On May 5th, the British electorate has the task of choosing its voting system. It is a simple binary choice: to stick with first past the post (FPTP) or take a hesitant step into the unknown with the alternative vote (AV).

The Lies About The Alternative Vote and First Past The Post

The campaigns on both sides of the argument have muddied the waters by making false claims to try and weaken the other sides’ argument – propaganda, disjointed thinking and BS (not the Big Society, the BS you shovel).

Here are few examples of the misrepresentations peddled by the “Yes to AV” side:

• “There are no safe seats with AV” – simply not true – the impact on safe seats will be small. The impact of AV affects marginal seats more. There will be a few more marginal seats as having only 35% of the vote was ‘safe’ under FPTP might make the sitting MP vulnerable under AV
• “AV encourages MPs to work harder” – Not generally true; most MPs will not change their work habits due to the change in the voting system: only MPs in marginal seats will have to ‘work harder’ for voters’ second and third choice votes
• “With AV the winning candidate has at least 50% of the votes” – For this to be true all voters would have to use all their preference votes. In likelihood voters will only use 2 or 3 preference votes and hence if all their preference candidates have been eliminated before the final round of voting, their vote will not count in the last round – hence the real winning percentage might be as low as 45% in some cases.

And on the “No to AV” side the bogus claims are:

• “AV produces more coalitions governments” – not true, either theoretically or in practice in other countries – as AV is NOT a Proportional Representation (PR) system of voting the chances of a coalition government are just the same as first past the vote
• “AV is against the principle of ‘one man one vote’” – not really, each person has a single vote in each round of vote counting until all their preferred candidates have been eliminated
• “It will cost hundreds of millions of pounds to buy new counting machines to count the vote” – not true – AV can be counted by hand. The counting will take longer and be more error prone since multiple rounds of counting are required as each candidate is eliminated from the count. It is true that some of PR voting systems are more complicated to count and hence an significant investment would be required – but that is an argument for another time, not now
• “Nick Clegg will be in power forever with AV” – not true. Liberal Democrats will likely pick up only a few more marginal seats typically where there was a three horse race between Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats where Liberal Democrat has less first votes that other two candidates but much more second preference votes. This ‘Clegg in power forever’ statement would have much more credence under a PR system where say both the Tories and Labour each had 35% – 40% of the votes and Liberal Democrats 20%. In that case Liberal Democrats could be permanent coalition partners.
• “AV is too complicated for voters to understand” – Not true. For sure it is more complicated then FPTP but millions of people worldwide use the system successfully to elect governments. Putting 1-2-3-4 in a few boxes rather than an ‘X’ in a single box is within almost everyone’s capabilities.

The Truth About The Alternative Vote and First Past The Post

Let’s look at the two systems rationally and dispassionately.

First Past The Post

Method: Choose Your Favourite Candidate Then Stick an ‘X’ in the box

The candidate with most votes wins.

It is a misleading name as there is no ‘post’ as such; ‘most popular’ or ‘furthest along the track’ would be more accurate as there is no finishing line. The winning candidate will win typically with somewhere between 25% and 75% of the vote. If the turnout is 40% then the winner may have as little as 10% of the electorate.

Positive Aspects Of First Past The Post

The strongest aspect of this system is its simplicity: the candidate with most votes wins.

Its simplicity extends beyond just the understanding of the principle: it is easier to vote, it is easier to count the vote, the scope for miscounting of votes is reduced.

It is a system understood by all the UK voters.

Negative Aspects Of First Past The Post

If your candidate ends up winning you probably don’t care too much about the negatives.

However there are many down sides to this voting system if you do not support the candidate who is the likely winner in your constituency. And that is now the majority of voters. So while FPTP works well in a two party system where those two parties have 80%-90% of the vote it ceases to work as well where there are more contenders involved. This first happened in the 1974 election where the 2 large parties received around 75% of the vote with the winning party getting 42% of the vote. In more recent elections the more than 70% of the electorate did NOT vote for the winning party so the mandate to govern is weaker.

Here are some of the negatives of FPTP:

• Wasted Vote – “I voted but it was pointless” – If you don’t vote for the winning candidate you may as well not have voted at all
• Discouragement To Vote – “I did not vote as there was no point” – If your preferred candidate is unlikely to win you are disinclined to vote at all
• Tactical Voting – ” I voted but not for the candidate I really wanted” – If your preferred candidate is unlikely to win you are tempted to vote for the candidate that you would not vote for normally, but is most likely to beat the candidate you like the least
• Unrepresentative – “I voted but my party is not fairly represented” – Countrywide a party can get 25% of the votes but only 10% of the seats in parliament – yes it’s a post code lottery

Summary on First Past The Post

Good if your candidate wins; otherwise a bit rubbish.

Suggestion: Move to a constituency where your party already has a MP

Likely MP Behaviours: A good MP will still be a good MP; a bad MP will still be a bad MP. That said, MPs can become complacent if they are in safe seats for life; long incumbency can lead to corruption and claims for cleaning the moat, fake mortgages, etc. – In marginal seats, MPs really do have to be seen to deliver value to their constituents as every vote counts.

The Alternative Vote

Method: Rank the Candidates By Preference – put 1,2,3,4,5 in the boxes

The candidate preferred by the majority wins. (Well almost a majority – typically will be at least 45% whereas with FPTP is can be as low as 30%).

AV is an elimination contest where the least popular candidate is eliminated each round until one candidate has 50% of the vote.

Voters whose first choice candidate has been eliminated in the first round have their second choice vote counted in a second round of counting. The least popular candidate is eliminated and their supporters votes are then distributed according to their second choices (or third choices if the vote has already been transferred from the first eliminated candidate).

This process is repeated until one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote (one could say they were first past the (50%) post but that would be downright confusing.

Once all a voter’s preferred candidates have been eliminated their vote is no longer counted. For this reason, in the final round of voting the winner may have less than the 50%

Positive Aspects Of The Alternative Vote

The strongest aspect of this system is that it promotes voting for your preferred candidate, irrespective of whether they are likely to win. So basically, it is more representative of what voters want rather than what they don’t want.

Tactical voting is reduced (but not entirely eliminated) as it is difficult to vote tactically since there is really no information available about voter’s preferences beyond their first choice.

Every vote counts. In fact, if you prefer the minority parties you can have all your preference votes counted in different counting rounds. If you vote for the winning party then your same first preference vote is counted in each of rounds.

Negative Aspects Of The Alternative Vote

This are also many down sides to this voting system if you do not support the candidate who is the winner in your constituency. (who also might not be the most popular even if he/she is the least unpopular )

• Lower preference votes will count the same as first preference votes
• Voters who don’t express second and lower preferences will have wasted their votes if their first choice is eliminated
• By electing a single candidate in each constituency it does nothing to address the post code lottery that means the distribution of candidates does not reflect the national vote
• The counting of the votes takes longer as multiple counts are required due to the elimination process
• There are likely to be more spoilt ballot papers as writing the numbers 1 though 5 is more difficult than placing an single ‘X’

Summary on the Alternative Vote

Good if your candidate wins, especially if they would have lost by first past the post. Good if you voted for a candidate that you wanted to win rather than against the one you wanted to lose. Good if you voted for the first time because you felt it was now worth doing.

Likely MP Behaviour: The system makes results much less predictable and hence MPs in marginal seats will work harder for your vote (your first, second, third, fourth and fifth vote). Once a candidate is elected there is no saying they will continue to work harder though.

Conclusions

I think the Alternative Vote could prove to be a worthwhile change in the voting system if it ultimately delivers high voter participation as more people feel their vote matters.

But since the benefit is marginal, and the country is facing bigger issues right now, it is doubtful that enough people will be motivated to get out and vote for it.

Back in October, I decided to extend my experiment of WordPress plugin development by producing a premium version of my free Slickr Flickr plugin that makes it easy to include your photos within a WordPress blog.

Originally I had been hesitant that no-one would pay for a premium version given that so many themes and plugins are free, but having researched and understood the GPL (GNU Public Licence) and the principles behind it, I decided to proceed. In a nutshell, the driving principle is that a user is free to change and distribute the software but the developer is able to charge for support and upgrades.

Therefore Slickr Flickr Pro version differs when the free version in that there is Priority Support via a private members forum plus a number of bonus features.

I decided to pitch the price low at $2 per month being mindful that the brilliant free WordPress theme ‘Hybrid’ only costs $25 a year for membership of Justin Tadlock’s support forum

Creating a paid version of WordPress plugin was not entirely straightforward as it involved creating a whole bunch of infrastructure: I ended up writing a plugin to integrate PayPal subscriptions with the InfusionSoft billing system, setting up a sales video, an order form, email templates, a membership site with training videos and a couple of support forums. All in all it took about a couple of months in total to get the whole marketing, sales and operational systems and processes together before a low key launch in mid December.

It has now been running along nicely with a handful of sales per day. The goal in the next few weeks is to ramp up the promotion of the plugin through social media, forums posts, blog comments and perhaps some guest blogging. I may actually have to do some tweeting!

This new coalition government has surprised me yet again! This time by abolishing the Audit Commission.

This is a body created in 1983 by a previous Conservative administration to monitor the performance and expenditure of publicly funded organizations. According to Eric Pickles, Local Government Secretary, it has now lost its way and grown too fat and self serving. But rather than a change of leadership and a change of diet, it is getting the chop. Clearly the £60,000 anti-pickle campaign irked him somewhat so there was going to be no reprieve when he finally got the axe in his hands.

Michael O’Higgins, the Commission’s chairman, reported

The Audit Commission’s responsibilities for overseeing and delivering local audit and inspections will stop. The Commission’s research activities will end: audit functions will be moved to the private sector, councils will be free to appoint their own independent external auditors from a more competitive and open market, and there will be a new audit framework for local health bodies. This will save council taxpayers’ money and decentralise power.

The commission’s in-house practice will be moved into the private sector – possibly through a management buy-out or as a staff-owned mutual.

So gone is low fee, high expense, public sector, critical auditing. It is to be replaced higher fee, lower expense and less critical private sector auditing.

Existing staff have been told to “form a company to bid for contracts”. So public funds will provide no doubt generous redundancy payments, then hire back the same people on a contract basis but saving the pension expenses and the fixed costs.

The question is that will these ex public servants feel some alienation and cynicism as the take on their old job with a lower salary, less security and less benefits? Will they do a better or worse job of monitoring the expenditure of public finances?

Will they protect public expenditure in the same way that auditors protected shareholders of the banks? Except that in this case the public have less control than shareholders over the appointment of auditors.

In my opinion the likely outcome is lower costs in the short term and bigger scandals in the longer term.

A change of leadership and a trimming of fat would have cost less in the short term and likely brought longer term benefits through economies of scale and reduced scope for corruption.

This decision to kill off the Audit Commission just looks to have been made for personal rather than practical reasons.

Uruguay should hold its head low,very low in fact, because like its its neighbour, Argentina, it has had its Hand of God (or more aptly, arm of the Anti-Christ) moment, not in this case to make a cheating goal, but to stop an honest goal.

Rather than be beaten by Ghana in an honest game, they cheated. And then had the lack of integrity to win on penalties. Shame on them!

Go on Uruguay, do the right thing, and withdraw from the competition. Be spectacular! Instead of losing against the Dutch ignominiously, go down in history forever as the team that put integrity before success and pulled out of the World Cup on a point of principle.

Post Match Analysis

Okay, Uruguay is not full of cheats, there was just one cheating action when Suarez used to arm to prevent a certain goal. Justice was not served in the quarter-final however it was in the semi-final. However Uruguay played fairly in that game, gave a good account of themselves with their tenacity, hard work and skill, and only narrowly went down to the Netherlands 3-2.

Given the professional nature of the sport, it is too much to expect Uruguay, or any other team in fact, not to take unfair advantage of a bad refereeing decision or weak rules. In cricket, a batsman used to walk before the empire gave him out, less so now. In golf, higher standards are still required on the course as Brian Davis proved a couple of months back. It is possible for a sportsman to have integrity but maybe it is easier to take difficult decisions as an individual than it is as a member of a team.

Penalty Goals And Television Replays

So back to football… how do we address this issue and get a better outcome? One suggestion I favour is to borrow the idea of the “penalty try” from rugby, and have the “penalty goal”. In the case where a definite goal has been prevented illegally then referee simply awards the goal and sends off the culprit. To make this work we would need the 4th official to be able to review the television footage to make sure the decision is a correct one. Justice is then served and the incentive to cheat is reduced. If the decision is incorrect then a drop ball on the penalty spot would be an exciting an equitable way to restart the game. Maybe the next World Cup in Brazil will bring us better rules and a better refereeing system.

Liberal Democrats Swing Both Ways

It is a tough choice for Nick Clegg. He does not want to be the leader that failed to take that “once in a generation” chance to deliver a fairer voting system. So who is he going to choose as the father of his PR baby?

Firstly, there is the younger, stronger and more legitimate choice, the favourite of his family in the country. But David C is a reluctant father being unconvinced that a PR baby is affordable at this time. The future with David looks to be full of arguments and broken promises. Not a basis for a stable relationship.

And then there is older, more experienced and reliable but unloved Gordon, disliked by friends and family, but a much more willing father and someone with whom he shares commons ideas and values but no respect. And no spark of romance there.

So Nick goes out on separate dates with both David and Gordon. Neither takes his fancy. This is hard going. But Nick’s biological clock is ticking, and he must decide by Friday as that is market(s) day. If only there was a younger version of Gordon that his family and friends liked…

Gordon Makes Way For A Younger Man (or Woman)

Gordon does not want David to have the PR baby with Nick. He has recognized his lack of legitimacy so he has decided to step aside for good of his family. He has some younger siblings who can fulfil this marriage of convenience. There is Ed B, David M, Ed M, Alan J, Jon C and Harriet H. Surely one of these can woo Nick and those in the country.

Gordon wants to play the role of best man and make sure the wedding arrangements and the first trimester of the maternity proceed smoothly.

Now Nick has a way forward, he feels a tingle and he hopes it is not the MMPs but a STV

It’s A CONDEM Party as Cameron Gets a Clegg Over

In an admirable demonstration of democracy at work the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties put together a coalition agreement in around 5 days that allowed a successful transfer of power from the old regime to the new. The chemistry between the leaders and indeed the leadership teams with plenty of pragmatism has meant that there was enough goodwill to stitch together an broad agreement that allows the coalition government a practical working majority with the price (sic prize) being a referendum of Proportional Representation (in the weak form the Alternative Vote) in 12 months time.

You are Crazy Not To Vote Tactically

I want to spell this out. With the ‘first past the post’ voting system, if you don’t vote for the winning candidate, you may as well have not voted at all.

Think about it. A vote for losing candidate results in no representation whatsoever. Nothing. Nada. Nada di Nada. Zilch.

If your preferred candidate does not win, you may as well have stayed at home.

I will just say that again as I only really realised this in the past few days.

If you don’t vote for the winning candidate, you may as well not have voted at all!

How democratic is that?

Put another way, UK democracy is a post code lottery: your vote only counts in certain post code areas.

In a PR system your vote would count for something but not in the UK election 2010.

That’s why we need real change. (I think I might copyright that phrase.. Mmm oops too late)

Making Your Vote Count

So the only rational approach is to either:

1. vote for the party that is most likely to win in your constituency but only if you really want them to win; or
2. vote for the party that has a reasonable chance of winning in your constituency but if you really really want them to win; or
3. vote for the least offensive party that has a reasonable chance of beating the party that you most don’t want to win in your constituency

Making The Best Choice

Here in Central Devon, it is a two horse race between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Applying the rules above, I want my vote to have some chance of counting, i.e. not being a wasted vote, so I must choose between these two parties.

The Conservatives lack competence on the economy, and may take the UK into a double dip recession, and hence are too big a risk to consider, so I will vote for the Liberal Democrats. Also Nick Clegg seemed the most honest of the three main parties’ leaders, and with Vince Cable as a competent Chancellor I am comfortable with my decision.

The other advantage of voting Liberal Democrat is that if they have significant leverage they may be able to change the constitution so we will have a PR system in the next election.

Then everyone will be able to vote for the party that best represents their views. And have that vote count. That would be no bad thing.

Follow Up Sequence or Follow Upside Down in Sequence?

Awoke at 4a.m. this morning with monkeys dancing on the hotel room roof. Looked for a piece of fruit to throw at them but thought better of it as I thought it might encourage them further. Returned to peaceful but clammy sleep

Liz rang at 7a.m a request to update the WordPress Thesis skins on our server to Thesis 1.7 so got to work on this and missed breakfast.

Follow Up Sequences Tips

On the infusionsoft Mastery course this morning, the session was the best one so far: Micah Mitchell covered Follow Up Sequences and Email Templates. These can be immensely powerful in the right (skilled) hands and I came away with a bunch of really good tips to improve conversions, recover cart abandonment, reduce post sale support calls and increase retention rates. Worth the course fee several times over in itself.

Carl Chapman also gave an incredibly insightful description of his Infusionsoft setup from squeeze page, order form, through follow up sequences and on to the membership site.

Follow up to Follow Upside Down – Ziplining the Canopy

After lunch we had a ‘free’ so decided to do something even more reckless that create a trackable link

Led by Stanning and Carlo, our guides, Micah then me, then Maggie, Jay and then David followed each other upside down through the canopy.

Micah and Maggie glad to have survived

David proves it´s as easy as falling of a tree

The Canopy is beautiful when viewed from this perspective

Maggie can´t stop laughing

Just let go

A tentative start

I wish I could fly

Look no brains - I meant hands

Is that a tightrope I see before me?

Get off those electricity wires!

Maggie completes the first two lines unperturbed

The dismembered arm prepares to pluck another victim

Intrepid Infusionsofties

Initial Briefing - have you been to the restroom?

David ascends the path to the launch site

We trek through the jungle to the battling ants and humidity

David Shows Us What He’s Made Of

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now is time for a siesta

A recent post by Chris Brogan on the importance of execution brought this old Sanskit poem to mind. I memorized it when I was ten and recited it to my mother. It is still there in my head.

The poem (somewhat more poetically – no surprise there) refers to the “splendour of action” rather than “importance of execution”.

Look well to this day for it is life, the very best of life.
In its brief course lie all the realities and truths of existence:
the joy of growth, the splendour of action, the glory of power.

For yesterday is but a memory and tomorrow is only a vision.
But today, if well lived, makes every yesterday a memory of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore to this day.

An Ancient Sanskrit Poem

Now must get back to work on the splendour.

In 20 days I am attending a conference in Central America. And I want to stay in touch. The question is how? iPhone, iPad or Android?

My current phone is a Samsung SJH J700 which was low cost place-holder while the technology improved. But what next?

My requirements? Email, Twitter, GPS, coverage in Devon and Costa Rica, a keypad I can work with my larger than average fingers – definitely not reet petite.

On the 11th April my flight to San Jose, Costa Rica, is via Dallas so I am able to buy an iPad at the airport if any are for sale.

My wife Liz, has an iPhone, but maybe I should play away in the Android camp?

What is the best phone, given I need to buy by the end of March 2010?

If you have a lot of photos on Flickr and want to show them in a slideshow on your WordPress blog then Slickr Flickr is the plugin to use.

Rocco Slideshow

I tagged the following photos with “Rocco” and added the slideshow to my post using the line [slickr-flickr tag="rocco" type="slideshow"]

Intrepid Explorer

Rocco and Lawn Have Both Had A Trim

No Way!

Sunday Morning Dog Walking

Rocco "Downie" Junior

Where did I bury my ball?

Impressed? I found my ball

Lets Go Walk On the Water, You First

Where has the snow gone?

Low Winter Sun Eclipses Cavaliers

Rocco Downie Junior

Family Resemblance?

Summertime and The Livin´ is EZ

Does My Head Look Big In This?

This Pillow Is Well Hard

A Greener Way To See Life Down Under

Joined At The Lughole

Rocco as a Stole

Roma Gallery

I then tagged the following photos with “Roma” and added the gallery to my post using the line [slickr-flickr tag="roma" type="gallery"]

Rio Slideshow

I then tagged the following photos with “Rio” and added the slideshow to my post by adding the line [slickr-flickr tag="rio" type="slideshow"]

IMG_0575Simmons Park Walk

Orange Is The New Black

You Can Almost See The Sea From Here

No Way!

Sunday Morning Dog Walking

Smile And The Whole World Smiles With You

Somebody dropped a Sandwich?

• Slickr Flickr enables you to have slideshows as well as galleries.
• You can show photos on pages, posts and in text widgets in the sidebar
• You can show photos with different sizes
• You can show photos with different formats – landscape or portrait
• You can show or hide captions
• You can show photos from other Flickr accounts
• There are now even more ways to admire Rio, Rocco and Roma – my three cavaliers