Apolitical Staples

that letting parties control their list is anti-democratic.

I don’t think it is any less democratic than the way the nomination processes are controlled by the parties now. Besides nothing says that it can’t be changed down the road. I thought Harper conservatives were incrementalists. ;)

I mean from the point of view that if you are high on the list you get into Parliament even if the voters trounce you in your riding. Granted that can’t sustain itself it but think back to 1993, voters forcefully rejected Kim Campbell but she would still have had a seat under MMP.

That being said IP has convinced me that even though this MMP has closed lists that does not prevent the parties from choosing their lists however they want. My preference is to choose who gets the PR seats based on their vote rankings against their fellow party members. That way the voters choose who gets in the PR seats as well.

My preference is to choose who gets the PR seats based on their vote rankings against their fellow party members. That way the voters choose who gets in the PR seats as well.

That would be my preference as well. But I also think that if we’re honest about it and tally up not only the pros and cons of this particular MMP model, but the pros and cons of the current FPTP model right next to it, the cons on the FPTP list would outweigh the cons on the MMP list by a wide margin to anybody who’s not completely biased. There’s a reason why there aren’t any new democracies that choose a FPTP voting system—the downsides and the dangers are simply bigger in what we’re used to.

And I submit that “I wouldn’t want to live in any other country” isn’t a good measure of whether the electoral system is any, either (and I’d also argue that it’s a spurious claim until you’ve actually experienced living there and know for sure what it would be like, but that’s beside the point). It’s true for this idealistic pragmatist as well. But the reasons why I chose Canada over Germany or New Zealand have nothing to do with the electoral system or its effects. Canada is a great place to live, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that in the long run, it would be an even better one if we had a proportional electoral system. And not just for people like me, but for people like you, too.

And not just for people like me, but for people like you, too.

Whew. For a second there, I thought you were going to say it would be good for people like them, too.

I talk about MMP and even link this article today in my blog the Mount A Misfit

Check it out…

kirbyscott.blogspot.com

If you get jacked up by this stuff there was a good discussion last night.

I have a feeling that I’m going to be jacked up by this stuff sooner or later.

EVERY western democracy has seen its participation rates slowly drop, no matter the type of democracy they employ. New Zealand, Germany, Australia, etc. all have MMP, proportional, first past post, party lists, or some combination, and yet they have all experienced lower voter turnout.

Should add that voting in Australia is compulsory, so they always have high voter turnout, but even there it has dropped a couple of percentage points.