Electoral reform: How the Coalition could change the vote

Received wisdom is that the alternative vote would help the Liberal Democrats and would be particularly harsh on the Conservative Party.

Most studies of how people would have voted under AV at recent General Elections show this pattern. The British Election Study – based on survey data from YouGov – projects that, had the 2010 Election been fought on AV, the Conservatives would have won 284 seats (22 fewer than they actually won), Labour 248 seats (10 fewer) and the Liberal Democrats 89 (32 seats more than they actually got).

However, this data was all collected before the Coalition Agreement. The BES study found that Labour voters were more likely than Conservative voters to give second preferences to the Lib Dems – and that Liberal Democrat voters were far more likely to give their second preferences to Labour than to the Conservatives.

In the new world of coalition politics we found people’s second preferences had shifted.

With the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in a coalition together it seems plausible that this pattern will change. Labour voters may be less likely to give their second preference to a party that has entered coalition with the Tories, the remaining Liberal Democrat supporters (their national support having halved since the election) are probably those more likely to give second preferences to the Conservatives.

In July, YouGov carried out a smaller survey asking again how people would vote if there was a General Election tomorrow under AV.

Shift in second preferences

In the new world of coalition politics we found people’s second preferences had shifted – now Conservative supporters were more likely than Labour supporters to give their second preferences to the Liberal Democrats – and Liberal Democrat voters would split their second preferences evenly between the Conservatives and Labour. The result would be to make AV less damaging to the Conservatives.

It is hard to predict with any certainly how people actually would vote in an AV election – political parties would almost certainly adapt their campaigning techniques to suit the new system.

What we can say is that, while a centrist third party like the Liberal Democrats are very likely to benefit from it, beyond that the effect really does depend on the political scenario.

If the coalition remained in place for an AV election, we could even see Conservative and Liberal Democrat supporters exchanging second preferences and Labour losing out the most from AV.

Anthony Wells is the Associate Director of the polling organisation YouGov