Weighted Legislative Voting
Abstract:
I wish to propose a new electoral and legislative system:
Weighted legislative voting. This system combines the
local representation provided by our current system with the
proportionality provided by proportional systems, and is unique in
weakening the party system by allowing for easier election of
independent candidates.
Content:
I wish to propose an entirely new electoral and legislative
system: Weighted legislative voting. As the reader will
likely be aware, Arrow's impossibility theorem precludes the
possibility of a "fair" system for electing a discrete set of
representatives: To elaborate, there is no system which satisfies
the assumptions of universality, non-imposition, non-dictatorship,
unanimity, and independence of irrelevant alternatives.
With the system I propose, this theorem is circumnavigated, by
eliminating the discreteness whereby a candidate is either elected
or not elected.
Weighted legislative voting works as
follows:
1. Divide the province into a number of ridings.
Twenty to thirty would be a good number, but it could be more or
less than this; the ridings do not need to be equal in size, but
vast differences in population (greater than a factor of ten) could
cause practical difficulties.
2. Conduct nominations and voting as per current practice: Some
number of candidates are nominated in each riding, and voters
indicate their single preferred candidate.
3. All candidates who receive a proportion of votes from their
riding in excess of some fixed threshold (for example, 5%) are
elected.
4. When votes are taken in the legislature, each representative
casts a number of votes equal to the number of votes he or she
received in the election -- in other words, each representative
casts proxy votes on behalf of all those who elected him or
her.
This system has a number of advantages over existing
systems:
1. It is proportional. As long as a party has
support exceeding the required threshold (eg, 5%) in all regions of
the province, their voting power in the legislature will be equal
to the electoral votes they receive.
2. It allows for local representation. Because
representatives are elected within each riding, every voter has one
or more representatives from his own region. In fact,
the local representation is better than that provided by the
first-past-the-post system, since weighted legislative voting
ensures that all voters will have a local representative who shares
their general political views.
3. It allows for independent candidates to be
elected. Given that most voters cast their ballots
based on party rather than candidate, it is highly unusual for an
independent candidate to receive the most votes from his or her
riding; however, independent candidates often receive in excess of
5% of votes cast. Under weighted legislative voting, such
independent candidates would be elected; this has the further
benefit of reducing the "democratic deficit" so often cited by our
Prime Minister, by eliminating the possibility that the leadership
of a political party could force a representative out of
office.
4. It allows ridings to vary in size without damaging the
electoral system. Under existing district-oriented electoral
systems, having different sizes of ridings will result in some
voters having greater influence than others. Weighted legislative
voting allows for rural ridings to be smaller -- thus reducing the
distances rural representatives must travel in order to visit their
constituents -- while maintaining the equality of all voters.
5. Finally, weighted legislative voting very clearly minimizes
the number of "wasted votes". With the exception of
votes cast in favour of candidates who receive under the critical
threshold (5%) of votes cast, every electoral vote translates
directly into a legislative vote; consequently, voters would be
able to see the impact of their personal vote every time a motion
arises in the legislature.
A few variations may also be considered:
1. For simplicity of legislative voting, representatives could
be given a smaller number of legislative votes -- for example, they
might receive one vote for every 1000 votes they received in the
election. Given that the result of legislative votes is
usually immediately evident without having a precise tally
performed, this would in practice have little benefit.
2. Rather than discarding votes cast towards non-elected
candidates, those votes might be redirected towards elected
candidates by a number of methods. While this would eliminate
"wasted votes", historical election results make it clear that most
votes are cast towards candidates who receive in excess of 5% of
the total votes cast, so this would add significant complication
with minimal benefit.
3. If necessary, the threshold could be floating, in order to
allow the number of representatives to be limited. This
is an exclusively practical concern, but a potentially important
one: The representatives must be able
to fit within the legislative assembly. If a particular
total number of representatives is required (say, 100), then the
third step above may be replaced by "The 100 candidates who
received the greatest fraction of the vote within their respective
ridings are elected".
While this system is entirely new from a governmental
perspective, it fundamentally sound, and has been extensively
tested in private industry, were proxy voting is the norm at
shareholders' meetings. Weighted legislative voting
works; and it lacks the problems we all know so well from which
other electoral systems suffer.
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