Submission SCOTT-0089 (Online)

Candidates should gain 50% plus one of the votes to be elected; either a run-off election or the alternative vote system would achieve this.  Then the elected candidate could say that he/she truly represents the majority in the riding. [1 page]

What a wonderful opportunity you have.

Please settle for an improvement and not be discouraged if perfection is unattainable.

Please include confirmation of: secret ballot and one vote per person.

My suggestion is that to win, a candidate must garner at least 50% plus one of votes in an election. This implies a mechanism for either a "run off" [second ballot] or a transferable ballot mechanism [the alternative vote, AV]. The benefit would be that an elected candidate could say that he/she truly represents the majority in the riding. This may be good enough to avoid the situation where, say, 40% of the popular vote has 90% of the seats.

Inevitably you will explore "proportional representation" in its various forms. My concern here is that "PR" seems to violate the "one vote per person" concept. Who selects those not directly elected by the populace?

Your mandate rightly is focused.  However I see no reason why you could not prepare "position papers" for future consideration. For example: How are candidates selected? It seems reasonable that a party leader should have the right to select his "team", it also seems to me that the local association should have a say in who it wants to represent it.

Best wishes.