Electoral Reform

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I wonder why voters keep rejecting electoral reforms. Seems a bit odd to me.

Because they're suspicious that these reforms are the product of an elite with an agenda, trying to mess around with a simple and familiar system that few ordinary voters have any problem with.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I wonder why voters keep rejecting electoral reforms. Seems a bit odd to me.

Because many felt that it would drown out local representation as many of the MPPs would be representing their own party's interest. MMP seems good at first but can be quite bad as voters are not elected people directly.

I'm pretty sure my NDP MPP was against MMP and my riding voting strongly against it.

[Mongo62]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I wonder why voters keep rejecting electoral reforms. Seems a bit odd to me.

Because they are very conservative when it comes to changes in the voting system. FPTP is so simple that an idiot can understand it, and it has the advantage of familiarity (the majority of voters have never seen a different system in operation).

Plus since the Right is currently united under the CPC, right-wing voters have reason to want to keep FPTP, since under it 40% of the vote is enough to gain a majority whereas they would almost never form a government under a more proportional system. If the CPC were to split into its component parties (Reform and PC), that reason would go away since the two parties combined would get MORE seats under a proportional system (like MMP or STV) than under FPTP.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Because many felt that it would drown out local representation as many of the MPPs would be representing their own party's interest. MMP seems good at first but can be quite bad as voters are not elected people directly.

I'm pretty sure my NDP MPP was against MMP and my riding voting strongly against it.

Yes I suppose that's the main reasons why the the PR system I advocate doesn't cause a loss of local representation.

[Mongo62]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Yes I suppose that's the main reasons why the the PR system I advocate doesn't cause a loss of local representation.

That's why I'm okay with both STV and MMP -- both are proportional systems with local representation. STV has all seats local, but is not strictly proportional, while MMP is strictly proportional, but not all seats are local. I would be fine with either of them, both are far superior to FPTP.

AV, on the other hand, is a winner-take-all system. It's certainly better than FPTP, but that means little, since every other voting system in use or being seriously considered is better than FPTP.

The problem with AV is that in almost all ridings in Canada, the Conservative candidate will fall short of 50% of the votes in that riding, so one of the progressive candidates, either Liberal, NDP or Green, will end up collecting the second and third place votes of the other two parties and winning the seat. While I like that outcome on a personal level, it would result in many fewer Conservative seats than their total vote count would justify, which is guaranteed to result in rising anger by the Right at their perceived repression, with no doubt unfortunate results. That is one reason why I prefer proportional voting systems, your preferred party might not be in power but at least you have your fair share of seats. If you want more seats, you just need to make your party platform more palatable to the rest of the voters.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I wonder why voters keep rejecting electoral reforms. Seems a bit odd to me.

When we had our referendum in Ontario, there wasn't really anyone who took the lead explaining and promoting the proposed reforms. The governing Liberals didn't seem all that crazy about it, and opposition was loud and a bit misleading. It didn't help that the threshold for a win was 60% of the vote across the board, with 50% support in at least 60% of the ridings. It was designed to fail.

The same thing happened in BC, except that the proposed reforms on the ballot in 2005 won support from a majority of voters in almost all of the ridings. Had the threshold been a simple majority, the reforms would have passed handily.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

When we had our referendum in Ontario, there wasn't really anyone who took the lead explaining and promoting the proposed reforms. The governing Liberals didn't seem all that crazy about it, and opposition was loud and a bit misleading. It didn't help that the threshold for a win was 60% of the vote across the board, with 50% support in at least 60% of the ridings. It was designed to fail.

No one could explain it because it was so confusing. Even the pro-MMP government publicity got details wrong. I was blogging heavily on the topic at the time and it quickly appeared that the proponents had given almost no thought to how their proposal (which was vague and incomplete to begin with) would play out in practice. Ontario MMP did not by any means eliminate the possibility of having majority governments with minorities of the vote ... the "thresholds" (designed to keep out small parties -- smaller than the Greens, anyway) made it quite likely that we would continue to see just that. But the MMP people didn't seem to care. They just had this hobby horse to ride around on and they weren't about to look inside it to find out the true nature of what they were proposing to let inside the gates of our electoral system. The voters had more common sense than that, fortunately.

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

The same thing happened in BC, except that the proposed reforms on the ballot in 2005 won support from a majority of voters in almost all of the ridings. Had the threshold been a simple majority, the reforms would have passed handily.

One must remember that the context of the STV referendum in BC back in 2005 was the 77 BC Liberal - 2 BC NDP rout during the 2001 BC election. In 2009, the 2nd BC STV referendum was also defeated by a 61% margin. basically the same margin as both ON and PEI.

Even the City of Vancouver held several referendums during '80's into 2000's on changing voting system from "at large" to a ward system. All were defeated.

In all of these instances, a 60% winning margin was required to change the voting system. Nothing new there.

[ssiguy]

I think referendums have failed, at least in BC, is that they were too damn complicated. Even I, as a political junkie, had a bitch of a time understanding BC's proposal.

This is why I say keep the FPTP system and let the Senate PR be produced by the election results for the House. It doesn't require any new voting system but brings about an effective and elected Senate. With an elected PR in the Upper House FPTP is fine.

[kwoldtimer]

There will be no elected Senate.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I think referendums have failed, at least in BC, is that they were too damn complicated. Even I, as a political junkie, had a bitch of a time understanding BC's proposal.

This is why I say keep the FPTP system and let the Senate PR be produced by the election results for the House. It doesn't require any new voting system but brings about an effective and elected Senate. With an elected PR in the Upper House FPTP is fine.

Excellent compromise, but would that mean that the Senate composition would change after each federal election? If so, I would rather a separate senate election (based on proportional representation) on a separate fixed schedule, perhaps every 5-6 years. The reason for this being that a minority House could fall at any time, triggering changes in the Senate at the same time. I would prefer more stability in the upper chamber.

Besides, by having separate Senate elections, that would provide us with the opportunity of voting both Conservative and Liberal at the same time! There is some value in this. I in fact did vote both Liberal and Conservative in the same election once in my life.

PEI used to have a 32 seat house with 16 dual constituency ridings. Each constituency elected both a "councillor" and an "assemblyman". This was a holdover from the time that PEI used to have an upper house. When the upper house was abolished, they simply moved the members from the council to the provincial assembly and doubled the size of the assembly (keeping the ridings intact). In any event, the first provincial election that I voted in, I really liked the Conservative candidate for assemblyman, but I was in favour of the Liberal Party winning the election. My solution of course was to vote for both parties at the same time.

I thought that was a rather elegant solution. The dual constituencies were abolished before the next election however, creating 32 individual ridings. I never again had the opportunity to practice electoral schizophrenia, and I'm somewhat sad about that.

This is one of the reasons why I'm in favour of separate Senate elections. An independent elected Senate would also do a much better job at holding the House to account, especially in the modern era of the Imperial Prime Minister. An elected Senate could serve an important function.......

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Excellent compromise, but would that mean that the Senate composition would change after each federal election? If so, I would rather a separate senate election (based on proportional representation) on a separate fixed schedule, perhaps every 5-6 years. The reason for this being that a minority House could fall at any time, triggering changes in the Senate at the same time. I would prefer more stability in the upper chamber.

Besides, by having separate Senate elections, that would provide us with the opportunity of voting both Conservative and Liberal at the same time! There is some value in this. I in fact did vote both Liberal and Conservative in the same election once in my life.

PEI used to have a 32 seat house with 16 dual constituency ridings. Each constituency elected both a "councillor" and an "assemblyman". This was a holdover from the time that PEI used to have an upper house. When the upper house was abolished, they simply moved the members from the council to the provincial assembly and doubled the size of the assembly (keeping the ridings intact). In any event, the first provincial election that I voted in, I really liked the Conservative candidate for assemblyman, but I was in favour of the Liberal Party winning the election. My solution of course was to vote for both parties at the same time.

I thought that was a rather elegant solution. The dual constituencies were abolished before the next election however, creating 32 individual ridings. I never again had the opportunity to practice electoral schizophrenia, and I'm somewhat sad about that.

This is one of the reasons why I'm in favour of separate Senate elections. An independent elected Senate would also do a much better job at holding the House to account, especially in the modern era of the Imperial Prime Minister. An elected Senate could serve an important function.......

PEI used to have two 2-member constituencies federally. There were also a couple of 2-member federal ridings in Vancouver.

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by Andy6

There were also a couple of 2-member federal ridings in Vancouver.

I don't believe federally in BC. But provincially BC had some ridings that had 2 (even 3 members) until the early 1980's IIRC.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

I don't believe federally in BC. But provincially BC had some ridings that had 2 (even 3 members) until the early 1980's IIRC.

The federal ones were eliminated around the first (P.E.) Trudeau term, I thought.

[ssiguy]

I don't agree with different Senate elections.

One only has to look at the US to see the damage. Due to the US system of having elections every 2 years the country is in a constant state of elections with the political parties on a constant state of war room readiness. It doesn't allow the government to effectively govern because they are always worried about the next election which is always just around the corner.

Harper had been giving us political ads for the last 8 months to try to undermine Trudeau and I don't think Canadians want that.

I think consolidation of the 2 votes is ideal...........the House by FPTP and the Senate by the percentage of votes. The issue is how offensively warped our Senate allocation is. PEI has 4 seat, NB has 10, and yet BC and Alberta both only have 6 each. This is made even more obscene by the fact that the Atlantic provinces are also overly represented in the House when considering their population.

The Senate seat allocation must be completely reworked as it represents the population of Canada in 1867 not the new reality of 150 years later. At the same time we should only have one election every 4 to 5 years so when voting your vote selects your seat by FPTP and the total votes dictate the Senate.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Excellent compromise, but would that mean that the Senate composition would change after each federal election? If so, I would rather a separate senate election (based on proportional representation) on a separate fixed schedule, perhaps every 5-6 years. The reason for this being that a minority House could fall at any time, triggering changes in the Senate at the same time. I would prefer more stability in the upper chamber.

Besides, by having separate Senate elections, that would provide us with the opportunity of voting both Conservative and Liberal at the same time! There is some value in this. I in fact did vote both Liberal and Conservative in the same election once in my life.

PEI used to have a 32 seat house with 16 dual constituency ridings. Each constituency elected both a "councillor" and an "assemblyman". This was a holdover from the time that PEI used to have an upper house. When the upper house was abolished, they simply moved the members from the council to the provincial assembly and doubled the size of the assembly (keeping the ridings intact). In any event, the first provincial election that I voted in, I really liked the Conservative candidate for assemblyman, but I was in favour of the Liberal Party winning the election. My solution of course was to vote for both parties at the same time.

I thought that was a rather elegant solution. The dual constituencies were abolished before the next election however, creating 32 individual ridings. I never again had the opportunity to practice electoral schizophrenia, and I'm somewhat sad about that.

This is one of the reasons why I'm in favour of separate Senate elections. An independent elected Senate would also do a much better job at holding the House to account, especially in the modern era of the Imperial Prime Minister. An elected Senate could serve an important function.......

That's actually an interesting thought. Considering the Senate technically has the power to veto legislation, having a senate that's based on PR could provide a limit to the power of a majority government elected without majority popular support. Of course, the senate rarely interferes with legislation in practice, but at one time this was much more common.

[kiwi]

FPTP leads to strategic voting and the government not accurately representing the voting public. Changing this to something more representative will be the first step in ensuring Harper-like excesses never happen again, and allow us to continue making progress on all the issues.

[Mongo62]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

That's actually an interesting thought. Considering the Senate technically has the power to veto legislation, having a senate that's based on PR could provide a limit to the power of a majority government elected without majority popular support. Of course, the senate rarely interferes with legislation in practice, but at one time this was much more common.

If the Commons uses a winner-take-all system like AV or Ranked Ballots, then I agree that having a Senate elected by a PR system of some sort would be a good counterbalance.

[GernB]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I don't agree with different Senate elections.

One only has to look at the US to see the damage. Due to the US system of having elections every 2 years the country is in a constant state of elections with the political parties on a constant state of war room readiness. It doesn't allow the government to effectively govern because they are always worried about the next election which is always just around the corner.

Harper had been giving us political ads for the last 8 months to try to undermine Trudeau and I don't think Canadians want that.

I think consolidation of the 2 votes is ideal...........the House by FPTP and the Senate by the percentage of votes. The issue is how offensively warped our Senate allocation is. PEI has 4 seat, NB has 10, and yet BC and Alberta both only have 6 each. This is made even more obscene by the fact that the Atlantic provinces are also overly represented in the House when considering their population.

The Senate seat allocation must be completely reworked as it represents the population of Canada in 1867 not the new reality of 150 years later. At the same time we should only have one election every 4 to 5 years so when voting your vote selects your seat by FPTP and the total votes dictate the Senate.

Senate representation has never been based on population. At confederation both Ontario and Quebec were given 24 members as that was the number of legislative councillors each had under the Act of Union. Macdonald's scheme had the maritime provinces also having 24 members as this was considered to be a third "section" in the scheme. Newfoundland would have been allocated another four members as it was seen as being somewhat separate from the maritimes, and those provinces objected to their representation. In 1916 the western provinces, which until then had been represented by four Senators each, were constituted as the fourth section and were then represented by 24 members - 6 each. When Newfoundland entered in 1949 it was assigned 6, but was not part of the maritime section. Later one senator each was added for the territories.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

That's actually an interesting thought. Considering the Senate technically has the power to veto legislation, having a senate that's based on PR could provide a limit to the power of a majority government elected without majority popular support. Of course, the senate rarely interferes with legislation in practice, but at one time this was much more common.

They never interfere nowadays because they'd have zero legitimacy to do so, but if they were "elected" it would be totally different.