Update: Yes to AV, at what cost?
The claim
“I don’t expect to see any increase in the cost of holding a general election if the British people vote yes.”
Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, in a letter from his private office leaked to The Independent on Sunday.
The background
As FactCheck reported on Friday, the AV campaign is fast descending into a rather nasty scrum.
Pro-AV campaigners have accused the naysayers of “scaremongering”, and continue to dispute the Prime Minister’s claim that AV would “increase the cost of politics”.
But now it’s emerged that the Treasury also disagrees with the PM – when Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, insisted that AV wouldn’t cost the country any more than a normal election.
No to AV has claimed that a new system could cost up to £250m – mainly because it will necessitate electronic voting machines costing the country £130m. FactCheck proved this somewhat spurious.
The analysis
Granted, Mr Alexander is a supporter of AV. But in a leaked letter from his private office, he revealed that the Treasury “has not received any advice on the assumptions behind the cost of the next general election should it be an AV election”.
His letter threw out claims that taxpayers would see further cuts imposed in order to scrape together cash for running an AV system.
And today, a Treasury spokesman repeated the Mr Alexander’s words to FactCheck: “The government has no plans to reopen departmental Spending Review settlements as a consequence of either outcome of the Referendum on AV.”
Mr Alexander’s letter revealed that the Treasury has set aside ÂŁ120m from the Cabinet Office’s budget for the next general election.
The Cabinet Office has now confirmed this to FactCheck.
A spokesman said the 2010 General Election is predicted to have cost around £110m. This includes the £82m cost of running the election, and the £30m cost of delivering candidates’ election address leaflets. The latter cost allows for one letter per household, the Cabinet Office spokesman explained to FactCheck.
Meanwhile, Mr Alexander went on to tell The Independent on Sunday, “I don’t expect to see any increase in the cost of holding a general election if the British people vote yes. There’s no good reason to believe that even under a new voting system an election would need to be more expensive.”
Well, there’s the not-so small matter of a ÂŁ10m difference between 2010’s estimated ÂŁ110m cost, and 2015’s ÂŁ120m budget. The Cabinet Office passed this off as an “allowance” rather than an exact prediction.
The verdict
No to AV is now attacking the government for failing to provide their own figures for the cost of changing the way Britain votes.
“Either they are trying to hide it, or the government is guilty of massive negligence by putting something to the electorate that they have not properly costed,” the group said.
This is a fair point: with less than 70 days to go until the referendum, and even after several questions in Parliament, civil servants still haven’t estimated the possible costs of this major piece of legislation.
But the Cabinet Office is sticking to its guns, saying that there are so many different factors that could affect how long an AV vote will take that it’s just not possible to come up with meaningful estimates of what the extra cost might be.
A spokesman said: “The basic difference between the costs of an election under AV and the current system will be related to the count. The exact cost is not known: it would depend on turnout, voting patterns and how many rounds of counting were necessary.”
The bottom line is that no one – not the Treasury, not the Cabinet Office and not the Electoral Commission – is seriously thinking about bringing in electronic voting.
So the main claim of the No to AV camp, that voting machines will add an extra ÂŁ130m to the bill for an AV election, still looks decidedly dodgy.
As for Danny Alexander’s claim, the slightly worrying truth seems to be that he has no way of knowing whether AV will cost the taxpayer more or not, and neither does anyone else in the government.
There are 11 comments on this post
It’s one thing to say there’s no way to know, it’s another not to be able to make an educated guess. Using last years figures for my old constituency, assuming that every vote for each candidate “eliminated” is recounted again…and that every vote is redistributed in such a way that it takes the longest amount of time to count, there would have been at most 19500 ballots to recount.
So assuming everyone uses all their preferences, that they use them in the most inefficient way for counting, and that the counters aren’t taught methods to improve their counting times…using Justice Ministry figures of an average of 150 ballots countable per hour…that’s 130 hours worth of counting. That’s an actual staff counting cost of ÂŁ1625. Supervisory staff add 20% to this amount, so ÂŁ1950 in total for the count.
This was Bristol North West, one of the more marginal constituencies, in a fairly close three way fight come the end. Most constituencies wouldn’t be this close and so wouldn’t need so much recounting. Other constituencies (around a third) wouldn’t need to recount anything more than under FPTP.
A fairly worse case scenario then, around ÂŁ830k extra to count AV.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
To: Lee Griffin / Niaccurshi
You clearly have an idea that there IS a cost impact – maybe not as enlarged as some predict.
But, while counting late until 1am-2am for some isnt much different to club closing time, would counting yet again for another 4-5 hours (tired, hungry, etc.) be done for roughly the same rates pro-rata?
Can we conclude that roughly 25% of consituencies will see extra costs of roughly 25%?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Will their be more recounts under AV? Looks as if a recount could be demanded at any stage of candidates elimination.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Shouldn’t we be choosing our voting system based on the best system to represent the most people? If one takes this cost based argument against AV to it’s logical conclusion, we’ll just stop having these darned expensive elections at all and let those lovely politicians, who have our best interests at heart, decide amongst themselves whose turn it is to run the country.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
So the “No” campaign is reduced to whingeing about the administrative cost of the thing — a piddling sum in the context of the national budget.
Is this the best they can do? It suggests they are desperate already.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
The AV system is really a bad voting system.
An important claim of the supporters of the AV is that “It penalises extremist parties, who are unlikely to gain many second-preference votes.” Well, yes, if you assume the following:
———-
You are a Labour voter. Therefore, you are not in any way going to vote for Tories. So you are left with the option of voting for the LIB-Dem, or any other party – all of which are extreme in one way or the other – may it be the Greens, the BNP or the Loonies.
So, if you decide that voting for the Lib-Dem is not your wish, you will be voting for a party that have one major theme engraved in it’s manifesto that is close to your heart. That will also be the epitome of Tactical Voting – You will be trying to pass your party a message that this or that issue is important for you.
That will put to shame the other claims of the yes campaigners for AV: “It eliminates the need for tactical voting.”
Now, how stupid can the UK voters be! You are lead into the best laid down trap: The Lib-Dem said that the AV is a compromise instead of having the proportional voting system.
This is not true. The AV is a lot better for…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Tactical voting is casting a vote that isn’t your genuine preference of those available. If Labour aren’t available, and your genuine preference is another party, putting them down as 2nd pref isn’t tactical…it’s just honest opinion giving.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
[...] AV does not remove the problem of safe seats, is not more proportional than FPTP and is completely uncosted, it seems the sole purpose of the AV referendum is to disproportionately benefit the Liberal [...]
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Polleetickle:
Yes the rates would be the same, you’re paid an out of ordinary hours rate regardless of how long it goes on.
The “enlarged” cost would (at worst, mind you) be no more than if we had 90-100% turn out in FPTP election. Thus it isn’t reasonable to complain about the cost of running an AV election without also tacitly approving of keeping turnout figures low right now.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
[...] admission corroborates Channel 4 Fact Check‘s conclusion in March that the claim was “decidedly dodgy”. But Full Fact have [...]
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
[...] pathetic.’ Perhaps most disappointing was the extent to which the arguments on AV centred around cost. Disappointingly, cost issues have also taken on a disproportionate prominence in the mayoral [...]
Like or Dislike:
0 
0