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ATV was used in BC to stop the CCF from winning. It worked but the winner was not either of the two parties who brought it in. This Wikki history appears to be right. Party hopping does not hinder some politicians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Social_Credit_Party
What the law commission said. MMP looks like the best alternative to the current system. Dion has brought attention to the problem, but the focus should be placed on educating about one system that can be accepted nationwide.
Majority governments would still be possible under MMP, but much less likely. And if majorities are won, they would not be false ones.
What would have to be sold to the general public is the idea of coalition governments, which would become the norm.
I disagree that a referendum is necessary before implementing PR, but it appears that Mulcair and other NDP luminaries want to hold one anyway. Given that, I think that the system most likely to pass a referendum is a type of MMP called "closest loser" or something like that. Apparently it is used in some German province (Bavaria?).
Its greatest virtue for purposes of passing a referendum is that absolutely nothing needs to change except the counting. The nomination process, ballots and voting would be identical to the current system. (Ridings would need to become somewhat larger, and be grouped into regions, but within that, everything would operate exactly as it does now.)
Once the popular vote figures for a region are available, any party which received a percentage of votes above the threshold (maybe 5%) would receive top up seats as regional MPs. These would be the losing candidates from that region who received the highest vote (could be percentage or absolute) in their ridings.
Among the virtues of this system are:
1. No party lists. These are always attacked by PR opponents as undemocratic, and allowing parties to choose MPs that the voters don't want.
2. No voter confusion. If you understand how to vote in the current system, you understand the new one.
3. Minimal change. Change, even positive change, makes many people uncomfortable, and is easily attacked by demagogues.
4. Every MP, even the regional ones, has a strong attachment and responsibility to the voters of a particular riding.
I agree with MMP, a 5% threshold and the closest winner option. I would want it to be the parties candidate that received the most actual votes not the highest percentage. In terms of votes being equal our current system gives higher weight to a rural vote than to an urban one. I think that the highest percentage method could exacerbate those current deviations from the ideal of all votes being equal.
As well if the current status quo largely remains in place then I would wonder what the "regions" mean. How many seats in each region is viable. For a 5% threshold I think that would mean at least a potential 20 seats. [ETA Feel free Wilf to tell me the proper number I would like to know it] What does that mean in the Maritimes where some provinces don't have that many seats. As always when trying to make voting rights equal in Canada one gets faced with the question of WTF is with PEI voters getting so many MP's.
If regions need to be large enough to accommodate the 5% threshold then the PEI ridings would be in a region with other parts of the Maritimes. I doubt if the people of Moncton or Halifax would like a regional seat to go to a PEI candidate if they received less overall votes than people running in more urban ridings. Especially if in two of the ridings the margin of victory was 44 to 43 for the Libs in one and the same but reversed seeing the Cons win the other riding. Under a scenario where the NDP sweeps the region, except PEI, in close three way races both the Libs and Cons could be underrepresented and with percentage rather than absolute votes that could lead to PEI having 6 MP's from the region. If a third PEI riding gave the Green candidate the highest percentage vote at say 10% then she too would be a regional MP.
To me it is clear that we need to try to get closer to the ideal of all votes being of equal weight so I like the highest actual votes received as my preferred policy.
No, Mulcair has not said so at all. Dion has said so. If we have a coalition government after 2015, I can imagine the Liberals insisting on a referendum and wanting to be free to oppose it. Best would be an agreement between both parties before the election that they will implement MMP after a public consultation on the details. But if neither party buys into that extent of pre-election cooperation, we may face a referendum.
Baden-Wurttemberg, not Bavaria. Other than that, you're right. (Some people call it "near-winner"or "no-list.")
However, it's best to use the normal two-vote ballot used by every MMP model, so you can vote for the local candidate you like best as well as voting for the party you want in government. Supporters of a third party may want to vote for the better of the two major candidates for local MP, but should be free to vote for their real first choice of party as well.
The threshold should be 5% or 4%.
Baden-Wurttemberg does use the highest votes rather than the highest percentage, so it favours growing suburban ridings which have grown since the last census. (Note that our Boundaries Commissions generally stick to a 10% deviation, so rural ridings are not smaller on the 2011 census figures, but after five or nine years many suburban ridings become larger.)
In Canada's six smaller provinces, a provincial threshold is academic because they have 14 or fewer MPs. (You might use a national threshold, but a national 5% threshold would look like an obvious attack on provincial parties like the Bloc.) As for PEI, you cannot merge provinces' MPs without a constitutional amendment which no one wants, so it will take around 20% to win a seat in PEI no matter how you slice it.
The regions in the four larger provinces might also be about 14 MPs, matching Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Or 20. Northern Ontario needs to be a separate region even with only nine MPs. Toronto would be a region with 22 MPs (24 in 2015, I expect). Edmonton's 11 MPs (in 2015) might be a good region. The average might be 14.
Show me a referendum on ANYTHING progressive in North America which went YES in the last 50 years...
PR is progressive. Therefore a referendum will lose.
I thought Mulcair had hinted at a referendum during the leadership campaign, but I guess I was mistaken. I certainly hope that a pre-election accord such as you describe can be reached to avoid a referendum, but I have my doubts.
I agree that the "normal two-vote ballot" is preferable, and more fair than my suggestion. However, if a referendum were to be necessary, I think it would be much more subject to attack for what the witless press corp would call "complexity". Consequently, in my opinion it would have a significantly lower probability of passing a referendum than the less-fair but more familiar single vote.
Would you consider a 2-round system like France's to be better than FPTP?
Personally, I prefer a two round system or AV over FPTP. At least they insure that the winning candidate receives 50% +1 on the last round. At least the two-round system and AV negate the problem of vote-splitting that plagues our system, FPTP.
A party detested by 50%+ of the public can win power via FPTP but not through a two-round system or AV.
If France had FPTP, the election held today would have produced a final result whereby the left and right would be basically tied in seats. But luckily for France they have a two-round system that will not allow vote-splitting on the left to unfairly favour France's right of centre. This in turn will help France produce polices that better represent the majority of their population. They're not going to end up with a government like we have here that represents under 40% of the voters.
I like two-round system in France style a bit.
Similar recent in March, NDP leadership race voting system 4 round? is it called AV or STV ?
If we have 2 round, it would be Left majority e.g
NDP - 4.5 million and CON 5.8 million - one round
NDP would get 7 million and CON approx 6 million from Liberal, Green and other parties - two round.
then NDP victory and PM.
AV or Alternative Vote, also known as Instant-runoff vote (IRV), and Transferable Vote.
Fair Vote USA and most electoral system reform supporters in the US support Instant Runoff Voting as the best solution to the US's horrible 2-party FPTP system.
However, compared to proportional systems like party list, STV, and MMP, AV is greatly flawed because, like FPTP, it is not proportional.
Electoral reformers in Canada mostly support MMP as being the best electoral system for Canada.
Ippurigakko the two round system in most places is for Presidential elections and most parliaments are elected by some PR electoral system. In Canada we only vote for an MP not a party or the PM.
All quite true.
As Ignatieff said "there is a blue door and a red door." As Jack Layton said "People will try and tell you that you have no choice but to vote for more of the same. But you do have a choice"
If the objective is to give fair representation to Canada's political diversity, AV is even worse because it funnels people through one of two doors, as it does in Australia, the only country to use it.
Sure, if the Liberal party would endorse proportional representation, and if both parties trusted each other enough to do some electoral co-operation (the last Coalition died when the Liberals changed their minds), getting rid of vote-splitting might give us a one-shot Australian model elected on a kamikaze platform ("never again -- next time it will be MMP"). If the Liberals endorse PR and stick to it. Today they have not gotten to first base.
For me it's PR or bust. FPTP and AV are fine when there are only two parties running for election. Those methods might have been adequate in 19th century England when there were just Whigs and Tories to choose from, but not today in the 21st century. People have wised-up to the fact that there is life beyond vanilla and double-vanilla flavoured politics. Blue and red door options would not even make for a decent game of chance with Monty Hall.
Today we will sit up to the dinner table, pick up our knives and forks and say: We want some democracy, damn it!
Your insistance on a "perfect" PR instead of taking a small step, that is, AV, a simple alternative ballot which is MORE DEMOCRATIC than the old FPTP where 36% is enough to win in a 3 way vote, will put off change forever. I,m really disappointed with Dion and his complicated P3 idea. Its typical of him.
Why any Liberal would think that, I can't understand, when it would have cost Justin Trudeau and Marc Garneau their seats last year.
I think establishing fair government is a more important objective than giving fair representation to political diversity. I think elections are much more about establishing fair and effective governments than establishing institutions for reperesentative debate. This is why I prefer AV over FPTP. At least AV insures that the majority of voters aren't saddled with a government they are opposed to. FPTP can't achieve this objective. In making the case against FPTP it is important to argue that FPTP gives us "wrong governments."
The most basic objective of an electoral system should be that that it insures that the government represents the majority of voters. Proportional representation insures this the most while FPTP insure this the least. AV and the two-round system do a better job of insuring that the government represents the majority than FPTP does.
Proportional representation is not perfect either. The weakness of proportional representation is that it can create situations where it is difficult to form governments as we have seen recently in places like Greece and the Netherlands. This is why proportional representation is critisized for creating weak governments. Most states using proportional representation create mechanisms to create stronger governments like thresholds which are usually set at 4 or 5%. Another remedy is to give a "top-up" to the party that best represents the majority of voters. In Greece they have a very faulty mechanism aimed at enabling one party to have enough seats to form a strong government. In Greece they simply give the party that comes in first place a 50 seat bonus in their 300 seat parliament. So their parliament is made up of 250 PR seats and 50 bonus seats given to the party that has a plurality and comes in first place. But unfortunately the party that comes in first place often does not best represent the majority. In the last election in May, the Greeks would have been much better served if the 50 bonus seats had been given to the party that came first in a national AV vote. By alloting the bonus seats using FPTP instead of AV, Greece has created a huge mess that may repeat itself again this month. The mess in Greece was caused by vote splitting on the left that allowed a right-wing party to come in first place and gain an undeserved bonus. An AV vote would have given the 50 bonus seats to a left of centre party and insured a much better outcome.
Looking at this from our side of the pond, it would seem to me that Canada would be best served if it implemented an electoral system of proportional representation combined with some kind of added bonus system that would give extra seats (50?) to the political party that wins a national AV election. This kind of system would provide a balance of both fair representation and strong government.
JKR, I couldn't disagree more with your opinion that a "strong" government is a good thing. In my opinion, so-called strong governments are useful only to the ruling class, as a way of passing the legislation they want without the support of a majority of voters. If the voting population is too fragmented on a certain issue for their proportionally chosen representatives to reach a majority consensus, then it is the proper democratic result that no legislation on that subject should be passed. Plus, in practice, "weak" minority governments in Canada since WW2 have been by far the most productive in terms of producing progressive legislation, medicare being the most obvious, but far from the only example.
The idea of "bonus seats" for the party that finishes first offends my sense of fairness so severely that I would argue against, and vote against, any system that included such a feature. I would rather stick with FPTP than have such a system. Fortunately, you are the only person I have heard make the suggestion, and I suspect it will not gain any traction.