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I certainly support the peoples choice but in all seriousness, how do you prevent someone like Dion from accidentily being elected?

   

Well PR and FPTP both have their advantages. PR is more diverse and reflects different parties and people’s attitudes those giving people more choice and options in the government. Downside is there tends to be more coalitions and more minority government, which can be quite unstable.

FPTP advantage is it is simple and by selecting one person for one riding it is quite democratic. The down side is fewer parties get elected which means the voters don't have as much choice and tend to vote for not who they want but who they don't want to see in power.

I think a good option would be why not have both?

I think having an equal elected senate with proportional representation would be the way to go. As an upper chamber it does not form the government thus the need for collations or even to form a majority isn’t really necessary or needed. So with PR the upper chamber could reflect more on the people and bring new ideas to the parliament and parties that otherwise would remain absent from the lower house.

The House of Commons could remain first past the post, which would make the government more stable and lead to fewer minority governments and by being the bigger house it would be simpler for people and possibly be cheaper to manage and easier to count votes. So having both in this sense I think may be a good option.

   

That's a great point. In fact, should we even look at something like this while judges and senators are not even being elected?

   

The biggest criticism of FPTP is that the person elected most likely did not get the vote of the majority, just the majority of votes. For example, if the winner got 30% of the vote that means that 70% of the riding voted for somebody else...so does that mean the winner is representing the majority? Of course not.
There are a lot of alternatives out there and I think it's time Canada took a look at them. Sure it will give fringe parties a chance, but is more dialogue in a democracy a bad thing?

   

Absolutely. We're talking about getting an accurate reflection of the will of the people. Right now we've got massive distortions, and rampant disenfranchisement. This should be priority #1.

Oh, and judges should never be elected. They're not policy makers. They're law interpreters. They should be chosen based upon their ability to apply law. The people are simply not qualified to make such judgements.

   

Ya gotta start somewhere...

I like the STV proposal here in BC largely because, to me, it was the best way of expressing the voting preferences of the people. If 30% of the electorate liked a party and 25% liked another party (and so on), then that would be reflected in the seat distribution. To me, it was the best way to combat the post-election whining of "my party didn't win so screw everything" attitude. Nationally, I think a similar system could alleviate some of the BS regional whining.

And it's not like this was a new thing in BC anyway. In the 1952 election, a similar system was implemented which was supposed to ensure that the CCF would be kept out of government and the Liberals and Conservative would stay. It backfired mightily and WAC Bennet of the Social Credit won.

   

Yes I think so but also look at our unelected senators too. There is much to do with reforms and hopefully the government will start moving forward with them.

As for judges the juridical department I think should remain it's own branch and the direct election of judges turns the interpretation of law into politics when it should only be well interpreting the laws that we make. A judge must be as unbiased as possible and must only look at the laws set out before him to decide what to do.

   

But what would you base your proportions on? race, population of region, language, political leaning... ?

   

We may be headed that way here in Ontario.


Radical voting proposal gains steam
Ontario citizens' assembly endorses `mixed member proportional' plan
February 22, 2007
Ian Urquhart
Queen's Park Columnist

Ontario is a step closer to a radical change in the way MPPs are elected to the Legislature.

The citizens' assembly on electoral reform, a randomly selected body of 103 ordinary Ontarians established by the provincial government, voted overwhelmingly last weekend for a system called "mixed member proportional," or MMP.

It is a system in use in Germany, New Zealand, Mexico, Venezuela and Bolivia and in the regional parliaments of Scotland and Wales.

The system can lead to permanent minority governments and a proliferation of fringe parties.

In a list of alternative systems put before the assembly last Sunday in a meeting at Osgoode Hall law school, MMP was the overwhelming choice, with the backing of 78 assembly members, versus eight for the "single transferable vote" (rejected by British Columbia voters in a referendum in 2004), six for the "parallel" system, three for pure "proportional representation," two for the "alternative vote" (also known as the "preferential ballot") and zero for the "two-round" system.

The status quo – our centuries-old system of members elected by a plurality in their individual constituencies – was not up for consideration, although it will be voted on by the assembly in the coming weeks.

But with last weekend's vote, MMP becomes the front-runner as the system to be recommended in the assembly's final report, due May 15.

And the government has pledged to put the assembly's recommendation to a referendum in conjunction with the provincial election on Oct. 10.

MMP is a hybrid that attempts to meld our existing system with pure proportional representation.

With proportional representation, members of the Legislature would be selected from party lists according to the percentage vote each party received during the election.

Under MMP, citizens would cast two votes – one for a local representative, another for the party of their choice.

The second ballot would then be used to allocate the remainder of the seats from party lists.

In the final analysis, the total number of seats for each party would roughly correspond to the percentage of the popular vote it obtained.

As no party in Ontario has gained more than 50 per cent of the vote in a provincial election since 1937, MMP would just about guarantee minority governments.

Many details still need to be worked out by the assembly, such as the overall number of seats in the Legislature, the ratio of locally elected members to those selected through proportionality, and the minimum threshold for awarding proportional seats.

There is also a possibility the assembly could junk MMP and pick another alternative to the status quo in the coming weeks, according to George Thomson, the former judge and senior civil servant who chairs the assembly. "They (the assembly) were not being asked what system they liked best," said Thomson in an interview yesterday. "They were being asked what system they wanted to work up first."

Still, the fact that MMP was the overwhelming choice of the assembly in the weekend vote suggests that its members are leaning heavily in that direction.

So, too, do the working principles adopted by the assembly, including: "the number of seats a party wins should more closely reflect its vote share;" "voters should be able to indicate their preferred party and candidate;" and "each member should represent a geographic area of the province."

This preference for MMP was confirmed by two members of the assembly, who spoke to the Star on the condition of anonymity.

As for the status quo, Thomson said it will still be put to a vote of the assembly near the end of the process – after the decision on the final form of the alternative system. In effect, there will be a duel between the status quo and the alternative.

But it seems unlikely the assembly would opt for the status quo after spending weeks working on the alternative.

The assembly's members – predominantly homemakers, students, self-employed and retired persons – have signalled in their thumbnail biographies they want to "make history," which they won't do by voting for the status quo. As well, they have spent several months intensely studying alternatives. The have held 41 public hearings across the province and have received 986 written submissions.

In the hearings and the submissions, the status quo – often referred to as the "first-past-the-post" system – was variously described as unfair, illegitimate, archaic, and adversarial.

The push for electoral reform has come from a wide variety of individuals and groups, with sometimes conflicting agendas.

Some believe a reformed system will reverse the decline in turnout as fewer votes will be "wasted." Others think it will ensure the election of more women and visible minorities.

Leftists want electoral reform as a vehicle for guaranteeing minority governments and, accordingly, no return to the policies of the Mike Harris regime.

Social conservatives see it as a way to get their issues – such as abortion and gay marriage – back on the floor of the Legislature (where there is currently an all-party consensus against revisiting these matters).

The assembly's recommendation will still have to clear the hurdle of a referendum.

And the governing Liberals – many of whom have strong misgivings about the process of electoral reform they set in motion – have established a 60 per cent threshold for approval of a proposal in the referendum.

But the 60 per cent hurdle may not be as high as it seems. B.C. set its threshold at the same level for its 2004 referendum, and the proposal fell just short with 57 per cent support.

   

That's not how it works. Such a system changes the electoral results by assigning seats won proportionally based on voting results.

   

Ahh ok so in this case the rep of my district could actually lose an election if voted upon by the people of this district but because his party won X number of votes he actually gets to represent me.

   

Something like that. There's a number of different ways to tabulate the results, but it would be useless in the US because there are only two parties. But if say, the Libertarian or Green parties ever got significantly more support a proportional system might become viable.

   

Proportion of the popular vote.

   

I don't know about this. Bootlegga raised the point that since there would be almost constant Minority governments that there would be less bickering. Remember, this is politics we are talking about. If there are endless Minority governments, even less would get done then there is now. And if you think our government right now is unstable, PR would be a hell hole. A resounding no from me.

   

True, but eventually it would (hopefully) get to the point where a lot of the partisanship would stop and get together to get stuff done.

   

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