How powerful is your vote?

Stephen Whitehead is a researcher in the new economics foundation’s Valuing What Matters team

Today, nef launches the Voter Power Index, a study of how British elections would change under the alternative vote (AV). We have looked at how AV would play out in each seat, but our verdict is somewhat less than clear. True, there will be real benefits to AV - 44 more marginal seats, the power of the average vote up by a quarter – but it falls far short of the electoral reform Britain needs.

Ballot box Our results show that under the current system, voter power is a postcode lottery. Voters living in the most powerful constituencies have 21 times the power of those in the least.

This is because first past the post’s small, single MP constituencies create ‘lumps’ of electoral power which are hugely inefficient at translating votes into representation. Votes are wasted in their millions, piling up in huge majorities in the safest seats or squandered on losing candidates.

We all know this system means that while all votes are equal, some votes are more equal than others. While the safest seats are neglected at election time, attention is concentrated on the most marginal where swaying just a handful of voters can be enough to change the result.

Parties spend twice as much on campaigning in the most marginal seats and voters turn out there in larger numbers. AV, whatever its merits, will keep this distorting single-member constituency system and the inequality in the system will be only marginally reduced.

Of course, the national picture is only half the story. The Voter Power Index was created as a tool to help voters understand what AV would mean for them, and that means in their local constituency as well as nationally. That’s why the report is accompanied by a website (originally devised by Martin Petts) which lets people find out how a switch to AV would affect the power of their vote.

What we mean by power is simple – the ability to affect the outcome of the election. So in Hampstead and Kilburn, where 21 people could have changed the outcome, voters have a great deal of power. Meanwhile in Liverpool Walton, where it would have taken 10,000 voters to change their minds to change the outcome, voters have almost no power at all.

Voters will have to decide for themselves whether this increase in voter power is sufficient for them to vote yes on May 5th. Clearly the index does not tell us everything we need to know to choose between two electoral systems.

But it does make a telling case that whatever the outcome of the referendum, on May 6th Britain will have an electoral system where some votes count more than others.

http://twitter.com/wdjstraw/status/55165447833792512 Will Straw

AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/theneweconomics/status/55165616889409536 nef

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/dannyhackett/status/55166920906903552 Danny Hackett

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/altepper/status/55167257298472960 altepper

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/socialliberalsp/status/55167594465984512 Social Liberal Stand

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/ajmurraymints/status/55168659835994112 Alastair Murray

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/samanthakennedy/status/55169673918038016 Samantha Kennedy

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/mayadesgreen/status/55170605284200448 mayadesouza

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/magicdan1968/status/55171483936370688 paul daniels

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/bethanwef/status/55173577711947776 Bethan Foweraker

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/adhib/status/55176115509133312 Adam Hibbert

Helpful post on LeftFootForward embodies the fallacies around #Yes2AV – http://tinyurl.com/3cfybdb: voters as political consumers? #No2AV
Gavin Crosby

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/steve_dunthorne/status/55178432086151168 Steve Dunthorne

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/nadiaksaiba/status/55179907025743872 Nadia Ksaiba

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/modditydodds/status/55182467426041856 Knut Cayce

RT @leftfootfwd: How powerful is your vote? http://bit.ly/hVfNI2 by @TheNewEconomics's @SteveIsTall
http://twitter.com/gjonesofficial/status/55184135270039552 Gareth Jones

http://tinyurl.com/3cfybdb How powerful is your vote?
http://twitter.com/top_tw_politics/status/55193872506163200 Top Politics Tweets

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
Mark Stevo

“So in Hampstead and Kilburn, where 21 people could have changed the outcome, voters have a great deal of power.”

I’m pretty sure that’s 20 more votes than are available to the average voter.
http://twitter.com/stackee/status/55204536289214464 Stace

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/marcwebber/status/55204733509582848 marcwebber

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/daspringate/status/55205469718970368 David A Springate

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/jpspencer2/status/55206147648524288 JP Spencer

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/benromberg/status/55208426019635200 Ben

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/aaron__hill/status/55210209680965632 Aaron Hill

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/thegreatmorass/status/55211805961752576 Gareth C

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/caddymation/status/55211977525575681 Ben Cadwallader

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/steveistall/status/55213296969711616 Stephen Whitehead

RT @leftfootfwd: How powerful is your vote? http://bit.ly/hVfNI2 by @TheNewEconomics's @SteveIsTall
http://twitter.com/richard28wood/status/55214177932935168 Richard Wood

RT @wdjstraw: AV creates 44 more marginal seats & gives voters more power than FPTP writes @SteveIsTall http://bit.ly/hVfNI2
http://twitter.com/fairvote/status/55268487744061440 FairVote

UK IRV: Impact of yes on alternative vote referendum is increase in Voter Power Index:. See voterpower.org.uk & http://tinyurl.com/3cfybdb
http://twitter.com/jaekay/status/55328875068133376 Jason Kay

RT @leftfootfwd: How powerful is your vote? http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/04/how-powerful-is-your-vote/
http://twitter.com/zeonglow/status/55329887384375296 Chris Huang-Leaver

RT @JaeKay: RT @leftfootfwd: How powerful is your vote? http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/04/how-powerful-is-your-vote/
http://olskewlcool.harleyriderhq.com/936/how-powerful-is-your-vote/ How powerful is your vote? | Pan Heads and Dead Heads Rock On

[...] Source: http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/04/how-powerful-is-your-vote/ [...]
Simon Landau

I find websites like these an exercise in obfuscation. In my consituency of Sheffield Central the majority was 165 in May 2010. This is described as ‘fairly safe’ (sic)- this is presumably because historically it has been safe but then ignores that the seat is changing rapidly. In addition the differential between FPTP and AV is quite small. Until the assumptions behind the calculations are made explicit in the website itself (using simple propositions), I will treat it (as most of NEF output) as graphically interesting but no more.