THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS HAVEN’T been serious political contenders for a very long time. As a third-rate third party – the party of none-of-the-above – they routinely lose general elections by wide margins. Their only hope? Changing the value of a vote.

By TED R. BROMUND [Commentary] – Great Britain votes Thursday on whether to adopt a newfangled electoral system in which voters would rank candidates for office in order of preference. Opinion polling suggests the new voting method, called the alternative vote (or AV for short), is likely to lose. Anyone who would like to see Britain saved from unsustainably high levels of entitlement spending and further submerging in the European Union ought to breathe a sigh of relief.

AV is intended to promote the virtue of proportional representation Its early advocates were Victorian liberals who, fearing the socialistic tendencies of the masses in the coming age of democracy, hoped to find an electoral system that would guarantee the election of economists—whom, never having met Keynes or Krugman, they believed would always support limited government.

Today’s liberals champion AV because they cherish the exact opposite. AV would be proportional in name only: it tends to hurt the Tories badly when they are down and to help Labour when it is up, and it always boosts the Liberal Democrats, Britain’s third party, which both Labour and Tory voters tend to regard as the more acceptable second choice. Indeed, it would award the deciding vote in over 100 constituencies to the Liberals, who not surprisingly have urged the necessity of proportional representation for decades. Worst of all, AV will encourage candidates in all but the safest seats to run in the center.

Continued at Commentary | More Chronicle & Notices.