Imagine this election scenario. A party wins 155 seats in a 301-seat Parliament and forms a majority government. But after the election, officials discover that 1.5 million fraudulent votes had been stuffed in the ballot boxes, giving the winning party 38 seats it didn't deserve and majority power that it didn't earn.That would be electoral fraud on a breath-taking scale. Fortunately the scenario is imaginary, but the following one is real.
In 1997 federal election, the Liberals won just 38 per cent of the votes, but the voting system -- not the voters -- gave them 51 per cent of the seats, or 38 more seats than warranted by the popular vote. If Canada had a fair voting system that treated all votes equally, the Liberals would have needed another 1.5 million votes to capture a majority of seats.
The imaginary scenario would be criminal because individuals manipulated results to give an undeserved 1.5 million vote advantage to one party. The real-life election in 1997 also produced an undeserved advantage equal to 1.5 million votes. The only difference is the fantasy fraud was perpetrated by individuals, whereas the culprit in real life is a voting system that distorts what we say with our ballots.
In the same vein, let's look at The Bloc Bonus, and other chronic bonuses.
. . . Wow!No wonder some Toronto Liberals and some Alberta Conservatives are willing to put up with the Bloc Bonus.
Who cares if the equivalent of 2.8 million fraudulent votes had been stuffed in Quebec ballot boxes, when you're benefiting from the equivalent of 4.6 million fraudulent votes stuffed in Toronto ballot boxes, or from the equivalent of 11.3 million fraudulent votes stuffed in Alberta ballot boxes.
Geez, I thought this thread was going to be about Afghanistan...
Never mind. Carry on.
Good catch.
In public relations circles it's called a "hook." Hope it works.
So if you vote for a popular party your vote is fraudulent, and if you vote for an unpopular party your vote is wasted? What a useless argument.
It's systematic electoral fraud! Thanks Wilf. A real topic of discussion for a change.
They're all frauds with FPTP.
Except that the phony-majority machine made federal Liberals the most fraudulent of all in 1997.
Afghans are not enjoying Single NON-Transferable Voting at the insistance of their US masters, which is also a very undemocratic electoral system. Afghan warlords in opposition have tried to lobby the USA's former mujahideen proxies in Karzai's gov't for a proportional voting system. But the US and stooges have worked to crush democracy in Afghan parliament.
At least they have a runoff system for President, so they're not stuck with a phony-majority prez.
We should be so lucky.
Okay, I didn't know that, Wilf. I agree that anything would be an improvement over the vote distorting FPTP. I was basing my own opinion on what [url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13611]John Warnock[/url] wrote about the '04-'05 presidential and parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.
The more complete quote is:
Of course, with 2,800 individual candidates for 249 positions, losing candidates would receive the majority of the votes.
The SNTV system is anti-party, and as such fails to assist in the creation of parties. Despite this, as Warnock notes, the United National Front has dominated the Afghan parliament.
SNTV is a bad system, but still not as bad as ours.
The message of this thread is: a fantasy fraud perpetrated by individuals produces the same result as the culprit in real life: a voting system that distorts what we say with our ballots.
But the Afghan digression is quite instructive:
Sadly, I have to advise that Afghanistan has a more democratic system than Canada. Which tells you where Canada is.
SNTV is a primitive semi-proportional system, used only in Jordan and Afghanistan, but it's primitive only by comparison to Irish STV.
SNTV works like this: they have multi-member ridings. Kandahar, for example, has 11 MPs. Voters have one vote for one person. The 11 candidates who receive the most votes in Kandahar win seats. Since there are no parties, there is no need for Irish-style transfers. In effect, the 11 largest tribes in Kandahar each get to elect one MP. Not fully proportional, but not winner-take-all either.
Furthermore, at least 3 of the 11 must be women. Again, better than Canada.
The way it's more "primitive" than Ireland is that, in Ireland those who voted for losing candidates would see their votes transferred to their second choice, and onward. And when the 8 men elected got an average of 9,124 votes each, the 14,145 voters for Abdul Qayyum Karzai wasted quite a few votes. In Ireland their votes would have transferred at a weight of 35% to their second choice. Nevertheless, it's better than our system. Look at the results in Kandahar:
Abdul Qayyum Karzai 14,145 8.2%
Noorulhaq Olumi 12,952 7.6%
Mohammad Arif Noorzai 11,014 6.4%
Khalid Pashtoon 10,448 6.1%
Haji Ameer Lali 8,655 5.0%
Haji Habibullah Jan 5,922 3.5%
Haji Ahmad Shah Khan Asakzai 5,147 3.0%
Obaidullah 4,709 2.7%
Fariba Ahmadi Kakar (female) 2,930 1.7%
Shakiba (female) 1,673 1.0%
Malali Ishaqzai (female) 1,468 0.9%
The United Nations-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body announced the final results on 14 November 2005 without specifying the political affiliation of the candidates elected since most of them had run as independent candidates.
I agree. For a country with a population comparable to our's, Afghans had to choose from more than 40% more candidates for a fewer number of ridings than here. And no parties. And look at the percentage of women in Afghan parliament even without Malalai Joya. I think their electoral system problems alone could be solved a lot more easily than here without a major overhaul.
What a useless excuse for a political system.
It's a good theory, but in practice Afghans will still end up with a phony majority prez.
Indeed.
The point I was making was: Many Toronto Liberals and Alberta Conservatives don't care if the equivalent of 2.8 million fraudulent Bloc votes had been stuffed in Quebec ballot boxes, when they're benefiting from the equivalent of 4.6 million fraudulent Liberal votes stuffed in Toronto ballot boxes, or from the equivalent of 11.3 million fraudulent Conservative votes stuffed in Alberta ballot boxes.
In the Alberta case, that must be the absolutely fictitious scenario that the Conservative Party wins all first choices on the ballot in every riding, and every second choice, and every third choice, and just about every other candidate selection on the ballot after that. Talk about a rigged setup!
I'm sorry. I have to reprint this here. It is just too funny:
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/10/22/karzai-gets-2nd-chance-to-steal-e....