First, thank you for this opportunity, and good luck with your
project.
My proportional representation suggestion:
-
As much as humanly possible, the ridings should be
redistributed to make them more even population wise, hopefully
without adding more ridings.
-
We could keep the present 79 ridings. For future elections the
first past the post winners of these ridings would gain a seat in
the legislature, no different than the present system.
-
Additional seats could be allocated to all the political
parties proportionally according to the percentage of votes they
attained province wide.
The 79 first past the post winners would be included in these
calculations. For example, using the last election, the Liberals
won 77 first past the post seats (97.4%) but as they only received
57.6% of the province wide total votes they would not receive any
additional proportional seats. Where as the NDP, who won only 2
seats (2.5%) but received 21.6% of the province wide total votes,
would be entitled to approximately 21.6% of the seats in the
legislature. This 21.6% would round out to 20 seats (21.6% of 79
seats) which would include the 2 seats won by the NDP in the first
past the post races and so the NDP would receive 18 extra
proportional seats. The Greens who received 12.4% of the total
provincal vote and won no first past the post seats would get 12.4%
proportional seats (9 seats). The same calculation would be applied
to all the political parties as long as they received enough votes
to receive at least one seat (1/79th of the provincal vote or
1.2%).
Deciding which candidates would get their political party's
additional proportional seats would be done by alloting the seats
to the political party's candidates who had received the highest
percentage of the total votes within their individual ridings and
hadn't already won a first past the post seat. The 79 first past
the post winners could have the extra official responsibility
involved in maintaining constituency offices and so could be
alloted more financial resources but otherwise all MLAs would all
be treated equally in the Legislature and in Committees.
Such a system would ensure that the legislature would reflect
voters desires in individual ridings regarding personal attributes
of individual candidates in their ridings via the use of the first
past the post system and the proportional aspect of it would, to
some degree, reflect the province wide desires of the voters via
the extra proportional seats going to each party's best
performers.
Obviously there are numerous wrinkles to be worked out, such
as:
-
How will independant candidates be treated (treat all
independents as a Party?)
-
How will percetages be rounded out (up or down?) and to what
decimal point?
-
How would a tie in voter percentage be declared and then
decided (by referring to each candidates vote totals?).
-
Should a maximum number of seats be set (100?) or would it be
variable depending on the province wide inequality of the initial
first past the post results. For example the last (very unfair)
election would have produced approximately 108 MLAs under the above
suggested proportional system.
-
Just as in the present system, voters in ridings with fewer
registered voters would still have a statistical advantage in this
proportional system regarding the power of their vote, but ideally
redistribution might gradually correct this (but perhaps voters in
the less populated hinter land should be allowed more voting
power?).
Thank you for your time and consideration. Hopefully my math
calculations are reasonably accurate!
|
levelCMS