Submission PANITZ-0796 (Online)
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| Submission By | Ms Aliza R. Panitz |
| Address | Peachland, BC, |
| Organization | |
| Date | 20040708 |
| Category | Electoral system change |
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Abstract
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A proprosal for expanding the Legislative Assembly and assigning
some additional seats to the unsuccessful candidates with the most
votes, and others to make the legislature reflect the share of
votes won by parties. [2 pages]
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Submission Content
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I regret that my local hearing was held on a day when I could not
attend. Enclosed are my comments.
By now it seems clear that the will of the BC public is for some
form of proportional representation (PR). However, it also seems
clear, from local events in the recent Federal election, that the
people do not always trust the political parties to select the best
candidates. It is worth noting that the only independent MP in
Canada was elected from a BC riding in which his party chose
another candidate over this incumbent MP. I also do not want to see
people who choose to vote for an independent candidate
disenfranchised from the proportional selection of MLAs.
Another issue that comes up in local discussions is the way that
the problems and needs of the Greater Vancouver area seem to trump
the needs of other areas of the province. Here in the Interior,
people are furious that we are bearing a disproportionate share of
budget cuts, and are worried that a PR system would lead to a
Legislature that gave disproportionate weight to the votes of our
urban core.
Thus, it seems important to balance the important goals of PR
(ensuring that party representation in the Legislature is close to
the party selections of the overall electorate) with the rights of
voters to disagree with party candidate choices, and the rights of
voters to see each area of the province fairly represented.
One of the criticisms of a PR system is that it encourages and
rewards the formation of fringe single-issue parties. In the recent
national election, there was widespread agreement that the Greens,
with 5% of the national vote, "deserved" some voice in the new
Parliament; however, another national party, the Marijuana Party,
saw no such sentiment, even though their total vote count, if
concentrated in one riding, would have won them a seat. An
international parallel is in Israel, where the entire Knesset
(Parliament) is elected from a single at-large slate. After the
controversial Meir Kahane won a seat in the parliament, they
changed their election laws to require a party to win several
percent of the total vote before earning any seats at all.
My conclusions from all this are:
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Local representation is important. The current system of ridings
should stand.
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A voter's choice of local representation might not always match
their choice of the overall best party to form the government.
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It makes sense to impose some minimum seat count for
proportional representation of parties.
My suggestion for changes to the legislature:
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Elect 93 MLAs from the current ridings (census-adjusted as
always) using the current first-past-the-post system.
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Of all the defeated riding candidates, seat the 7 with the
highest vote count (not vote percentage). This will tend to give a
bonus to ridings where more citizens vote, and to larger ridings
which might otherwise have a lower per-citizen voice in the
Legislature. These 100 MLAs will be the base of the
Legislature. They will be seated in a single chamber with 41 MLAs
chosen to balance party representation, as follows:
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Separate from the voting for individual MLAs, let each voter
cast a vote for a party.
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Establish a floor of 2%, and determine the percentage of the
remainder that each party has gotten. (In other words, count the
ballots, drop any votes for a party that does not have 2% of the
raw votes, and then re-calculate the percentage each party
has.)
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Use those numbers to determine how many MLAs each party "should"
have. Note that these numbers might add to more than 141 if there
are independents elected, and that some parties may have already
elected more single-riding MLAs than they "should"
have.
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Using some pre-determined mathematical formula, assign each
party a number of "extra" MLAs to be seated. (There are many fair
ways to do this. Any are acceptable, as long as the system is
fixed, and cannot be adjusted from election to election in an
attempt to take partisan advantage of voting pattern
fluctuations.)
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For each party, the first "extra" MLA is the defeated riding
candidate with the highest vote count. The second "extra" MLA is
chosen from a list prepared by the party, going down the list to
the first person not already seated by some other method. These
methods alternate until all extra MLAs are assigned. Persons on the
"party list" need not be candidates for a riding seat.
In the newly formed legislature, the 100 MLAs chosen by items 1
and 2 will be denoted as representing the riding from which they
were elected. The other 41 will be denoted as at-large. All 141
MLAs will have the same powers and priveleges.
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