AV is going to cost you £250 million

February 15th 2011 | tags:

AV is going to cost you. It has a price tag attached, and the referendum bill is only the first instalment.

It seems however that some people are in denial, with one leading Yes campaigner saying that the costs don’t exist, while another spokesman separately claims that costs are a price worth paying. There have also been some freakish Frankenstein attempts to bolt the issue onto events in Egypt as if minor British reforms somehow equate to people fighting against dictatorship. Raising oppressed Zimbabwe as an argument in support of AV is an astonishing new low from Yes backers – and we’ve already seen a few.

But let’s look at some facts.

Voters will need to be educated about the new system. The claim by Katie Ghose, director of the Yes campaign, that AV is much less complicated than changes to Scottish voting is as absurd as it is laughable. But any significant change will need a large amount of money spent on information regardless of the form, and the Scottish changes provide us with a case study in how it’s done and how much it costs.

Elections will likely need counting machines. This is not 100 per cent guaranteed of course, not least because contracts have yet to be signed. However, there is again strong precedent with the Scottish and London Assembly elections, which having dumped First Past the Post for a more complex system saw counting machines being brought in. They are equally common in parts of America that have brought in AV. This possibly explains why the guest speaker of the Yes campaign’s own Unlock Democracy, Rob Richie, invited over from the United States where he is a pre-eminent expert in AV, as recently as last month admitted that counting machines were now a “given”. It is also extremely notable that the Government have gone out of their way not to rule it out.

Australia of course doesn’t have electronic counting. Yet Australia does not provide proof that counting machines won’t happen in the UK. Australia shifted to AV ninety years ago, literally generations of voters before counting machines became available (and even now they are still facing teething problems). Having endured the manual count this long, it’s hardly surprising they would rather stick with it than fork out the large sums needed to automate. At least in Australia they don’t face the complexities of multiple system voting. In Britain, Scottish voters would face up to five different systems; the Welsh four and the English three (and that’s assuming the House of Lords will not be directly elected under yet another system). So the incentive to automate General Election counting here will be so much stronger, to the point of the irresistible. Consider the pressures evident during the delays that followed the last election for a taster of what any significant number of manual AV recounts will bring.

Some people may not like to know the true damage, and hear what this unnecessary, expensive referendum is really costing our country. We haven’t included the additional long term bills for AV systems, for instance the secure storage of machines if they are bought rather than hired, or repeat training costs for their operators (both refresher courses, but also especially if different companies win successive contracts). We also haven’t included millions of additional council costs like the need for new, machine-readable ballot papers, more polling stations (because AV ballots take longer for voters to fill out), more polling workers, and more initial training for polling and counting staff.

There’s an easy way to set the record straight. If they are so in denial, perhaps the Yes side might invite the relevant minister, one Mr Nicholas Clegg, to come clean and offer up some official costs of their own?

Comments


  • G H Widgery

    When we have this referendum, why can’;t we have one on the Human Rights Act and on staying in the European Union? Would this not increase the turnout on the day?

  • Mike de Berry

    Vox populi or the voice of the people is best served by one man one vote?
    All too often the basics of democracy are forgotten in favour of political expediency.
    None more so than with AV.
    Dont we already have enough of this expediency with the EU?
    Get back to basics…drop the European Union..and get back to the democracy that most of us were brought up with?
    It may not be perfect,but at least we should have some control over our futures?
    Forget AV.

  • Alan

    I’d love to be able to vote yes to all three.

  • Richard

    AV is not an alternative to first past the post, parliament will still be dominated by the party with the most seats and the party with the most seats will still form the government.

  • http://primitivepeople.livejournal.com Lee

    I’m very keen to support your campaign and I wish you every success – AV is a complex fudge that ultimately won’t benefit anyone, and I think it runs the risk of our destiny being decided by whoever can bring the Lib Dems on-side rather than what happens at the ballot box – and the disastrous, undemocratic consequences of that unfold before us every day.

    However, I think you REALLY need to run a more positive campaign, and watch out for what you say. Having followed the yes and no camps on Twitter, it seems to me that the cost argument you’ve come up with here is totally failing to engage people and is easily disputed and ridiculed. Thus I’d urge you to drop it sharpish. I think you really need to come up with a robust defence of FPTP. It may not be perfect, but it does actually work pretty well most of the time, almost invariably delivering single-party governments with workable majorities who can be called upon to deliver what they’ve promised. If we end up with multiple coalitions, the results will be very messy. I think you can reach out to people of ALL political persuasions by pointing out that this coalition is not representing what any party said it would do before the polls, and we can do without that sort of thing – one or two AV elections down the line, we’ll end up in a terrible mess and clamour to go back to FPTP.

    I think full PR is the way forward, and it’s important that the No camp remains open to this – we just need to make it clear that AV shouldn’t be a messy and unfair step along the way. This was hastily put before us in Cameron’s desperation to get the Lib Dems on-side, and we need a better reason to do it than that, and a better method that’s been properly researched and considered and discussed.

    So…keep positive. Don’t resort to mud-slinging. And lay off talking about money. It’ll turn people off instantly.

  • Pete H

    I am pleasantly surprised that as a supporter of the YES campaign I agree with you so much. AV isn’t ideal but it is progression from an out dated system designed for two party politics. I also would like the NO campaign to be more positive about FPTP rather than discredit AV its lazy, cheap and the reason people arn’t engaging in politics; THE PUBLIC WANT REAL ARGUMENTS FROM BOTH GROUPS SO LETS HAVE THOSE RATHER THAN SMEAR CAMPAIGNS.