Choice Voting: the next step in electoral reform.

Stockholm wrote:

What you are talking about is precisely the system they use in Australia and in fact it is often referred to as an "Australian ballot" where you have to rank the candidates numerically from most to least favoured.

It is generally referred to as the "Alternative Vote" except in the USA where they use the term "Instant Runoff Voting" (IRV). American electoral reformers use the term "Choice Voting" to refer to STV. I have not previously seen AV referred to as "Choice Voting."

As Wikipedia correctly notes:

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IRV is most suited to elections in which there can be only one winner, such as a mayor or governor.

(In Australia) the preferential system was introduced in 1918, in response to the rise of the Country Party, a party representing small farmers. The Country Party split the anti-Labor vote in conservative country areas, allowing Labor candidates to win on a minority vote. The conservative government of Billy Hughes introduced preferential voting as a means of allowing competition between the two conservative parties without putting seats at risk.

Australia is the only nation with a long record of using IRV for the election of legislative bodies. IRV produces representation very similar to those produced by the plurality system, with a two party system in parliament similar to those found in many countries that use plurality and two round systems. A significant difference is that a smaller third party, the National Party of Australia, can co-exist with its coalition partner the Liberal Party of Australia, and can compete against it without fear of losing seats to other parties due to vote splitting.

In a country with two main parties like the USA or Australia, IRV will help preserve the two-party system. Further, some support for IRV comes from major-party supporters who want to eliminate the spoiler effect caused by vote-splitting, as with the Ralph Nader vote in Florida in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, which presumably came largely from voters who would prefer Al Gore over George W. Bush, and which vote was more than enough to turn that election. These supporters of IRV expect that it will help maintain the two-party system by preventing spoiled elections.

In a country with three major parties, IRV will often work against the third party.

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The Alternative Vote can actually distort election results more dramatically than our current system. For example, in the 1997 election the Liberals won 38% of the votes but captured 51% of the seats. A study of voter preferences found the Liberals would have gained 57% of the seats, even with the same level of support, had the Alternative Vote been used. Why? When forced to rank parties, most voters who supported other parties would have ranked the Liberals second, not because they wanted Liberal representation, but because they disliked other parties even more.

Unfortunately, the Alternative Vote does nothing to fix the problems with the current system. In fact, it can make things worse.

1) Like our current system, the Alternative Vote is a winner-take-all system. In each riding, one group of voters elects an MP (and wins representation in Parliament) while all the other voters in that riding lose their right to representation.

2) Many voters are already in ridings where the MP is their second or third choice. That’s the problem, not the solution.

3) This system “guarantees” the winner has majority support? Counting ballots in a different manner does not magically produce a politician with majority support when it didn’t exist otherwise.

In short, it creates the illusion of making votes more effective, while either changing nothing or making it even harder for a third party to win seats on vote splits.

A very bad idea, and the enemy of any real electoral reform.     

the U.S says alot of things..

Daniel Grice wrote:

Both the Electoral Reform Society of England and Fair Vote US both recognize choice voting as an improvement over first past the post.

The Electoral Reform Society in the UK says:

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AV is thus not a proportional system, and can in fact be more disproportional than FPTP.

It does very little to improve the voice of traditionally under-represented groups in parliament, strengthening the dominance of the 'central' viewpoint.

The Electoral Reform Society regards AV as the best voting system when a single position is being elected. However, as AV is not a proportional system, the Society does not regard it as ideal for the election of a representative body, e.g. a parliament, council, committees, etc.

The Society advocates the Single Transferable Vote (STV) while not opposing those who campaign for AV as the only change they believe possible in the foreseeable future. The Society regards the introduction of preference voting as a step in the right direction, although under AV only a very minor one.

Because our party system is different from the UK's, Fair Vote Canada sees that AV would be a step in the wrong direction in Canada. 

Coyote wrote:

Incremental change may be the most that can be hoped for.

Perhaps so. But change in the wrong direction will just re-inforce the two-party system, or worse, create a series of regional two-party systems. 

Coyote wrote:

PR does not have enough popular support right now for any government to entertain another referendum (potentially excluding Quebec? are they moving forward with plans?).

PR was, in recent elections, supported by all parties in Quebec. No one in Quebec wants a referendum on PR. The report of the Chief Electoral Officer is ready to be implemented whenever Charest says "Go."

Federally, our winner-take-all system remains ready, willing and able to give us yet another dysfunctional parliament. We need to be ready to make a rapid response. MMP with open regional lists has never been rejected by voters. 

Daniel - simple response- no thank you.

The British National Party which is known for its Nazi sympathies and connections has benefitted from Proportional Representation. For that reason alone, I am against PR. Hockey teams either win or lose, and the same should apply to political parties.

How is it institutionalized bribery? cabinet ministers have more work to do than MP's.

By the way, nomination races are now limited to the federal cap, as are leadership campaigns. Look it up.

Granted, the same is not true for the Provinces.

Daniel Grice wrote:

Personally, I would prefer to see all cabinet and parliamentary secretaries pay bonus banned.  Every parliamentarian should make the same and be banned from collecting any personal incentives that could alter their vote.

An MP gets paid $150,000 a year.  A cabinet minister automatically gets $225,000.  This in institutionalized bribery.

I don't think youve thought this through, do you really believe someone who puts in twice the time with twice the responsibility as a back bencher should recieve the same pay? I believe even hard core socialists accept that some pay scale is necessary, in fact if not in theory.

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Frankly, I would like to see more MPs give their party the shove when they break their promises or the party leaders attempt to ram through bad legislation.

Um, bad legislation is a matter of perspective, why we have different parties, and "ram through" is also a rather subjective description.  Ya got a majority you can push almost anything through, if its constitutional, but it maybe wise to consult and test the waters for public support first.  Just so you don't get bitten later.  You know, the electoral reform movement wasn't founded on being "anti-party".  Calling oneself "anti-party" is often a cover for rather rightwing "anti-government" beliefs masqerading as being "non-partisan" IME.   It was in vogue after the Clark years and Campbell's first term but seems to be fading again as the "private" sector is showing themselves to be utterly bankrupt.

One problem with this discussion is that the term "choice voting" can mean whatever you like; in the USA, electoral reformers call STV "Choice Voting." What Dan Grice is mostly talking about is a preferential ballot in single-member districts. This is a system which some members of the British Labour Party have proposed, using the term "Alternative Vote," and that's the normal name for this system. In Australia they call it "Preferential Voting" and they call STV "Proportional Representation."

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The Alternative Vote is known to Australians as Preferential Voting and to Americans as Instant Runoff Voting.

In Australia the possibility of so-called ‘three-cornered contests’ between the two major conservative parties was a major reason for the system’s introduction for House of Representatives elections in 1918.

Preferential Voting can often be capricious in its practical application and can result in the election of the least unfavoured, rather than the most popular, candidate.

In three-cornered contests the result is often more dependent upon which party polls the least first preference votes rather than which party polls the most.

Both Preferential Voting and the Second Ballot are subject to the ‘winner’s bonus’ phenomenon.

Because many votes may exhaust (have no further preferences to be counted) when ‘optional’ Preferential Voting is used, it is possible for a candidate to win a seat with fewer than half of the votes cast. If too many voters cast just a single preference, the system becomes a de facto First-past-the-post system, defeating a major reason for the creation of Preferential Voting. The ALP’s call to ‘Just Vote 1’ in the Queensland elections of 2001 and 2004 was criticised for that reason.

After the 1990 and 1998 Commonwealth elections critics who noted the failure of the incoming government to win a majority of either the first preference or two-party preferred vote questioned the legitimacy of the Labor (1990) and Coalition (1998) victories. Since the 1949 election such a result has occurred on only five of 23 occasions—though twice in the 1990s—and it probably safe to assume that there would be calls to change the system were this to become a regular factor in Australian elections.

The party winning the majority of the national vote does not necessarily win a majority of the parliamentary seats—as occurred in the 1998 election for the Australian House of Representatives.

It tends to avoid the situation where a candidate can be elected on a very small percentage of the vote—though Arthur Hewson (CP) won McMillan in 1972 on the first preference vote of 16.6 per cent.

Fair Vote Canada says:

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Unfortunately, the Alternative Vote does nothing to fix the problems with the current system. In fact, it can make things worse.

All things being equal, I would prefer some form of proportional representation, but quite frankly after seeing these spectacular referendum defeats for it across Canada. I give up! I surrender! The public has rejected it. So back to the drawing board. I thinki that preferential voting is far from perfect, but at least it addresses the problem of vote splitting and as long as about 60% of Canadians ALWAYS rank the Tory in the riding dead last - its a good way of making sure that there can never ever be a Conservative government again!  and that's a good thing!

Isn't this what they had in BC 50 years ago and it was created at least partially to keep the CCF out of power?  The problem is that because you need 50%+1 the voting punishes radical or innovative platforms over familair and status quo platforms.  This system is designed to combat  a party proposing significant change from the status quo.

This system makes you feel good because there is multiple choices, but the effect is worse in that smaller parties end up even worse off.  Typical Canadian compromise.

But parties can make deals in exchange for their preferences - so the NDP can say to the Liberals, if you want us to direct our voters to preference Liberals ahead of Tories in the following ridings - you better agree to the following policies...

I think it could encourage radical and innovative platforms over familiar and status quo platforms since people can freely vote for new innovative parties and not be petrified that by doing so they might let a Tory win on a split vote.

DG:  "Yes, in 1952 in BC, the Conservatives and Liberals came out of a war time coalition, and feared they may split the vote and the CCF/NDP would get in so they brought in an alternative vote thinking that naturally each others supporters would support each other.  The Ironic thing, instead of being able to game the system like they thought they would, both parties were essentially eliminated by the leaderless and moneyless social credit party.  Of course, after winning government in BC, the social credit reverted back to the first past the post system and effectively fended off competition.

Before NDP supporters get all upset, in 1949 with first past the post the NDP had 35% of the votes and 7 seats.  Under the choice voting in 1952, the CCF/NDP had 30% of votes and 14 of 48 seats."

I'm not upset about that piece of old history but I am upset that someone who purported to support PR would think the exact Opposite of it in effect, would be A-ok, and I'm downright Amazed that you would use the 1952 election as an acceptable example for NDpers.

Anyone here know that the BC NDP won the vote count in that one but were denied government when Conservatives and Liberals conspired to form a new government under the Social Credit banner.  Many said they were surprised at the result, but few expressed regret.  Then the Socreds changed the rules again, to protect their own ass, as they did regularly to gerrymander seats and create double seats that almost always favoured themselves --until the scandal around "Gracie's finger" caused enough outrage to finally create a mostly independent electoral commission.  Something the United States could have used under GW Bush. 

This is exactly what I feared and exactly why I never trusted the so-called Greens.  Tories with composters -Stockholm had it right the first time.  Stuart Parker, the guy who built the Green party into a contender and got the only BC Greens ever elected, by making deals with the NDP, before beiing deposed by the rightwing of the party, predicted this.  It just took a bit longer to come out of the closet.

I don't see preferential voting as a form of proportional representation at all. It is a whole other thing. I agree with Daniel that for the foreseeable future PR is a dead end in Canada - it simply isn't going to happen, but Preferential voting would be a really easy sell - there is really no reasonable argument against it that anyone could make when comparing it to pure FPTP - why shouldn't we be able to rank our choices - it gives the voter MORE choice! and while it isn't a panacea i do think that it would be an improvement over the status quo.

Of course if you believe that there is this mad conspiracy to keep the NDP out of power then having PR is not going to help since unless the NDP ever gets over 50% of the vote nationwide - we will just get perpetual Liberal/Conservative coalitions and alliances (kinda like what we have in Ottawa right now)