Proportional Representation part 3

I just did the mydemocracy.ca thing.  It's a Vote Compass type thing, where you answer oodles of questions and then get labelled at the end.

I think the focus just on attacking the Liberals will not work and here is why:

You could make the Liberals pay a price for breaking this promise but in the end this is not the issue that will defeat them. So while useful for partisan purposes (if your goal is to hurt the Liberals) it is not an effective strategy to win this issue.

Instead if you promote the issue as important and tie it to the dynamic -- need a government with a party that did not get a false majority, you have something that is more workable. In other words saying you have to deliberately vote to try to create a minority if you want a change here. Such a campaign could work as a voting motivation rather than just one more on the pile of why this party is bad and this is good. It comes off as less partisan and more practical to say this experience has taught us not to trust a false majority party to give up their advantage.

Of course this strategy allows for those who are otherwise Liberals but who want electoral reform to be part of a campaign to create that by lending their vote to a party to create that dynamic. This issue will not help the NDP win a straight up popularity contest with the Liberals but it might pull in those who like the Liberals but want this reform to vote to make it happen. Remember you only need a small minority of people to change based on a campaign to make a difference -- a couple percent makes the difference between majority and minority.

We have had vote strategy groups and sites in volved in strategic voting to oppose the Conservatives. Most of those sites claim support of PR. Asking them to help a strategic voting to create a minority might both publicize the issue and help engineer the kind of result that may create the needed dynamic for change.

In the meantime the NDP and Greens politically can use the issue in a partisan way but we need a different approach as well -- saying regardless of partisan choices we need a configuration in parliament that is a non-minority to even have a chance at this.

It deserves to be mocked. And I say that as, apparently, an Innovator. 

More fun at the silly survey's expense:  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/12/05/liberals-electoral-reform-online...

Crowd demands P.E.I. government accept plebiscite result

Hundreds gathered on a cool November night outside the Coles Building – the temporary home to Prince Edward Island’s legislature – to demand government respect the majority plebiscite ballot selection.

The boisterous group rattled signs and hollered for change at the Rally For Democracy aimed at convincing government to respect the outcome of the province’s recent plebiscite on electoral reform.

Last week, Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker’s motion calling on government to immediately take steps to implement Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP), which was the winning choice of five options on the plebiscite ballot in the vote held earlier this month, was soundly defeated....

It classifies me as an "Innovator", although I am utterly against online voting. When I look at my results on each of their "Themes", I am an outlier, way beyond any of their groups, for most of them. How they could classify me at all is hard to imagine. But then, they just came up with some hokey algorithm and follow it, even in cases it clearly doesn't apply to. By the way, you can apparently take this thing as many times as you want, so the resulting numbers will be no more meaningful than the online polls many web sites run. As far as I can see, this is a total waste of taxpayer money.

Absolutely agree.   And cooperation leads to better decisions.  We always have time to cooperate.   But "slows decisionmaking" is a thing said often by people considering the desireability of minority governments.   Something supporters of proportional representation have to get around.   So if anyone has any good scripts/talking points on this for me to use on my Liberal friends, I'd be much obliged.

I favour mixed member but I'll take anything as an improvement on FPTP.   My utopia would be direct democracy with a functioning media that has the goal of creating informed citizens.   Baby steps!

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Clearly it is designed to make you think online voting is not secure when it can be.

Sean, in this case, you are just plain wrong. Here is a lengthy technical report, which I have already linked to in several other posts. It clearly demonstrates, in gruelling detail, the many reasons why your statement is incorrect. Every serious computer security expert agrees that as of now, we do not have technologies capable of delivering reliable, secure online voting.

I said when it can be.

The report says none to date but it does not at all suggest that it cannot be. Additionally reports from that organization indicate that one that would be secure for the US (a larger country in population than Canada) would take a few years. The report lays out the requirements – a tall order but not impossible.

This report states that a 2E-VIV system is required (end-to-end verifiable). Challenges are significant while previously they were impossible.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The five key recommendations of this report are:

1 Any public elections conducted over the Internet must be end-to-end verifiable.

2 No Internet voting system of any kind should be used for public elections before end-to-end verifiable in-person voting systems have been widely deployed and experience has been gained from their use.

3 End-to-end verifiable systems must be designed, constructed, verified, certified, operated, and supported according to the most rigorous engineering requirements of mission- and safety-critical systems.

4 E2E-VIV systems must be usable and accessible.

5 Many challenges remain in building a usable, reliable, and secure E2E-VIV system. They must be overcome before using Internet voting for public elections. Research and development efforts toward overcoming those challenges should continue.

Now more recent articles are making clear there is progress:

http://bostoncommons.net/online-voting-security-challenges/

and

https://www.vmware.com/radius/the-future-of-voting-balancing-privacy-and...

So while it may be accurate to say no current system is available that is secure there is every confidence that there will be one -- and even pessimistic predictions put that to within a decade. So when I say it can be I mean the technology is advancing to the point where we are near.

Now if we were to choose to go in that direction the rest of the infrastructure would likely take about a decade to build and test so the security aspects are not the impediment.

Voting reform is also not a frequent exercise. We do not expect to do this more than once in a decade so the time to greenlight the idea is not – certainly with conditions.

So back to what I said – they can be. So not it is not secure but to suggest that a built in problem would be lower security is false. There is a requirement to build the security but once built there are arguments that it will be more secure.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

The only part of your reply that I really disagree with is your optimistic prediction of a system that passes the tests set out in the report I cited within 10 years. There are serious and difficult problems that may prove to be intractable. Meaning that any solutions we come up with are not good enough to meet spec. I agree that it is possible a ceritfiably secure online voting system could be in existence within 10 years, but I wouldn't bet any money on it, and I don't think giving the impression that we are almost there, so we can start planning now is helpful.

So I am not flat wrong as you said but rather have a more optimistic view.

I base this on several things:

First there is a lot of money to be made on development of this.

Second the obstacle, while significant, is not out of this world (like a trip to the moon was once). Security already exists. The key is to give the tracking which you can get thorugh accountability with your bank, to work with only one side identified to remain anonymous.

Government agencies are in fact using various systems that are improving -- including for example the test last year by Statistics Canada for the Census.

The big challenge is to provide a secure identifiable to one side, and trackable transaction that is also anonymous.  An account where one side has more infomration than the other. This is why you can bank online but not vote -- the bank knows all you do but you don't want the government to identify a voter yet we need a voter to identify the product of a transaction (vote target) and know it was counted.

I do not minimize the challenge but I do recognize the value and the economic purpose. There is no impediment to this technologically (like speed of light limits etc.) There simply is not yet a design that has been tested as working.

Now I disagree with your suggestion that now is not the time. In fact we have to look to technology trends and prepare for them. We should be determining the objecitves, conditions, requirements required prior to the technology being completed.

We can establish within our voting system exactly the requirement in technology that would be required to do online voting and all the conditions for its adoption. We can do this now and move to it once they are met. This is better than ignoring what is an emerging technology and waiting for the next democratic review (perhaps in another century) whent he enabling technology is likely only 1-3 elections away.

There is no reason we cannot have a policy in favour that is conditional. This woudl be the case with anything else built. We plan for buildings where the design has not been produced and for many other contracted things and this is less than a contract with a technology. This is what comes before that saying what it must contain.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

So I am not flat wrong as you said but rather have a more optimistic view.

Sometimes it is a mistake to try to be polite. Your original quote, "Clearly it is designed to make you think online voting is not secure when it can be." is, in my opinion, flat wrong. We do not know whether it will ever be possible, but we are damned sure that it is not possible now. You were flat wrong, unless we are very liberal in our interpretation of "can be". My original understanding was that you meant there were already techniques in existence, which could be used if anyone had the will, to create secure online voting. You then wiggled out of this by claiming that you only meant such technology was imminent, not existing. If you replaced "can be" with "might someday be" I would be able to agree with you. The 2 indications of "progress" you posted are sales pieces by would-be vendors. I can find similar ones for cold fusion heaters. How about some papers by independent researchers supporting your view?

I just filled in this silly survey. I could find nowhere to actually provide my opinion so I replied to the confirmatory email I received with this:

"

Unfortunately there was no room in the survey to give a real opinion so I will attempt to do it here and hope someone considers it and replies.

I think this survey is a shameful manipulation that is designed to sidetrack the impetus for serious electoral reform. Nowhere are we given a choice between alternative systems. The government can read anything it wants into the meaningless results this survey is rigged to yield.

It is shameful that your company has been paid over $300,00 to run interference for the government. If you had any shame you would give it back."

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

So I am not flat wrong as you said but rather have a more optimistic view.

Sometimes it is a mistake to try to be polite. Your original quote, "Clearly it is designed to make you think online voting is not secure when it can be." is, in my opinion, flat wrong. We do not know whether it will ever be possible, but we are damned sure that it is not possible now. You were flat wrong, unless we are very liberal in our interpretation of "can be". My original understanding was that you meant there were already techniques in existence, which could be used if anyone had the will, to create secure online voting. You then wiggled out of this by claiming that you only meant such technology was imminent, not existing. If you replaced "can be" with "might someday be" I would be able to agree with you. The 2 indications of "progress" you posted are sales pieces by would-be vendors. I can find similar ones for cold fusion heaters. How about some papers by independent researchers supporting your view?

There is no scientific barrier and a lot of people working on the design. Like most things you need a buyer to capitalize and complete the technology. There is no indication that this will not be there in less time than the process for such a reform.

So in your opinion is fine but as an objective statement it is not wrong to say that it can be and it is not a characteristic of the choice but a challenge currently being worked on with every expectation that it can be met. And that is the point here.

Those industry experts do happen to work in the field but they have bet their money on it.

Even the source of the report you linked to stated they expect it to be within a decade -- or is your own source biased and unworthy?

I always thought the online vote compasses were kinda scary but could never pinpoint why.  Now I know why. Whjat an awful, manipulative proceess.

Why aren't they looking into adding postal ballots to our current system of voting? That would likely increase voter convenience and voter participation. I think there are no real security issues with postal ballots. They're currently used in many jurisdictions.

Paul Wells offers his own adaptation of the survey via the Toronto Star:

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/12/06/whose-democracy-is-this-t...

It would be great if he got more responses than the Gov't one.  Just sayin'...

And of course there is the Buzzfeed version as well.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/laurenstrapagiel/we-know-what-your-democracy-st...

I think the whole thing is just an attempt to undermine the ERRE Report, which called for a referendum on PR.  The government will at some point be required to give a response in writing to the ERRE Report, so I feel they're hoping to be able to undermine it with this survey initiative.  Because the experts and people who spoke to the committee were overwhelmingly against AV and in favour of PR, and because the NDP, Green, Bloc, and Conservatives are also against AV, and because the Liberals are in favour of AV and not in favour of PR, the Liberals on the committee basically dissented from the majority opinion (it's wrongly labelled "supplementary").  So, it seems the PMO seeing this developing, and realizing they were not going to be able to game the committee to AV as they expected, started this weird survey initiative as a way to undermine the committee report (I say PMO rather than Monsef herself because many feel she's just a puppet in this).  If the government had wanted PR without a referendum, they could have easily joined the NDP and Greens and gotten it (it's the Bloc and Cons that want a referendum, with each being open to PR but not AV as the choice).  If the Liberals wanted to just stay with FPTP and were confident that PR would lose in a referendum, then they would not have dissented.  I feel they're worried PR might win in a referendum.

Anyway, so anyone who feels that there's some way to get PR from the bizarre survey should wake up.  It's a desperate act on part of the Liberals to engineer some sort of support for AV.  I filled mine out but due to not disclosing all the personal info (sex, age, postal code, etc) my survey doesn't go in.  Good.  I'd rather not be a part of their toolkit for AV.  FPTP is prefereable to AV.  If it flops and they get barely more people than the ERRE Committee encountered on their townhalls and hearings, then it will serve to strengthen their argument that there's not enough interest in ER to proceed.  The problem with this argument is 1.) the survey is incredibly stupid, and 2.) it was sent out during the Christmas season quite late.  Plus that still doesn't change the fact that they'd be breaking a clear promise and ignoring the ERRE Report -- and this report should not be minimized -- we're talking about four very different political parties coming together in a compromise, which is an incredible achievement.  I think the Liberals weren't expecting this.  They wanted the committee to fall apart so they could swoop in and save the day with AV.  That didn't happen, so now they've move to Plan B:  stupid survey to undermine the ERRE Committee and generate an argument for AV.

And I do think they want AV but not PR.  Look at this video and see how Trudeau stumbled and practically confirmed he was a liar:  http://globalnews.ca/video/3112643/trudeau-stumbles-over-question-on-ele... They're feeling a lot of pressure on this, since it was such a clear promise.  I don't think they want to just settle for FPTP, but they really don't want PR.

For those who insist on taking the survey, and are interested in PR, here's a site that goes through it suggesting how to cut through the manipulation and gear your answers toward PR.

http://mycanadiandemocracy.ca/

Telephone campaign for proportional representation:  http://www.notmydemocracy.ca/

Wilf Day wrote:

So the Liberals have to find something other than AV. Likely some kind of PR-lite or PR-ultra-lite. Make every vote count a little bit.

The NDP/Green minority Report even put a light in the window for such an outcome, to the surprise of many. "The government could decide to take an incremental approach by adding regional compensatory MPs in groups of 30-45 over the next three or four elections."

How the heck would that work? Where did that idea even come from? Obviously, yet another Nathan Cullen special, once again telling the Liberals the NDP is willing to dance. 

I think this incremental approach would be a great compromise solution that would satisfy most of the considerations of all the political parties. Best of all it would make it very easy to implement MMP in time for the next election since adding only 30 - 50 extra MP's to the House of Commons would be easy to implement quickly. Electoral reform would then not need a two year advance period to implement as it could be implemented without boundary revisions to a very moderately expanded House of Commins. The Conservatives and Bloc would also have a difficult time opposing electoral reform through a referendum since the modest initial changes to the electoral system and House of Commins would be small. The Liberals could also say that future incremental changes could be reconsidered after each future election by the future government of the day.

Yes, I'm skeptical myself.  However, good to still push for change.  Nathan Cullen has a website set up to get feedback from people which he'll present to the House.

http://yourdemocracy.net

Karina Gould will become the new Minister of Democratic Institutions, replacing Monsef.  Here's a video of her speaking in support of the NDP motion to set the ERRE Committee up in closer proportion to the votes cast.  In it she makes many arguments that can be seen as favouring changing to PR without a referendum (though time will tell if in fact this is where she and the Libs are headed).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPQfM3mYiFQ

Fair Vote Canada's statement:

Outraged, Disgusted, Disappointed by Broken Electoral Reform Promise

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has chosen his Party over Canadians by breaking his promise to “Make Every Vote Count”. “Canadians are outraged and disgusted that the Prime Minister has cynically abandoned his commitment to make 2015 the last unfair election. Instead, he will take another roll in the false majority casino,” said Fair Vote Canada’s Executive Director, Kelly Carmichael. “In 2015, so many voters believed him and cast strategic votes for the Liberal Party. We played his game and he played us”.

During national consultations on electoral reform, 80% of citizens and 88% of experts expressed a very clear preference for proportional representation (PR), The truth, confirmed by all parties in the Electoral Reform Committee, is that there was no support for the winner-take-all Alternative Vote system personally favoured by Justin Trudeau. While the Country was grieving a tragic event in Quebec, the disappointed Prime Minister quietly sent out his the newly appointed Minister to present alternative facts to justify the broken promise. In truth, he has made a calculated decision to keep an unfair system that provided him with 100% of the power with only 39% of the popular vote.

In the last federal election, the Liberal Party clearly promised to make 2015 the last unfair, first-past-the-post-election and to make every vote count. As a result, 63% of Canadians voted for political parties that promised to make every vote count. Since then, Elections Canada, opposition political parties, civil society, and individual Canadians have all collaborated in a great democratic exercise to reform Canada’s broken electoral system. Instead of giving Canadians what they want, the Prime Minister wants to kill this democratic exercise, and has walked away from his own crystal clear commitment.

The Liberal Party has promised electoral reform since 1919 under MacKenzie King, and in 2015 card-carrying Liberals voted overwhelmingly for a policy resolution called “Restore Trust” that promised reform. The Prime Minister’s broken promise has created thousands of new political cynics.
“Politicians using citizens for their votes but not delivering on promises is what makes Canadians cynical. The Prime Minister has shown us that his word means nothing, and outraged voters will remember this in 2019.” said Fair Vote Canada President Réal Lavergne.

Fair Vote Canada remains committed to fair voting through proportional representation and will not give up the fight for equal and effective representation for all Canadians. It just won’t be Justin Trudeau’s legacy.

how dare we?

because we can be outraged and express it about as many things as we want?????!!!!!!!!

quizzical wrote:

how dare we?

because we can be outraged and express it about as many things as we want?????!!!!!!!!

 

Yes.