and the three ‘Whiches’
But Cameron’s 1st
preference was
FPTP and his 2nd
AV. This was like
asking vegetarians,
‘Beef or lamb?’
October 2016 7 5
Westminster, the second ‘which’ enters the political
stage.
There were three options: (a) the status quo, (b) maxi
-
mum devolution or ‘devo-max’ as it was called, and (c)
independence. Thinking that (a) would easily beat (c) in
a two-option contest, just as FPTP had wiped out av,
Cameron waved his wizard’s wand and demanded a
binary ballot. So the second ‘which’ was again dichoto-
mous: “(a) or (c), which do you want?”
In the campaign itself, however, the gremlins were
grumbling, option (c) was gaining ground. Cameron
twitched; no – panicked: and so, as if at the witches’
coven, a vow was made – zap! – and option (a) morphed
into option (b). On the ballot paper, however, there was
no switch, the ‘which’ was still “(a) or (c)?” So the result
was a stich-up: 55.3% and 44.7% respectively were
highly inflated levels of support for (a) and/or (c). Fur-
thermore, the winner was (b)… but no-one had voted
for it!
For Cameron, though the potion was fading, the plebi-
scite was still successful, and that was the (very
temporary) end of that argument too. We return to the
diviners’ den.
Believing as it does in majority voting, the Tory Party
(and many another) is a beast of two wings and no body.
Little wonder that this weird creature is often in a flap,
especially over Europe. “Those cursed Europhobes”, he
might have muttered. And then, stage extreme right,
another scary monster, the UK Independence Party,
Ukip. “Oh how can I rid myself of these damned devils?”
Ah-ha, the third… but this was the wicked ‘which’.
The wrong side won. The Electoral Commission’s
semantic change from ‘yes-or-no?’ or ‘in-or-out?’ to
‘remain-or-leave?’ did not change the poisonous potent
of the poll, its binary bind, its divisive ‘positive-or-neg
-
ative’ nature. The question – “Which do you want?”
– was again adversarial. The campaign was horrible.
And the result? 48.1% chose ‘remain’ to 51.9% ‘leave’.
But nobody knows what the latter actually want! To sug-
gest, then, that this outcome is ‘the will of the people’
is, again, bunkum. Meanwhile, politically, Cameron is
dead, impaled on his own petard; in a word, ‘bewhiched’.
So what should have happened? Well, consider first a
hypothetical example. The average age of the electorate
cannot be identified by a majority vote. If such a piece of
research were to be attempted, the question would prob-
ably be, “Are you young or old?” In which case, no matter
what the answer and by what percentage, it would be
wrong! If, however, the question were multi-optional,
‘Are you in your twenties, thirties, forties, etc.?’ the
answer could be pretty accurate.
With average age or collective opinion, as in a German
constructive vote of confidence, voters should be posi-
tive. No-one should vote ‘no’ or ‘out’ or ‘leave’; instead,
everyone should be in favour of something: for the UK to
be in the EU, or like Norway in the EEA, or like Switzer-
land in a looser arrangement, or independent of both
organisations, or whatever.
When New Zealand debated electoral reform in 1992,
an independent commission produced a short list of
options: FPTP, PR-STV, and three systems as it were in
the middle, a five-option referendum. Thus (nearly) eve
-
ryone could vote positively, and New Zealand now enjoys
MMP.
7 6 October 2016
VOTING PROCEDURE THE OUTCOME
i Plurality voting
A
ii
BC - points
B
iii
AV/STV – knock-out
C
iv The Condorcet rule - league
D
v
TRS
E
Five Social Choices
No of voters: 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 2
Options A
1
st
1
st
5
th
4
th
5
th
5
th
5
th
5
th
B
2
nd
3
rd
1
st
3
rd
2
nd
2
nd
2
nd
3
rd
C
3
rd
5
th
2
nd
1
st
1
st
3
rd
4
th
4
th
D
5
th
2
nd
3
rd
2
nd
4
th
1
st
3
rd
2
nd
E
4
th
4
th
4
th
5
th
3
rd
4
th
1
st
1
st
A Voters’ Profile
If a question is binary, only one form of voting is appro-
priate: a (simple or weighted) majority vote. Very few
questions should be binary, however, and even when
the Swedes were asked, “Which side of the road shall
we drive on?” the referendum ballot included three
options: ‘left’, ‘right’ and blank.
When there are several options, popularity can be
measured in a number of ways: the option with the most
1st preferences, with the fewest last preferences, with
the best average, or whatever, a points system, a league
or a knock-out. Let’s have a look.
Imagine a scenario where, after a debate which leaves
five options ‘on the table’: A, B, C, D and E, 12 persons
have the following preferences.
A cursory glance would suggest option A is polarised, as
four think it is the best while seven deem it the worst;
option E is also divisive, while C and D have mixed sup
-
port; so the option which best represents the dozen’s
collective will is probably B, the 1st preference of only
one voter, but the 2nd or 3rd of everyone else!
Now let’s do five analyses: (i) plurality voting; (ii) a
points system – a 1st preference gets 5 points, a 2nd
gets 4, and so on – the Borda count, BC; (iii) AV; (iv) a
league system, the Condorcet rule, to see which option
wins most of the ten pairings – A v B, A v C… B v C… D v
E; and (v) TRS. The results are as follows:
Very few questions
should be binary and
even when the Swedes
were asked, ‘Which
side of the road shall
we drive on?’ the
referendum ballot
included: ‘left’, ‘right’
and blank.
October 2016 7 7
In other words, it’s gobbledygook; like rabbits
from the conjurer’s hat, the decision can be A or
B or C or D or E, whichever! Democracy can be
witchcraft, the sorcerer can still cast his spell.
With this particular profile (and in many other
circumstances), the outcome depends, in part,
upon the procedure, so “It’s not the people who
vote that count, it’s the people who count the
votes”, to quote one Jozef Stalin.
Uniquely, the Borda and Condorcet rules take
account of all preferences cast by all voters, and
these two methodologies are the most accurate.
Indeed, with many voters’ profiles, the Modified
Borda Count, MBC (its full name) and Condorcet
outcomes are the same.
In a plural society and a pluralist democracy,
contentious and/or complex problems should
not be reduced (and distorted) into dichotomies.
For any future referendum, therefore, an inde-
pendent commission should be tasked to draw
up a (short) list, usually of about five options,
and voters could then cast preferences on these
options, before an MBC analysis.
Likewise, councils and parliaments every-
where should consider preference voting – a
procedure demonstrated in Belfast in 1986 (and
electronically in 1991) in a cross-community
meeting in which over 200 participants included
everything from professors to punters, from poli-
ticians to paramilitaries… but no witches.
Once upon a time, in the Middle Kingdom during
the Former Han Dynasty, advisers to the Emperor
of China used binary voting, and so too did the
(rich male) citizens in Greece. Democracy had
taken its first step. In those days of old, however,
there were no political parties, and voters could
vote with each other today and against tomor-
row, without falling into permanently opposed
factions. Later, in 105 AD, the Roman Pliny the
Younger suggested plurality voting – step two.
After the Dark Ages, the Twelfth-Century
Spaniard Ramon Llull considered multi-option
voting. In the 15th, the German Nicholas Cusanus
proposed a points system, today’s MBC. Another
300 years later, so too did France’s Jean-Charles
de Borda and then England’s Charles Dodgson
(so this is a fairy tale: his nom de plume was
Lewis Carroll, the author of 'Alice in Wonder
-
land'). While today, with India’s Amartya Sen and
America’s Kenneth Arrow, this science of many
steps spans the globe.
Unfortunately however, evil men continued to
practice majoritarianism: the likes of Napoleon
(who had three 99%+ referendums), Lenin (the
very word ‘bolshevik’ means ‘member of the
majority’), Hitler (four plebiscites at 88%+), Mao
Zedong (“…we must win over the majority and
smash the minority”), and Saddam Hussein (one
100% referendum, an outcome first achieved by
the Irishman, Bernardo O’Higgins, in Chile). Fur
-
thermore, even when whole countries collapse
into war as majorities/minorities fight minori-
ties/majorities – in Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria and
Ukraine, for example – people still believe in a
myth, that democracy is majority rule, that a
majority opinion can be identified in a majority
vote, and that, inter alia, the outcomes of the
three referendums mentioned above reflected
‘the will of the people’. The late Professor Sir
Michael Dummett called it, “the mystique of the
majority”.
So let us dream awhile. If the UK’s 2011 referen-
dum had been multi-optional, with a multi-option
choice as in a restaurant for (nearly) every taste,
the UK would probably now have a form of PR;
as a consequence, no one party would have a
majority in parliament, so the UK would probably
have a coalition government; in which case,
there might not have been an EU referendum at
all! And everything would be, well almost, happy
ever after.
Peter Emerson is Director of the de Borda
Institute, Belfast
If the UK’s 2011
referendum had been
multi-optional, the UK
would probably now have
a form of PR; a coalition
government; and have had
no EU referendum at all
