The Angry Exile: Making AV work... for politicians.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Making AV work... for politicians.

I've made no secret that I'm a bit of a fan of AV type voting systems, although I've never had first hand experience of voting in one. Yet. Australia, as I've mentioned before, uses Preference Voting* to elect federal MPs to the equivalent of the Commons, the House of Representatives, which is close enough to AV for the point I want to make. This is that I've now become aware of a problem with these sort of systems, and that is the temptation for parties to do back room deals for second preferences before the bloody election is even held.

The Greens and Labor today confirmed a preference deal at the forthcoming election.

The arrangement will see Labor receive Greens' preferences in more than 50 marginal seats while the Greens will receive Labor's Senate preferences in every state and territory.

Only a handful of seats are not included in the deal and preferences will be negotiated at a local level in these seats between Labor and the Greens.

Now I was always aware that this can and does happen since it's pretty much how the coalition here functions. The National Party and the Liberal Party have an understanding that generally they won't put up candidates in each other's territory, and so non-Labor voters in rural Australia will end up voting for the Nats while their urban and suburban counterparts will put a 1 next to a Liberal candidate. Now obviously there's nothing to stop this happening in a First Past the Post system, and in fact it can and does. Remember back in the 1997 UK election when Labour and the LibDems both dropped out of the Tatton seat to give BBC journo and "anti-sleaze candidate" Martin Bell a free shot at Neil Hamilton? But this is more akin to official party guidelines on tactical voting. Parties here send out a "How To Vote" guide (I'm not sure why but I was surprised that there was a page on Wikipedia for it) with all the other shit that they send, and this consists of telling you what order you should rank candidates in.

Conscious that some Greens at grass-roots level will not support the deal, Senator Brown stressed that preference deals were not binding and voters were free to direct preferences as they wished.

"You can make up your mind up about where you’re going to put your number one vote, and I hope that’s for the Greens, and then you make your mind up about who you put second and who you put third," he said.

Okay, Bob, so there's nothing to stop a potential Green voter putting 2, 3 and 4 etc where they like, though I notice you're not mentioning how the deal's real advantage for your party is the chance of an extra Green Senator.

But I'm really looking at how this might apply to a future UK situation where AV or something very much like it has replaced FPTP. Now, again this is already possible in FPTP, and there have been plenty of moves among LibDems and Labour people in the UK to encourage tactical voting to keep 'the hated Tories out' (the usual mantra - I've never been able to vote tactically to keep all three out, but I fucking would if I could). But I can't help but wonder if this kind of voting system, and any where second choice votes are up for grabs, encourages this kind of thing. Would AV be suicide for the Tories by creating a system where Labour encourages people to send second preferences the way of the LibDems and vice versa? Or, if the unholy alliance of the Twins actually holds together well for five years, will they choose to freeze out Labour the same way? And is either good for democracy (yes, I know the D-word has plenty of issues of its own)?

Ultimately, do you want politicians to start lecturing you on your second preferences on top of everything else they're already telling you to do? I reckon I can live with it, though ask me again after I've lived through a few more elections here, but if you don't then best you keep this in mind when the UK has it's referendum.

* I do have a problem with voting being compulsory, and I've made no secret of that either, and I'm also not keen on having to rank all candidates on the ballot paper. What if I despise all but one of them? I either spoil the paper or leave it incomplete, either of which is a non-vote, or I accept that my second preference is going to someone I really don't want to vote for. As I said back in May an Optional Preferences, as used for Queensland's state parliament elections, would be better. And for Christ's sake it has to be voluntary or there's no incentive for the bastards to make themselves worth voting for.