Electoral reform in Canada

[matgb]

Reposted here mostly for my reference, there's a referendum in October in Ontario on electoral reform (which those that know me will be aware is my big red button issue), grrliz wrote a post explaining why she's not in favour, it's 8 well argued points, and on some of them (the failings of MMS as a bloody stupid system) I agree. But on others I strongly disagree, so I replied, I' reposting it here for my later reference:

I'm with you in a dislike of MMP, it is a more partizan system and isn't much better than FPTP. I've long been in favour of, and a campaigner for, Single Transferrable Vote, which is a much more equitable and decentralised system. But I strongly disagree with your preference for FPTP over MMP, to my mind the only system worse than FPTP is 'pure' list based PR as used in Israel. here are a few counterpoints.

Before I start though, a big problem will be mis use of terminology, so a definition: based on voting behaviour studies, a wasted vote is defined as any vote that did not affect the outcome, ergo a vote for a candidate that didn't win. That people are using the term in a much more lose fashion does at time devalue it, which is regrettable.

1) A vote is always counted, yes, correct. That doesn't mean that it "counts" in terms of affecting the outcome, which is what is meant when it's used in such a way; sloppy language, but political campaigns are always going to be sloppy in language if not meaning.

2) See above; under the analysis of Rational Choice and other voter behaviour theories, a "wasted" vote is for any candidate that isn't first or second; if your candidate came third or below, or it wasn't a close race, your vote had no affect and therefore no value, it made no difference ergo the effort of going to the polling booth was "wasted". Of course, some people vote "expressively" regardless thus their vote is never truly wasted (I wrote a much better explanation last September, apologies for the FUGLY appearance of the site), and from the above I suspect you're strongly in the expressive camp; despite being a party member, I'm strongly not, and will always vote tactically under FPTP. This therefore affects both our perceptions when it comes to electoral reform.

3) Life isn't fair, and no electoral system is truly fair; the issue is is the assembly representative of general opinion, does it reflect the views of the people or merely the largest minority? FPTP favours the largest minority, and in Canada Duverger's Law has very wierd affects at times. Again, you're right and wrong, but partizanship is something some can't ever get away from :-(

4) Agree, you're correct, cf my preference for STV instead.

5) Also agree.

6) & 7) Agree, although I think having a chamber more representative of votes cast in the province is better than one in which weird disconnects can happen between votes and seats. I dislike regional and top-up lists, and dislike two classes of representative. However...

In the areas where there is MMS within the UK (Labour love it, it's a partizan system and favours party machines), my party (Liberal Democrats) has a clear policy of ensuring the party members vote for the priority order, but we're consciously a mass member supported and driven party, so less democratic parties give power to the heirarchy, we don't.

8) Which is why preferential systems (ie number candidates in order of preference) work much better across the board.

The difference is that your vote still makes a difference to the make up of the chamber, which means it's never completely wasted. Don't like it, but it's better than FPTP, a system I've never thought particularly democratic--it's designed to create two-party districts, and usually creates a two-party system, like I said above, Duverger's Law does weird things in Canada.

Heh, electoral reform, possibly the issue I care most about, in any country. The system defines the government, every system is played by those involved, the affects of FPTP on voter behaviour are weird, and I, personally, strongly dislike them--YMMV.

Cut for the sanity of your friends page.

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Cut for the sanity of your friends page.

Read because you wrote it...

♥ [/soppy]

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're strongly in the expressive camp; despite being a party member, I'm strongly not, and will always vote tactically under FPTP.

Despite NZ having MMP, I still vote tactically. Parties here need 5% of the vote (or to win a local seat) to get members in parliament, and if it looks like my preferred party will definitely get above the 5%, I'll consider voting for a party that's on the edge of the 5% if I think it's presence in parliament would be desirable.

When we voted on electoral reform, it's just possible I voted for some form of STV, as I remember I didn't choose MMP, or at least not originally. (I think we chose the alternative to FPTP using STV.) Still, I'm happy with MMP. (And have left a comment about it to grrliz post.)

One thing I think's important about voting systems and which a lot overlook is that they should be reasonably simple for people to understand. Some still get confused by MMP here, (forgetting that it's the party vote that really matters), as I'm sure they would be by STV as well.

They use STV in Australia where voting's compulsory, which results in quite a few ballot papers with the votes going to the candidates in the order they're on the paper...

[matgb]

I still vote tactically

That's one of the reasons I prefer preferential systems; I don't like the idea that voters have to think about how they express their preferences in order to get the best result; vote for your most preferred but have them filter down, much better.

People get confused by all electoral systems; the thing is that the confusion caused by FPTP is frequently 'sold' as strengths of the system.

But yeah, donkey voting is an issue, one of the reasons I switched from being in favour to being stronly opposed to compulsory voting.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

One of the (perhaps "the one" would be better) advantages of e-voting I've seen is the randomisation of the ballot paper; the system generates a new order of candidates each time it generates a ballot paper for a new voter, getting rid of the top-of-the-list selection bias.

I still like the idea of compulsory voting. Care to convince me otherwise?

[matgb]

Right now, swamped with work, but I've written it up in the past:
http://voting.taktix.org/?s=compulsory+voting
especially this post, which is two pullquotes really:
http://voting.taktix.org/2006/05/02/voting-how-to-increase-turnout/

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Which system's MMS? I seem to recall the Electoral Commission's recommendation over here being AV+ (a la New Zealand, IIRC). What's your view on that as a system?

[matgb]

AV+ is essentially a variant on MMS; there are many different names for systems with few aqctual differences; I think MMS has straight FPTP for constituencies whereas AV+ has AV for constituencies.

I dislike any system that embeds party loyalty and partizanship, and both through top up lists do this; my distinct preference is for STV, after that I prefer AV+, then MMS, then AV, then FPTP, then PR(open list) and lastly PR (closed list).

There are a variety of methods for running MMS; the German version works, for example. But my democratic instincts like to give choice and control to voters first, ergo STV—then I can vote for a decent Green or a decent LibDem as 1st vote, but know that ultimately my vote will affect the outcome regardless.

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

There are a variety of methods for running MMS; the German version works, for example.

The German system is a bit... odd. I've had friends explain it to me, and partly it works because there are a number of kludges on top to do with Overhang seats, and stuff. (As described in the Mixed Member System article on Pikiwedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_member_system).)

Britain's AMS is actually a sort of MMS, sort of.

AV+ is also sort AMS (with FPTP constituencies) and only proportionality on the list, whereas MMS can do proportionality across the whole lot.

It's All A Bit Odd.

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

AV+ is also sort AMS (with FPTP constituencies) and only proportionality on the list, whereas MMS can do proportionality across the whole lot.

Erm, AV+ is also sort of like AMS (except with AV constituencies instead of FPTP...), or something.

I'd assume I was drunk when I wrote it the first time, except for being at work.

[matgb]

Yeah, see, I did wonder about that one...

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Sadly, turkeys don't legislate for Christmas, so a system that weakens party loyalty and partisanship is surely going to be a hellishly hard sell. Having used STV and AV as a returning officer in SU elections, I don't get why people are so confused (my only real confusion is which one's which *grin* I think we used AV for one-vacancy elections and STV for multiple-vacancy elections) by them. Things like citizenship education should deliver decent voters to the polls...

[matgb]

'tis why I want a preferendum; you can sell that as giving voters choice and MPs against it as being undemocratic, after you've got it, then you push strongly for STV and make the anti-party arguments.

Then we get STV, we get an election or two, by which time you've got some MPs, there are more distinctions and less apparatchiks across all the parties, and thee and me can end up in the same party (with about a third the LDs, most but not all Greens and a chunk of Labour I suspect)...