More from YouGov's AV experiment
I've got the details of the YouGov polling now (they should be up on the website tomorrow morning). People were given 6 arguments for AV and 6 arguments against, and for each one asked if they thought it was an effective or ineffective argument. At the end they were asked if they would vote Yes or No, and this was compared to a seperate sample who were asked the question without exposure to the arguments for and against.
In one sense, the questions asked about each argument are irrelevent, if you just give people 12 arguments they are unlikely to read and digest them all properly. The purpose of asking individually about each one is to make sure respondents read them all. As a by-product, however, it does give you a useful idea of which arguments people find effective or ineffective.
The public saw the most effective arguments as those directly addressing how the systems worked locally.
The strongest argument in favour of FPTP was seen as its simplicity - 63% though that the argument that "The present system is better because it is straightforwards: the candidate that wins the most votes locally becomes the MP" was an effective argument. However, the contrasting argument - that AV is good because the winning candidate needs the support of at least half the voters - was seen as almost as effective (62% effective, 20% ineffective).
Also seen as very effective was the argument that the present system worked badly by allowing a party to win a majority with little over a third of the voters (59% effective, 24% ineffective).
On proportionality, the argument that AV was bad because it is NOT proportional was seen as effective by only 44% of people - in contrast, the argument that proportionality was good and AV was a first step towards it was judged as effective by 54%. 53% thought the argument that AV would be fairer was effective, 52% that the curent system was out of date and AV would be a modernising move was.
Arguments about coalitions (either positive or negative) were not seen as particularly effective. 51% saw the negative argument that AV would lead to a succession of weak coalition governments as effective, though this was more than the 31% who thought the positive argument that AV would make parties work together more in government was effective. The "kick the buggers out" argument, that FPTP delivers clear-cut arguments and lets voters kick out governments was seen as weaker than I expected: only 46% thought it was effective, 38% ineffective.
The weakest arguments tended to be the "anti-Liberal Democrat" ones. The argument that AV would take power away from the voters and give it to the Lib Dems was seen as ineffective (37% thought it was effective, 43% not). The argument that the Lib Dems were supporting AV for their own partisan benefit was also seen as comparatively weak (40% effective, 41% ineffective). Part of this is, of course, because the arguments were not seen as effective by Lib Dem voters themselves, whereas the other arguments attempted to appeal to all parties.
After looking at all these arguments, 33% said they would vote in favour of AV, 34% said they would vote against, 9% would not vote and 24% didn't know. In comparison, when YouGov asked the question normally the figures had been YES 44%, NO 34%, Wouldn't vote 5% and Don't know 17%. Exposure to these arguments therefore didn't increase opposition to AV at all, it just produced a shift from YES to Don't Know. It would appear that some of those saying yes have second thoughts when exposed to some of the arguments around the issue.
The shift amongst party supporters showed an almost neutral effect amongst Conservative supporters - the Yes and No vote fell almost equally as Don't Knows rose. Liberal Democrat voters changed the least, they were strongly in favour before and after (though again don't knows rose). Labour voters changed the most, in the normal question they were 44% to 31% in favour, with 20% don't knows. Asked after exposure to the arguments, this reversed to 32% support and 44% opposed, with 19% don't knows.
From this poll, it suggests Labour voters will be the key swing constituency, with Lib Dems solidly in favour and Conservatives against. However, I'm intrigued about the effect of something that wasn't in the poll - if we get more evidence like Populus's poll showing that AV may actually be good for the Conservatives, it could increase Conservative support for AV.
