The Staggers

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Will posters like this win the day for first-past-the-post?

The great strength of FPTP may prove to be its simplicity.

By George Eaton Published 24 August 2010 14:20

The news that Matthew Elliot, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, is to lead the No campaign against the Alternative Vote has got everyone talking about electoral reform again.

The anti-AV Labour MP Tom Harris has just published a new poster (designed by the Labour activist Adam Gray) on his blog that offers a preview of the sort of material we can expect to dominate next year's campaign.

The most striking thing about the poster is its simplicity; could an equivalent be produced for the pro-AV campaign? The strengths of AV are that it eliminates the need for tactical voting and ensures that all MPs are elected with at least 50 per cent of the vote. But these virtues aren't easily presented in poster form.

The most effective and simple argument for electoral reform, that it ensures fair votes, unfortunately doesn't apply in this case, because AV can produce even less proportional outcomes than first-past-the-post. Thus, while the No campaign is already developing its attack lines, the Yes campaign has yet to settle on a coherent or consistent argument for AV.

With public support for FPTP (38 per cent) ahead of that for AV (37 per cent) for the first time in months, supporters of electoral reform need to think carefully about how to sell this change to the voters.

Poster

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Tags: Electoral Reform

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14 comments

Tue, 2010-08-24 14:28 — Derek Smith (not verified)

It's clear the Tories are obsessed with absolute power. The thought of more coalitions in the future goes against their raison d'etre.

Tue, 2010-08-24 14:31 — Adam Burrows (not verified)

@Derek Smith...you may be correct but the poster was designed and published by Labour people. There are opponents to reform on both sides of the house.

Tue, 2010-08-24 14:35 — Guy Aitchison (not verified)

Hi George - Have you not been following the Take Back Parliament blog?

We have received lots of poster designs from activists:
http://takebackparliament.com/sites/takebackparliament/index.php/blog/po...

Stuart Bonar's posters were especially good at conveying the pro-AV arguments in simple terms:
http://stuartbonar.typepad.com/stuart-bonar/2010/07/another-batch-of-yes...

Tue, 2010-08-24 14:38 — Simon Foster (not verified)

Yes Campaigners have already produced a number of posters following Take Back Parliament's poster campaign. Some of the simpler ones can be found here: http://bit.ly/cto5gM

Tue, 2010-08-24 14:48 — Alice (not verified)

The poster could have included a woman in the race too.

Tue, 2010-08-24 15:08 — Robert Taggart

No. AV = progress... slowly !

Tue, 2010-08-24 15:08 — ashleyhk

Alice
I think the person on the right is a woman She is black as well. Not sure if she is transgendered, or not, but you can't have everything

Tue, 2010-08-24 16:34 — swatantra nandanwar

The voters are right to expect transparency in any electoral process. What they don't want is the statisticians coming in analysing the results and declaring a winner. However FPTP s not the way to continue because it disregards a vast number of peoples preferences and in effect disenfranchises and disengages them.