Electoral reform: From Representative Democracy to Direct Democracy

The Greatest Canadian, Tommy Douglas, speaking of meaningful changes in the electoral issues of his time, told the anecdote of the well meaning mice that would change their voting preferences from the white cat, to the black cat, hoping for better government. He suggested then that the mice would be better off voting for other mice like themselves, rather than just changing their vote for cats of different color.

Of course, Tommy Douglas, in the fifties, was implying the other parties as the cats and his own as the mice, but I would like to project his anecdote to our time. Beyond electoral changes of Party Proportionality and/or Single Transferable Vote, we need to envision a deeper understanding of change; that is, advancing from representative democracy, by cats or mice of any color or party, into Direct Democracy or self governance.

The first step to Direct Democracy is to legislate an on-going participatory decision making. Fortunately, “Recall and Initiative” which could have been a form of an on going referendum, was legislated in BC in 1996;

Unfortunately, "Initiative" was never developed as a practical mechanism where citizens can effectively participate and vote on relevant legislation, nor was "recall" given the practical computerized system, within the BC Elections Agency, for conducting an on-going electoral or recall operation.

Let’s question electoral reforms which empower parties or shuffle electoral boundaries to deviate us from the most eminent change needed.

The most needed electoral change is not PR or STV, regardless of its myths or merits. The real change needed is: from representative democracy to direct democracy

You can participate in the real democratic evolution starting on Nowpolling.ca