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

[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/