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Submission RASTALL-0072 (Online)

Submission By Peter Rastall
AddressVancouver, BC,
Organization
Date20040128
CategoryElectoral system change, Other
Abstract
General elections should be replaced by a series of by-elections at one or two month intervals. This would keep the government responsive to public opinion. A few members should be chosen at large to achieve proportionality. [3 pages]

Submission Content
 

Democracy without General Elections

Submitted to the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform by Peter Rastall


Disadvantages of general elections

The usual practice in democratic countries is to elect all members of a legislature at the same time, in a general election.  In some countries, these elections are held every few years on a fixed schedule; in others, there are more complicated rules.  The general-election system has several disadvantages. –

1. It discourages long term planning.  Governments become focussed on the need to win the next election and therefore fail to develop longer-term policies.  Programs that are disastrous in the long term may be pursued for the sake of short-term benefits.

2. It limits voter influence in the periods between elections.  Even if most voters lose confidence in the government, they can do little about it.  This may result in a build-up of frustration and violent swings from one party to another – the ‘anyone but them’ sentiment that we saw, for example, in our last provincial election. 

3. It requires large and expensive election campaigns which do nothing to advance real political debate or understanding.  Established parties and those with wealthy backers gain an unfair advantage.

An alternative – cyclical elections

One could avoid the problems of general elections by simply abolishing them. This is not to suggest that we do away with democracy.  However, instead of a general election every few years, there would be a by-election every month or two.  One would work through the list of constituencies, holding an election in each of them in turn.  The time interval between the individual elections would be chosen so that whole cycle would be completed in four or five years. Let us call this the cyclical-election system.  The influence of voters would be stronger and more continuous under this new system.  After a government had lost a few by-elections, it would realise that it was unpopular and that it would have to change its ways or face defeat.  On the other hand, if it acted to maintain its popularity, it could expect to remain in power and would be able to plan for the long term.  Since elections would be held constituency by constituency, local issues would have some prominence and the merits of the individual candidates would be more closely scrutinised than under the present system.

Changing the parliamentary voting rules

The cyclical-election system as described above has an obvious defect: there would be instability when the numbers of government and opposition members were almost equal.  Successive by-elections could bring advantage first to one side and then to the other, so that governments would fall at an unacceptable rate.  The solution is a change in the parliamentary voting rules.  Under the new rules, a government motion would not be defeated by a simple majority, but by a simple majority plus a certain number.  One would have to think carefully about what that number should be. If, for example, it were ten, then a government motion would pass if it received a vote of forty in favour and forty-nine against; it would fail if the vote were forty in favour and fifty-one against.  If a government fell, its successor would have the same advantage and, in this example, would not be likely to fall until it had a net loss of twenty more by-elections.

A proposal for proportional representation

This proposal for electoral reform is independent of the idea that some form of proportional representation should be introduced.   It would in fact be easy to incorporate proportional representation into the cyclical-election system  The simplest way would be to allow losing candidates in by-elections to assign their votes to some other losing candidate in a future by-election.  If the latter candidate accumulated more than a specified number of votes by this means, he or she would be declared elected.  An example will make this clear.  Let us suppose that the specified number of votes is forty thousand and that by-elections are held every month.  Losing candidates in the January, February, and March elections receive twelve thousand, fourteen thousand, and ten thousand votes, respectively.  A losing candidate in the July election receives eight thousand votes.  If the candidates in the January, February, and March elections all assign their votes to her, she accumulates forty-four thousand votes in all, and is declared elected.  Note that this does not affect the election of the winning candidate in the July by-election: he is still the elected MLA from that constituency.  The other, who lost but then accumulated more than forty thousand votes, might be designated a ‘member at large’, without constituency responsibilites.

Again, one would have to think carefully about the number of votes necessary for election (the forty thousand used above is only for purposes of illustration).  One would also have to specify the period of time during which a losing candidate could assign his votes – perhaps one or two years would be appropriate, after which time his votes would cease to count.  The longer this period, of course, the more marginal would be the candidates that might be elected.  For example, suppose that the Yellow Party runs a candidate in every by-election.  The average number of votes these candidates receive is only three thousand – but after a little more than a year their accumulated votes will suffice to elect an MLA.

There are many other ways of incorporating proportional representation into the new system.  The advantages of method just described are that

1. It is simple, and requires no further electoral process beyond the by-elections.

2. Every MLA will have at least run in a by-election – they will not be faceless figures drawn from some list of faithful party supporters.

3. All candidates are treated equally, no matter whether they are independents or members of a party.

4. The proportion of MLA’s elected by proportional representation (that is, by accumulating votes as above) can easily be adjusted by changing the required number of votes or by changing the period during which a losing candidate can assign his votes.  The desired proportion would presumably be fixed by law, and the detailed adjustments left to a permanent electoral commision – which would also deal with such matters as constituency boundaries and the eligibility of candidates.

Referendum question

Before formulating a referendum question, the Assembly would have to decide on the number of MLA’s to be elected by proportional representation.  Perhaps a fairly small number should be chosen – the electorate is likely to be suspicious at first of any kind of proportional representation.  The number could be increased at some later date if the system was found to work satisfactorily.  If the number was chosen to be one third of the total, for example, the referendum question might be:

“Are you in favour of a cyclical-election system with approximately one third of the MLA’s elected by proportional representation.”

Before holding the referendum, it would of course be necessary to explain to the voters what is meant by the cyclical-election system. 

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