Another Rotten Argument Against Voting Reform

Iain Martin is surely right to suppose that unveiling celebrities and luvvies who support changing the voting system is a good way for the Yes to AV campaign to lose support. But it’s not as if the No campaign is playing a blinder either. Today’s Dreadful Argument for Retaining First Past the Post argues that we simply cannot afford to change the voting system. Apparently it will cost “up to £250 million” to do so.

Colour me sceptical. In the first place, there are the costs of the referendum itself (£91m it is claimed) and these might also be considered the cost of retaining FPTP. The best that may be said is that this is an argument against referenda, not against this particular proposal. Already, then, the actual cost of AV is down to £159m. This is accounted for by pretending we must spend £130m on “the cost of electronic counting necessitated by AV.”