TORONTO, ONTARIO - On Election Day in my riding, one of our water heater (there wasn't a water cooler, but we were next to a radiator) conversations was about the prospect of electoral reform. Even before we knew how low turnout would prove to be, the group of NDP scrutineers that I was hanging out with saw the only way to make serious progress on a progressive agenda was to achieve some kind of electoral reform so that things like voting swapping and strategic voting could be a thing of the past, and voters could simply vote their actual preference and have it mean something. The added clarity in voter intention would change the political landscape significantly, never mind if the actual result is as much progressive change as those of us around that table would suspect.
One of the interesting thoughts that came up was that a province would have to do it first and prove an alternate system worked, never mind that there are models for alternate systems everywhere from the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts to the European Parliament to, arguably most relevant to a British Commonwealth member, Australia. One colleague thought British Columbia would be the best candidate, as it would have to be a progressive province with at least three parties, or there would be no incentive for the parties to go along with the change.
The only problem with that thought is that the idea has already been passed over in British Columbia. In 2005, the province held a referendum on whether to adopt a Single-Transferable-Vote system for the provincial assembly. Granted, the vote was close. Required to carry both 60% of the popular vote and 60% of the 79 electoral districts, it passed with flying colors in the latter (77 of 79 districts in favor), but came up about 2.5% short in former (39,262 votes, in the popular vote). Perhaps a future referendum might actually pass there.
It certainly seems to be a better candidate than Ontario. In 2007, Ontario voters were asked to choose between the existing First-Past-The-Post system and a Mixed-Member-Proportional system. To result in a change, 60% of voters needed to vote for the measure, and it needed a majority in 50% of 107 electoral districts. It wasn't close. The measure was defeated by an almost 2:1 margin, garnering only 36.9% of the vote (granted, that's 1,579,684 people), and winning in only five ridings. Furthermore, electoral reform had received almost no media attention, no significant support from any provincial party except largely symbolic support from the NDP, and polls indicate that few voters even understood what it was all about. The results had to be classified as depressing to supporters of electoral reform.
So, if the provinces don't seem to be leading the way, is there a way to do it at the Federal level? As expressed previously, I thought there was at least an opening with Stéphane Dion as a Liberal leader talking about a Rank-Order-Voting system. Yesterday, however, Dion announced he would be resigning as party leader in the wake of the Liberals' terrible performance in the election. With the next Liberal leader likely to be more right-leaning than Dion, it would not seem likely that the Liberal Party will be supporting any sort of electoral reform. While it was conceivable that a Liberal-NDP move for electoral reform might pass a future parliament in which their combined vote totals could be a majority, there is essentially no way to achieve such a coalition without either the Liberals or the Conservatives, and the Conservatives certainly have no incentive to support it.
Electing pro-reform candidates to Parliament, then, doesn't seem a reasonable prospect. The only way seems to be pressuring the large parties into action, much the way that the public shamed the Conservatives and NDP into allowing Green Party leader Elizabeth May into the Leadership Debates. It's time to start making noise now with letters to our MP's and local media, and maybe some day there will be enough incentive for action to be taken.
In the meantime, it is not advisable to hold one's breath waiting for electoral reform. Vote swapping, anyone?
Showing posts with label electoral reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electoral reform. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Politics: Time for Proportional Representation
TORONTO, ONTARIO - The biggest story coming out of the Canada's 40th Federal Election on Tuesday does not seem to have been the results obtained by any of the political parties or candidates, but low voter turnout. With more than 99% of the vote counted as of this morning, just 13,832,972 of 23,401,064 registered voters actually cast a ballot. That's only 59.1%, the lowest national participation rate ever in Canada. While there are a variety of reasons why people may not have turned out, the single thing that could be done that would help the most would be electoral reform to a Proportional Representation system.
Probably my most graphic memory of Election Day 2008 as an "outside scrutineer," reminding voters known to support my favored candidate to vote, occurred after dinner hours, as I did what would be one of my final passes through the neighborhood. Looking for a voter who turned out to be at the polls right at that time, I discovered her husband sitting on their porch, enjoying an ice cream bar. I asked him if he had voted yet. "No, I didn't do it this time." I reminded him that he still had an hour to go the polls. "No, I'm not interested." Why? "My vote never counts anyway. If you don't vote for the winner, it doesn't count for anything."
There is a counter-argument to that perspective (one can't change the winner unless enough people vote for a desired alternative), but fundamentally he had a point. In Canada's first-past-the-post system, effectively all votes that do not go to the winning candidate in a riding might as well have gone to any other candidate. All the voters that I encouraged to vote in the poll I was assigned to on Tuesday might as well have voted for Radical Marijuana candidate Terry Parker--their presumed votes for second-place finisher Peggy Nash from the NDP made no difference in the makeup of parliament. Presumably, the man I encountered was a supporter of a small party, perhaps the Greens, perhaps Christian Heritage, in that riding perhaps even the Conservatives, who never come close to winning in the riding, and he was tired of making an effort only to be represented by someone he fundamentally disagreed with.
The effects of the first-past-the-post system get more perverse the more broadly the results are viewed. On the provincial level, in Saskatchewan, the NDP actually received 25% of the vote and received no seats in parliament, while the Liberals received only one from 15%, and the Conservatives won the rest of the seats (92.9%) from just 54% of the vote. In Newfoundland and Labrador, it was the Conservatives that were shut out despite earning 15% of the vote, with the NDP at least winning one seat from 33% of the vote and the Liberals winning the other six (85%) with just 47% of the popular vote. How well-represented can a NDP voter in Saskatechewan or a Conservative in Newfoundland feel?
Nationally, the picture looks even worse. The NDP earned almost half as many votes Canada-wide as the Conservatives (2.5 million versus 5.2 million), yet they have less than one-third as many seats, 37 versus 143. The NDP actually earned nearly double the votes of the Bloc Quebecois, at 2.5 million to 1.3 million. Yet, the NDP has fewer seats, 37 versus 50. And, of course, there's the biggest travesty of all--the Green Party's 940,747 voters, 6.8% of those that bothered to cast a ballot, have no representation in parliament, anywhere in the country.
In a proportional representation system, every vote would count in at least some way. There are different ways to set up the particulars in a system, but beyond the specific winners in geographically-defined ridings, there are floating members to ensure that all voters are represented. Every party above a threshold of votes, based on the number of seats available, would be represented. In Saskatchewan, the NDP would have ended up with at least a pair of seats. Nationwide, the Greens would have earned somewhere between ten and twenty.
One bizarre phenomenon that apparently had little or no impact on the elections, vote swapping, would not be necessary under Proportional Representation. Because every vote would count toward the proportional seats, the location where it was cast geographically would no longer be nearly as important. A NDP voter from Saskatechewan, a Green voter anywhere, or a Conservative from Toronto would help elect an at-large representative.
Furthermore, all of the current scare tactics, mostly by the more centrist parties, that voters who really support a less mainstream party need to vote for a more centrist party to stop another party from forming a government would be diminished. Voting for a lesser evil would no longer be necessary--and one would expect that the Green party would not be the only beneficiary of that change. The Progressive Canadian Party, for example, in trying to recreate the old Progressive Conservative perspective in contrast to the current Conservative Party, would be more likely to be considered by an anti-Liberal voter. Even the Conservatives and the Liberals could actually end up benefiting if they find ways to broaden their appeal by adopting the policies of (and making irrelevant) the smaller parties, much as they do today. The biggest winner in the short term from Proportional Representation--the NDP--might be the biggest long term loser if they bled votes to the Liberals and new smaller parties.
If the voters sent a national message on Tuesday, it was not about the policies of any of the parties. It was that they do not feel like it is worthwhile voting. To change that, we need proportional representation.
Probably my most graphic memory of Election Day 2008 as an "outside scrutineer," reminding voters known to support my favored candidate to vote, occurred after dinner hours, as I did what would be one of my final passes through the neighborhood. Looking for a voter who turned out to be at the polls right at that time, I discovered her husband sitting on their porch, enjoying an ice cream bar. I asked him if he had voted yet. "No, I didn't do it this time." I reminded him that he still had an hour to go the polls. "No, I'm not interested." Why? "My vote never counts anyway. If you don't vote for the winner, it doesn't count for anything."
There is a counter-argument to that perspective (one can't change the winner unless enough people vote for a desired alternative), but fundamentally he had a point. In Canada's first-past-the-post system, effectively all votes that do not go to the winning candidate in a riding might as well have gone to any other candidate. All the voters that I encouraged to vote in the poll I was assigned to on Tuesday might as well have voted for Radical Marijuana candidate Terry Parker--their presumed votes for second-place finisher Peggy Nash from the NDP made no difference in the makeup of parliament. Presumably, the man I encountered was a supporter of a small party, perhaps the Greens, perhaps Christian Heritage, in that riding perhaps even the Conservatives, who never come close to winning in the riding, and he was tired of making an effort only to be represented by someone he fundamentally disagreed with.
The effects of the first-past-the-post system get more perverse the more broadly the results are viewed. On the provincial level, in Saskatchewan, the NDP actually received 25% of the vote and received no seats in parliament, while the Liberals received only one from 15%, and the Conservatives won the rest of the seats (92.9%) from just 54% of the vote. In Newfoundland and Labrador, it was the Conservatives that were shut out despite earning 15% of the vote, with the NDP at least winning one seat from 33% of the vote and the Liberals winning the other six (85%) with just 47% of the popular vote. How well-represented can a NDP voter in Saskatechewan or a Conservative in Newfoundland feel?
Nationally, the picture looks even worse. The NDP earned almost half as many votes Canada-wide as the Conservatives (2.5 million versus 5.2 million), yet they have less than one-third as many seats, 37 versus 143. The NDP actually earned nearly double the votes of the Bloc Quebecois, at 2.5 million to 1.3 million. Yet, the NDP has fewer seats, 37 versus 50. And, of course, there's the biggest travesty of all--the Green Party's 940,747 voters, 6.8% of those that bothered to cast a ballot, have no representation in parliament, anywhere in the country.
In a proportional representation system, every vote would count in at least some way. There are different ways to set up the particulars in a system, but beyond the specific winners in geographically-defined ridings, there are floating members to ensure that all voters are represented. Every party above a threshold of votes, based on the number of seats available, would be represented. In Saskatchewan, the NDP would have ended up with at least a pair of seats. Nationwide, the Greens would have earned somewhere between ten and twenty.
One bizarre phenomenon that apparently had little or no impact on the elections, vote swapping, would not be necessary under Proportional Representation. Because every vote would count toward the proportional seats, the location where it was cast geographically would no longer be nearly as important. A NDP voter from Saskatechewan, a Green voter anywhere, or a Conservative from Toronto would help elect an at-large representative.
Furthermore, all of the current scare tactics, mostly by the more centrist parties, that voters who really support a less mainstream party need to vote for a more centrist party to stop another party from forming a government would be diminished. Voting for a lesser evil would no longer be necessary--and one would expect that the Green party would not be the only beneficiary of that change. The Progressive Canadian Party, for example, in trying to recreate the old Progressive Conservative perspective in contrast to the current Conservative Party, would be more likely to be considered by an anti-Liberal voter. Even the Conservatives and the Liberals could actually end up benefiting if they find ways to broaden their appeal by adopting the policies of (and making irrelevant) the smaller parties, much as they do today. The biggest winner in the short term from Proportional Representation--the NDP--might be the biggest long term loser if they bled votes to the Liberals and new smaller parties.
If the voters sent a national message on Tuesday, it was not about the policies of any of the parties. It was that they do not feel like it is worthwhile voting. To change that, we need proportional representation.
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