Next he'll be telling us that AV causes autism

The BBC have the text of Cameron’s anti-AV speech on their website. Mark’s already pointed out a rather stupid argument contained within it, wherein Cameron takes the most deliberately opaque paragraph from the most protracted explanation of AV that he can find, reads it to the crowd once, then says “do you understand that?” It’s dishonest, and it’s not the only thing about his speech that is dishonest.

[AV] will make some votes count more than others. ... Supporters of unpopular parties end up having their votes counted a number of times, potentially deciding the outcome of an election, while people who back more popular parties only get one vote. Why? Because if you vote for a mainstream candidate who is top of the ballot in the first round, your other preferences will never be counted. But if you vote for a fringe party who gets knocked out, your other preferences will be counted. In other words, you get another bite of the cherry. I don't see why voters of the BNP or Monster Raving Loony Party should get their votes counted more times than supporters of the Conservatives or for that matter Labour or Liberal Democrats. The idea that everyone has an equal voice and an equal vote is deeply enshrined in our existing electoral system. The principle of one person, one vote is what makes our democracy fair. AV flies in the face of that.

The whole argument (which also forms David Allen Green’s attack on AV) seems to be based on a superficial and inaccurate conflation between a preference and a “vote”. It is taking a major failing of FPTP – that it doesn’t give you a say in whether you have a Labour or a Tory MP if you support the Lib Dems – and making it out to be not only reasonable but vital. You can’t make that case if you understand AV. AV is an instant run-off system, in which each voter gets one vote in each round. Being forced to switch to a second choice isn’t the same as having an extra vote, and only a liar or an idiot would say that it was.

Not only that, but it seems he tries to imply that AV would rig the ballot in favour of the BNP, even though later on he criticises it because it “will not increase the chances of smaller parties winning a seat. On the contrary, it could harm them.” He aims to show that AV is good for the bad kind of minor party but bad for the good kind. It’s dishonest.

Also dishonest is a recurring theme in Cameron’s speech, which says that:

AV is completely the wrong reform

That

Roy Jenkins, who chaired the Independent Commission on the Voting System, said: "On its own, AV would be unacceptable because of the danger … it might increase rather than reduce disproportionality."

That

AV is a system that no one actually wants.

That

One of the board members of the Yes Campaign once said: "I'm sorry but I'm no fan of AV".

That

last April, even Nick Clegg called it a "miserable little compromise".

…and I couldn’t help thinking, maybe that’s why the Liberal Democrats actually campaigned for the Single Transferable Vote. AV is a halfway-house between FPTP and STV, a “miserable little compromise,” if you will. Cameron used his majority within the coalition to argue them down to AV, and now he’s using the weaknesses of the very compromise he forced on them to make sure they don’t even get that.

And then he has the nerve to say

The point about AV is that even the people calling for it really want something else, whether it's a regional list system or the Single Transferable Vote. For most of them, it is their fourth, third, or at best second choice. And, as so often happens in elections using the AV system, on May 5th they want their second preference to come first. I'm sorry. When it comes to our democracy, Britain shouldn't have to settle for anyone's second choice.

Am I alone in thinking that’s totally disingenuous? This is the one issue where the Tories and the Lib Dems openly disagree, and the Conservatives have managed to turn it into a battle between their position and a compromise between the two — and then attacked the new Lib Dem position for being a compromise.

It’s a really nasty trick to pull, and I think if I was Nick Clegg I’d be seriously questioning whether I could really trust my coalition partner – especially since Tory support has dropped to the point where they might lose an early election.

For completeness: they also have Clegg’s pro-AV speech which I’ve skimmed and seems a bit over the top but at least mostly honest.