My submission is not written on behalf of any party or
organization, though I have been involved in politics at municipal,
provincial and federal levels for many years. It
approaches electoral reform from a public interest
perspective. First-past-the-post (FPTP) is judged to be
contrary to the Charter of Rights and numerous examples are given
to show that mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) offers
social and political benefits. Finally, multi-round
election systems, multi-member ridings, and the single transferable
vote (STV) are compared to MMP.
Electoral reform should be approached first and foremost from
the perspective of public interest. I have been
involved for many years in political activity from municipal to
federal levels, but have avoided expressing the views of any
organization or political party in this submission and.
All political parties and many organizations suffer from a conflict
of interest in dealing with electoral reform. Their
submissions, though valuable, must be read with a full
understanding of those interests and how they impact the public
interest in general.
As an electrician and an engineer with no legal training, I have
used a layperson’s understanding of the Canadian
Charter of Rights to evaluate our electoral system. I
believe that the FPTP electoral system offends against principles
that underly the Charter, namely democracy, equal treatment and
one-person-one vote.
We call our political system a democracy because our governments
are elected by the adult citizenry as a whole. But some
Canadian citizens have less access to electoral influence than
others. Unless they happen to support one of the few
political parties that elect members in their riding, their votes
are wasted. In fact, in a multi-party FPTP electoral
system—which is what we have in
B.C.—considerably more than 50% of the votes cast are
typically wasted. This is equivalent disenfranchising
more than half the those voters. It would make no
difference to the election outcome if these citizens did not vote
at all.
I don’t feel comfortable calling this electoral
system a democracy. Consider for a moment: not so long
ago, women—over 50% of the
population—weren’t allowed to
vote. Canadians of Chinese ancestry, native Americans
and even white adult males who didn’t own land, were
also excluded from voting. Such a political
system—in which a small, select group controls the
government—would not be called a democracy today.
Our electoral system has progressed and improved over the past
century, but as long as large numbers of voters are consistently
disenfranchised, we’re a long way from
democracy. Nevertheless, good-hearted and principled
people improved our electoral system during the past century by
extending the franchise to all adult citizens, so we can be hopeful
that a new generation will make further improvements.
We might finally be able to justify claiming to live in a
democracy.
I believe proportional representation is the only electoral
system which satisfies the spirit—and possibly the
legal wording—of the Canadian Charter of
Rights. It addresses the principles of equal treatment
and one-person-one-vote. But, taking human and
political realities into account, a new electoral system should
retain familiar and accepted characteristics—such as
local representation—as much as possible.
Therefore, a MMP system, with a mixture of locally-elected and list
candidates, would be preferred. In addition to
satisfying Charter principles, MMP offers the following
advantages:
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FPTP electoral systems create majority governments even when
there is no majority favouring the winning party. Our
parliamentary system, combined with party discipline, converts
majority government into a virtual dictatorship. Many
of the political scandals we have endured in B.C. have been allowed
to germinate and grow under majority governments which simply have
not been accountable to an effective opposition or the
public. Minority governments, which would be more
likely under MMPR, cannot afford to be tolerant of scandal and
abuse of power.
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Big business and other special interests will always seek to buy
political influence, but if they are allowed to dominate government
the public interest is likely to suffer. As long as
governments enjoy essentially absolute power, these interests will
have a strong incentive to purchase politicians and parties because
the return on investment can be huge. Because parties
will less often gain absolute power under MMP, the incentive for
special interests to influence government outside elections will
diminish. This will help ensure the public interest
maintains its priority in government.
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Strategic voting is a highly undesirable by-product of the FPTP
electoral system. It is an attempt by a citizen who is
expecting to be disenfranchised by an unfair electoral system to
regain some political power and the expense of his/her
principles. MMP allows nearly all votes cast to count
towards the voter’s preferred party, thereby making
strategic voting unnecessary.
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Splitting the vote is a common problem of the FPTP electoral
system. Voters are not just disenfranchised, but end up
helping the very party they least want to elect. To
avoid this perverse state of affairs, voters are compelled to vote
strategically and parties are compelled to abandon their supporters
or ally with other parties that have different
principles. MMP reduces the likelihood that voters will
have to worry about vote splitting, because governments will
generally form from coalitions of like-minded parties, and (thanks
to the proportionality of elected members) they will fairly
represent the majority of voters.
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Polling has been used to an increasing degree by governments and
political parties to influence the public prior to
elections. Restrictions on the public release of
polling results enforced by Elections BC and Elections
Canada indicate that this practice is contrary to democratic
principles, presumably because it can cause voters to change their
voting intentions for strategic reasons. Under MMP, the
incentive for citizens to vote strategically disappears, so
political parties will have less incentive to use polling results
to influence election outcomes.
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Negative voting—that is, voting out of fear or
anger, rather than for policies or principles the voter believes
in—is not unusual in our electoral system.
It arises from frustration at the unfairness of a past election
(arguably this was one of the causes of the lopsided 2001 B.C.
election results) or fear of a future unfair election result which
can lead to a reactive type of strategic voting. It
distorts the whole concept of democracy, which is based on citizens
voting for their preference. Under MMP, citizens will
perceive election results to be more fair and will be less likely
to resort to negative voting.
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Huge political swings from one election to another have been
direct consequences of the FPTP electoral system because it tends
to create majority governments even when the vote counts for major
parties are relatively close. These swings create
instability in our governmental institutions, enormous waste as
successive governments undo the work of their predecessors and
anger and desperation in the public service. MMP would
likely eliminate this unproductive election outcome by putting an
end to the artificial amplification of election victory
margins.
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Falling voter turnout is a concern to any who believe in
democracy and citizens’ participation in public
affairs. Although it is likely caused by a combination
of factors, major contributors are disillusionment with an
electoral system that is perceived as being unfair, disenfranchises
many voters, and prevents many voters from voting for their
preference. MMP, by restoring the public perception of
election fairness and allowing citizens to vote effectively for
their preferred parties, should renew the interest of many citizens
in voting.
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Adversarial politics and dirty campaigning is all too common in
B.C. and Canada. It is highly unproductive and may
damage our political institutions over time. The fact
that the FPTP electoral system tends to create majority governments
from small election victory margins raises the stakes and
encourages adversarial behaviour. Moreover, if minority
governments—which subsist on co-operation between
parties—are artificially suppressed by the electoral
system, a culture of competition will dominate over compromise and
co-operation. MMP would remove the artificial bias
towards majority governments which encourages adversarial
politics.
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Another consequence of the FPTP electoral system is domination
of the political system by two large, powerful political parties
which grow to resemble each other. This has been more
true of Canadian federal politics than B.C. politics.
Since a small margin of electoral victory can so easily create a
majority government, there is a tendency for alternative voices and
policies to be lost as the dominant parties compete for the small
“swing” portion of the
electorate. MMP would restore the vitality and variety
in our political system by allowing a greater diversity of parties
to elect candidates and increasing the likelihood that these
parties—through coalition-building—could
influence governmental policy.
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The FPTP electoral system allows the political system to be
dominated by certain geographical regions that happen to
consistently support one party. Such domination
effectively increases the influence of a vote cast in that region
relative to votes cast elsewhere—contrary to the
one-person-one-vote principle. MMP restores that
principle and in doing so increases the incentive to parties to
cultivate province-wide and inclusive visions and policies.
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Rural and regional representation has tended to be weak in the
past. MMP should improve the situation because if
political parties have the incentive to woo voters all over the
province in order to elect more list candidates, they will make a
greater effort to address rural and regional interests than they
presently do.
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It has for some time been an accepted objective across Canada to
increase the representation of women and minorities in
government. FPTP elections in individual ridings tend
to give candidates who are white, male and wealthy a strong
advantage. By allowing parties to nominate list
candidates who do not compete in local elections, MMP should enable
more high quality women and minority candidates to be
elected. Political parties would have an incentive to
nominate such candidates because under MMP every
voter—including segments of our society that are
presently marginalized and disenfranchised—would have
equal electoral influence.
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Inducing young citizens to vote has been difficult in the past,
at least in part because of disillusionment with a political system
which is adversarial, dominated by large parties and powerful
interests, and perceived to be unfair. MMP would
improve our political system in each of these areas and should make
voting more appealing to young, idealistic citizens.
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The fact that MMP gives each voter the ability to vote for the
best person and for the preferred party is a significant benefit
and inducement to participate in the political process.
Presently many voters are faced with the prospect of supporting a
poor candidate from a party with good policies, or a poor party
which happens to offer the best candidate.
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For decades electoral reformers have attempted to impose
political donation limits and restrictions on donations by powerful
corporations and organizations. The ability of
individuals or organizations to gain undue influence over elections
and governments through their wealth has been a serious flaw in our
political system. MMPR should make it easier for such
reforms to succeed because the minority governments which would
become the norm are less attractive to those who would seek to
influence them. Moreover, minority governments are more
likely to respond to the public’s wish to impose such
reforms because they have less to lose.
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MMP list candidates who are declared elected would not be tied
to individual ridings, so they would be free to tour the province
and offer improved representation to citizens whose local MLA
happens to be less helpful because he/she belongs to an opposing
political party. This is potentially a very important
benefit because we have seen numerous cases of MLAs and MPs who
have neglected constituents who support other parties.
Moreover, many citizens undoubtedly do without the services of
their MLA because they disagree with his/her party or
policies. List MLAs could also valuably serve ridings
which happen to have underachieving local MLAs.
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Setting a threshold—say, 5% of the province-wide
vote—for party eligibility to elect list MLAs has been
suggested, based on the practice of MMP in other parts of the
world. This deviation from democratic principle may be
prompted by fear of small, radical political parties.
But in the interest of fairness and democracy, I would propose that
no arbitrary threshold be set—rather, that each list
candidate represent the largest number of province-wide
votes. Since the number of list candidates will be
limited, a de facto threshold will be created that is not arbitrary
or undemocratic.
The advantages listed above for MMPR are generally unique to
that electoral system. I would now like to compare MMP
to other electoral reform proposals: multi-round
election systems, multi-member ridings, and the STV system.
Multi-round elections can be used to eliminate less popular
candidates until one receives a majority vote, or to separately
elect the head of state and legislature. Although this
system might improve the public’s perception of
fairness in elections, it does not remedy the disenfranchisement of
voters or the artificial amplification of electoral victory
margins.
Multi-member ridings could add a degree of proportionality to
the composition of the legislature but the enormous ridings
required in rural areas would increase inequity between urban and
rural voters and lump together communities that have very little in
common. Moreover, a significant number of voters would
continue to be disenfranchised because they support candidates who
are not elected in these super-ridings.
The STV system specifies multi-member ridings and typically sets
a threshold of about 20% for any candidate to remain in
contention. Supporters of any candidate receiving less
than the threshold level of votes would remain
disenfranchised. Although STV could somewhat improve
the proportionality of election results, it suffers from all the
problems of multi-member ridings.
MMP has been criticized for requiring ridings to increase in
size (on the assumption that the number of seats in the legislature
would remain unchanged). To avoid increasing the
disadvantage rural voters already experience relative to urban
voters, it would be preferable to add sufficient list seats (an
additional 30% to 50% might be required) to allow proportionality
in the composition of the legislature. However, since
expansion of the legislature is outside the Citizens’
Assembly terms of reference, an increase of about 50% in the size
of ridings should be considered at this time. Such an
increase in riding size would have less impact and generate less
inequality between urban and rural voters than would multi-member
ridings or STV systems.
MMP may threaten the interests of some powerful individuals and
institutions—including political parties—by
requiring governments to form coalitions and reducing their power
to act arrogantly and without accountability between
elections. Insofar as the guiding principle of
electoral reform is the broad public interest, however, this can
only be a desirable outcome.
To summarize, MMP offers the best solution to the failings of
the FPTP electoral system and can be expected to yield numerous
social and political advantages and benefits.