Another day, another NO2AV lie squashed
In the latest of an increasinly desperate series of misleading claims about what the introduction of AV would mean, NO2AV today issued a press release claiming it would lead to an increase in spoilt ballots.
This is what the Political Studies Association report by Dr. Alan Renwick has to say on the subject:
AV has no clear effect on the number of spoilt ballots
Spoilt ballots are a concern if they arise because voters are confused about how to express their preferences. Australia sees many more spoilt ballot papers than does the UK: 5.6 per cent of the total in the 2010 election, compared to 1.0 per cent here.16 But there are several reasons for this. First, compulsory voting in Australia leads some voters to spoil their ballot paper in order to express general disapproval. Second, Australian voters are generally required to number all the candidates before their vote is valid. Where this is not the case – in state-level elections in New South Wales and Queensland – the proportion of invalid votes is lower.17 Third, large numbers of non-English-speaking migrants also make a difference.18 Thus, the Australian evidence does not tell us whether the introduction of AV without compulsory ranking of all candidates in the UK would affect the number of spoilt ballots.
Evidence from the Canadian provinces that formerly used AV suggests that AV in the form proposed for the UK might increase the number of spoilt ballots. So long as ballots where an “X” was placed against one candidate were counted as valid, however, the difference was very small – certainly insufficient to draw any general conclusions.
