Apolitical Staples

Even with a closed list it is still better the FPTP. Just to note, the final recommendation has not been made yet. They still have time to make changes.

Okay, for the last time, party lists are NOT a dealbreaker for you. There are many ways of choosing the people who go on party lists, some of which involve no backrooms and all democracy. Even within what they call “closed lists” there are different ways of choosing those people. You are imagining your worst nightmare of what a party list would be and dubbing ONLY THAT ONE THING “party lists,” and it’s confusing people. So cut it out already. Puh-LEASE.

So then what would these party lists actually be? And how might/could they be chosen instead? This whole issue makes my head spin, I get the general gist(s), but people confuse me on the specifics.

Jason,

There are so many possible configurations I couldn’t possibly explain them all in a comment. But Greg Morrow of democraticSPACE outlines the one he would prefer for Ontario here.

I look forward to an interesting array of Nazis, jihadists, racebaiters, champagne socialists and Luddites in future parliaments. It should be an interesting mix. Let’s seat the gay rights folks between the Christian Heritage Party and the Muslim Brotherhood, just to see what happens.

Alan,

Oh, for god’s sake, read the proposal already. There’s a threshold that prevents tiny fringe parties from gaining seats.

Strawman, strawman.

I just wanted to see if democracy was all right for some people, but not for others. I think I have my answer. Thanks.

But if that’s the case, I think we can safely stick with FPTP.

Absolutuely no reason to change from FPTP. Other than to help the weaker parties leverage their numbers into more power. The rural vote will become irrelevant, the city dwellers could dominate. If Toronto is any indication of what to expect…no thanks!!!

I could go for PR only if the tax-payer money-for-vote system of party funding is eliminated at the same time. I can see a real positive feedback loop where fringe parties get tax money to ‘evolve’ into a party with seats. If we go PR, it should be sink-or-swim wrt fund raising.

The rural vote will become irrelevant, the city dwellers could dominate.

Evidence for that, please?

If Toronto is any indication of what to expect…no thanks!!!

Why would you assume this? Because, um, Toronto already uses PR to elect its MPs? Huh?

How could anyone seriously support a voting system where the people don’t get to choose who sits in parliament? I can’t believe this debate has gotten even as far as it has.

The rural vote will become irrelevant, the city dwellers could dominate.

Paul there will still be rural ridings. I am not sure how you came to your conclusion.

I just wanted to see if democracy was all right for some people, but not for others. I think I have my answer. Thanks.

Nicely done Alan. First you throw in the Muslim brotherhood to scare folks and then you claim to be watching out for democracy when a threshold is mentioned. Nicely done, indeed. That way you can argue “pizza parliament” if no threshold and “no democracy” if one is proposed.

Alan may just be saying that idealistic arguments like “everyone’s vote will count under PR” often boil down to “my vote will count under PR”.

People underestimate the value of simplicity. One of my goals for an electoral system is that at least 20% of the population should be able to understand how it works. Many PR systems fail that test. My own experience in Ireland is that essentially nobody can answer detailed questions having to do with how surplus votes are allocated in their STV system.

One of the big problems with FPTP is that some of its biggest supporters don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. This is especially true with regard to their knowledge of PR in its many forms. Not all forms of PR are equal. For example, pure PR, with closed lists picked by party leaders and only a threshold of .3% will gain little support. Most FPTP supporters are arguing against that when that isn’t even up for discussion.

Secondly, any serious discussion of FPTP benefits will lead people to realize that if one is seeking political stability as the ultimate in politcal virtue, then we should abandon FPTP and pick a presidential/governor form of government with fixed election dates.

The only thing FPTP delivers well is the status quo, well, because it is the status quo.

Many PR systems fail that test.

I am not sure if I buy that, but MMP wouldn’t fall into that category. It is pretty straightforward and quite easy for someone used to FPTP to comprehend. That’s why the assembly is moving to it because it is closest to what we have now.

True, MMP is simple. One of the things I like about the OCA process is they have to come up with one specific proposal we can evaluate. I find in the PR discussion that objections to one system are often countered by references to another.

“That way you can argue “pizza parliament” if no threshold and “no democracy” if one is proposed.”

Actually Greg, as I suspect you understood, I was gently questioning the purity of PR advocates’ commitment to true representative democracy. Clearly there remains a line of demarcation, even for PR “champions” of the little man. Representation for we, but not for thee. There’s fringe, and then there’s fringe, eh? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

PR is a bad idea. Coyne’s smug dismissals notwithstanding, examples of electoral chaos and parliamentary paralysis from other countries are instructive and should not be ignored.

PR is a bad idea. Coyne’s smug dismissals notwithstanding, examples of electoral chaos and parliamentary paralysis from other countries are instructive and should not be ignored.

Alan, that just isn’t so. Take a look at Germany since WW II and New Zealand since MMP. Neither are in chaos nor paralyzed. Both have stable coalition governments.

I didn’t think that it was controversial to say that Germany’s government is essentially paralyzed.

Well the last election was a bit of a corker, but overall, I would say MMP has worked really well in Germany. There have been successful coalitions for both sides of the spectrum and pretty stable government overall.

There’s a threshold that prevents tiny fringe parties from gaining seats.

Any system of PR which further entrenches “party” in lieu of “member” should be tossed. Party affiliation and aggregate party vote thresholds should be irrelevant. One riding, one representative; one voter, one ballot. No members-at-large. No party lists. No transfer of excess votes from riding A to riding B. The only worthwhile change would be to create a system which ensures each riding representative has a majority endorsement of 50%+1 of votes cast in that riding. If you insist on having something to honour the breakdown of the national vote, make the G-G a proper executive position selected by the country-at-large via FPTP or STV.

MarkCh - not sure who you asked to explain it to you - you should find one of those tallymen fellas who are STV savants :)

Surplus votes are allocated as a percentage of the overall vote in STV. So if you have 10% alternative prefs in an elected-over-quota person, you get 10% of the over-quota surplus.

If a person is eliminated and you have 10% alternative prefs, you get 10% of the total. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SingleTransferableVote#Findingthewinners

As for electoral chaos, one of our major parties collapsed from 160+ seats to only two in 1993, splintering into Reform and the Bloc. Subsequently, the PCs (and NDP) regained some strength in the Maritimes, and Reform become the Canadian Alliance, which actually split under Stockwell Day’s tenure, leaving some of its MPs to form a brief alliance with Joe Clark’s PCs.

You want electoral chaos? We already have it in spades. Meanwhile, India uses FPTP and has literally dozens of parties represented in its lower house and a coalition government composed of 12 parties.

I wasn’t saying that it was impossible to find out how STV works. What I mean is that, in Ireland, if I ask typical well-educated people, who happen not to be political junkies, how their electoral system works, they can not, in practice, give a clear explanation of various things including, for example, how the quota is calculated, how constituency sizes and numbers of members are determined, or whether vote counting happens centrally or locally (ie, at the polling station). I know that all this information can be found out, but I believe that a much higher percentage of Canadians could answer the equivalent questions for Canada. Not, of course, because Canadians are better informed, but because the answers are much simpler.

The Wikipedia article illustrates my point quite well.

It’s a great plan! The taxpayers will be so baffled - the ones who aren’t chirping happily about how much “power” it gives them because they can vote three times for the price of one - that it’ll take them years to realize that we were giving their pockets an extra rifling while they were bent over studying their ballots.

Right off the bat, we’ll award ourselves $1.75 per vote number 1, $1.50 per vote 2 and $1.00 per vote 3. Next we’ll form dozens of new hobby-horse/stalking-horse parties to suck second- and third-place votes and cash out of people. Then we’ll cut deals in parliament and funnel cash, perks, jobs, and pork to each other’s friends and supporters and we’ll call it “the noble art of compromising” and “getting the work of parliament done”.

By the time the public snaps out of their daydreams about being “empowered” with the new voting system, a whole new generation of political slugs, laggards, weasels and felons will have safely rounded third and crossed home plate into hog heaven.

And of course we’ll owe a huge debt of gratitude to the political weiners and Mr. McGoo pundits who helped us sell it to the public. They want more democracy and we’re going give it to ‘em … good and hard.

I really don’t paritcularly care for PR systems. In a country as large as Canada I think our attachment to regional and local elections of MPs make more sense. We inherited our current system from Britain and its been working fairly well for hundreds of years, thus if its not broken why fix it?

Dismissing the instability of parliaments resulting from proportional representation is ridiculous. You think we have frequent elections now? An election every year would be normal if we switched the system. But arrogant dismissal of any disagreement is vintage Andrew Coyne any time he wanders from the subject of fiscal conservatism and stops making sense.