Apolitical Staples

You’re allowed to just put 1, Greg. The second, third, etc. choices are purely voluntary. (And in fact you don’t even have to put a first choice if you don’t want to, ie you can spoil or decline your ballot.)

OK, that’s makes it better.

Greg,

I’m in the same boat of skepticism… although IP gave me a serious whoopin’ last week, so I’m a bit gun shy.

STV is more about personalities than parties. You aren’t voting for parties per se, rather people. STV seriously diminishes the role of parties in the political process. Of course, this is why even the BC NDP were the biggest opponents of STV, even though they are the biggest proponents of proportional representation.

For those paying attention, it’s a lot easier to give your preferences about people. Or conversely, rank your least hated. This also allows for people to replace deadwood/loose cannons/etc. from being their representatives while still supporting that party. The voter simply picks another candidate from the same party. This job isn’t left up to 0.1% of the electorate who are party members.

STV also presents the opportunity for some incumbents to lose every election. A moderate turnover of “staff” renews the political process. For all the sweeping ramifications of yesterday’s vote in the states, only 6% of the politicians are new.

“You’re allowed to just put 1.”
Actually this depends on the variant of STV used. Some of them require all rankings to be made or the ballot is considered spoiled. I, personally, favour AV or the Alternative Vote which uses ranking in a single member constituency.

PlaidShirt,

This is my favorite variation as well.

The specific objection to STV is that it provides an inherent mechanism to “vote against”. You may fill out your ballot with a single selection as your “vote for”, but if your candidate represents a party unlikely to ever command a clear majority in your riding, your voice will be shut out by “votes against” as much as, say, an NDP supporter in the Fraser Valley under the current system. Given the tendency of people to use representative government to obtain what they want at the expense of others, Canada would over the long term tip further left. STV should be a non-starter for fiscal libertarians.

More importantly for prospects of STV and all other schemes: if the working Lib/NDP/Bloc majority in parliament can’t collectively produce an environmental bill out of what the CPC has started, it’s a good indication that schemes for PR are pointless for Canada. If they can’t work together on what they claim to be a motherhood issue for each of them, why should we assume they will ever work well together in coalitions or as members of minority-run parliaments in any form?

If they can’t work together on what they claim to be a motherhood issue for each of them, why should we assume they will ever work well together in coalitions or as members of minority-run parliaments in any form?

I do hope it does work, IrC, but even if it doesn’t, that’s not a sign that coalition governments wouldn’t work in Canada. What keeps the parties from working together in Canada’s current political culture is the possibility of a single-party minority government. That drives each party that wants to govern toward keeping all the success for themselves, so to speak. And that pressure comes from our voting system, not from something inherent in Canadian politicians.

When New Zealanders voted to change from the first-past-the-post voting system to a proportional one, a political culture that had never supported coalitions in the past suddenly began to do so. There’s absolutely no indication that it would be any different in Canada.