I know that the entire Citizens’ Assembly team is
dedicated to serving the citizens of BC. My wife Diana
and I are similarly committed to doing our best to assist in the
public process of determining which voting system would provide the
best form of democracy.
We have strong conviction that, when there are more than two
candidates, the criterion of election by “order of
merit” as embodied in the Borda count is the most
legitimate basis of determining which candidate has the highest
acceptability to the entire electorate.
“Vote123” (V123) is essentially a
simplified implementation of the Borda count. V123
would induce profound behavioural changes on the part of
politicians, parties and voters. This would eliminate
most of the fundamental problems inherent in our existing system,
specifically: strategic voting; vote splitting; negative
campaigning; etc.
The issue of party-proportionality is of major concern to most
advocates of voting reform as well as presently disadvantaged
parties and their supporters. My guess is that the
general public is rather less concerned with party-proportionality
than with other problems of our democratic dysfunction.
And the trade-off between party-proportionality and stronger
governments is itself a subjective judgment that in our view should
be left to the people to vote upon directly.
The fact is that substantive voting reform is quite possible
(via V123 amongst others) without adopting party-proportionality
with all its pros and cons. Indeed, this might be the
basis of the speculative ‘third option’ or
‘tweaking the existing system’ that was
suggested at yesterday’s meeting of the
Citizens’ Assembly.
Nonetheless, V123 is not only the best basis for electing
members in single-seat constituencies, but it is also highly
compatible with party-proportionality. Indeed, V123 is
arguably the most legitimate voting foundation for the
implementation of party-proportionality. Specifically,
the truest reflection of overall public support for a party is the
total vote it would receive under V123, rather than simply the
number of people for whom it was their first-choice.
This distinction is in fact a significant point of
principle—particularly from the perspective that the
primary objective of a democratic electoral system is to best
reflect the will of the people.
Given the deep interest in party-proportionality, our analysis
has been updated to show how V123 can be extended to include
proportionality, for which we provide two alternative
models. Our first model [see attachment
V123+MMP(Conway)] uses the Conway method to elect as the additional
‘proportionality members’ those defeated
candidates with the highest acceptability from the
under-represented parties. This is rather similar to
the Huntley Zuckermann 1370 submission, except that it is founded
upon V123 and uses a slightly more refined criterion for selection
from the list of defeated candidates. But the most
notable quality of each is that they both avoid the pitfalls of
party lists and result in all members being elected by the
public.
But by far our most highly recommended alternative would be our
second model [see attachment V123+PR(Kennedy)] which uses the
Kennedy method to achieve precise PR—without the
addition of any extra members. Instead, the
proportionality result is obtained in the legislature, by
allocating weighted votes to each member in proportion to the
party’s total vote. The simplicity and
perfection of this method are both exquisite and entirely
justified. Indeed, from this perspective, it becomes
clear that the major problem of misrepresentation under the present
and and most other voting systems is that the voting power of each
member is in fact disproportionate to the level of public
support.
The only reason that we are including the V123+MMP(Conway)
alternative is that you indicated that the V123+PR(Kennedy)
alternative is, or may be, beyond the terms of reference for the
Citizens’ Assembly. In our opinion, this
limitation should not be accepted without challenge by the
Citizens’ Assembly.
If PR is itself eligible for consideration as a possible
electoral reform alternative, which is a fact that nobody would
dispute, surely its simplest and most precise form should not be
excluded! Hopefully the right answer will be obtained
to this fundamental question. After all,
it’s all about bringing into being the best form of
democracy—to best serve the true will of the
people.
See linked documents below
levelCMS