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British Columbia recently had a referendum on our provincial voting system. The first time we did this, we lost, 60 to 40. 60 on the reform side btw, we needed

by oehpr 7y ago

British Columbia recently had a referendum on our provincial voting system. The first time we did this, we lost, 60 to 40. 60 on the reform side btw, we needed a super majority. We did another referendum on it it, we lost 50 50. We did it again, this time giving a bunch of options for voting preferences, but first asked "fptp, yes or no?". We lost 60 to 40, 60 against. I am in agreement with the lesson you're talking about. I'll take basically anything over FPTP. I wish we had learned that lesson 10 years ago. Because at this junction, BC is sick of the question being asked, and we're basically stuck with this poisonous voting system forever. A strange coincidence, the party that promised to reform Canada's federal election but deliberately pulled out on the results of the worlds strangest online poll, just got back in to power last day. So not only is reform on it's own nearly impossible, it seems impossible to ask reform of people whom got in to power with FPTP. The people debating the merits of the various voting systems really need to open their eyes to how thoroughly stuck they are with the worst choice.

vkou 7y ago
> So not only is reform on it's own nearly impossible, it seems impossible to ask reform of people whom got in to power with FPTP. I mean, it's similar to the problem of reforming a system where the winner of an election gets to pick the winner of the next election. It's not going to happen, without divine intervention.
kennywinker 7y ago
“Just got back to power” with a mandate from 21% of eligible voters. Hooray for FPTP :(
- lambertsimnel 7y ago
  And, also thanks the FPTP, the party with the most votes didn't get the most seats.
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    True, but given that the vast majority of canadians voted for progressive candidates (green, ndp, and liberal) it's unlikely the conservatives would do better under a more fair voting system... in fact a lot of the seats they have are the result of more vote splitting on the left than the right. Edit: i crunched the numbers. If you pool the green + lib + ndp votes from this election, conservatives end up with only 69 seats. The reality probably wouldn't be that bad for them, since some large percentage of Liberal voters would pick Conservatives as their second choice over the NDP or Greens... but it gives you a lower bounds. i.e. they would be somewhere between where they are now and 69 seats.
    - lambertsimnel 7y ago
      That's a fair point, but it's worth noting that FPTP risks vote spitting and handing power to the wrong party. Perhaps they cancelled out in this case, but these problems often don't cancel out. These problems reduce voters' equality, power and choice, even where they do cancel out in terms of election winners.
      - kennywinker 7y ago
        Totally agree. I'm very much in favour of using almost ANY system other than FPTP. I'm only arguing that calling the conservatives the "party with the most votes" is a distortion of reality enabled by FPTP. They have the most votes of any single party, but their _ideas_ have far fewer votes than progressive ideas.
        lambertsimnel 7y ago
        FPTP systematically underrepresents left-of-centre voters in legislative elections, due to their concentration in urban areas and due to their votes dividing between parties. Chapter four of this PDF explains in more detail (with a summary on pages eight and nine): https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/s/peterloo_web.pdf https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/s/peterloo_web.pdf
  - caf 7y ago
    That's actually thanks to single-member-electorates. As long as you have single memeber electorates, you can have one party narrowly win a whole lot while another party wins crushing landslides in fewer. In the Canadian election the Conservatives 'wasted' a lot of votes running up the popular vote scoreboard in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
    - lambertsimnel 7y ago
      I agree, but arguably switching to multi-member districts entails replacing FPTP. (Another way of looking at it is that closed party-list PR, single non-transferable vote and/or multiple non-transferable vote are generalisations of FPTP to multi-member districts. The non-transferable vote systems have a lot of disadvantages.)
ant6n 7y ago
"Just got back into power" after telling people to vote strategically to ensure the Conservatives (which only have support of 1/3 of the electorate) wouldn't get into power. Basically this was Trudeau scrapping electoral reform, thus making it possible for Conservatives to have a majority again. Then asking real progressives to vote Trudeau, because otherwise they may split the "left" vote. And it worked for Trudeau, but damn it's cynical.
munk-a 7y ago
Ouf that BC referendum, I've never seen a more poorly worded referendum in my life. As someone passionate about good representation I had to google around to actually comprehend what Rural-Urban PR was. Additionally I know that some of the more progressive folks I know voted no on the referendum because all the options ended with a disclaimer of "This is all advisory and the actual implementation will be determined later" which they interpreted as "We'll actually end up deciding this by committee behind closed doors". Both of the leading parties lobby so strong against any PR that we just need to switch over to IRV to clear out the incumbent power base.
ferzul 7y ago
I seriously don't get the obsession with using a referendum to change the electoral system. Who came up with that idea? Better to change it, and then maybe seek endorsement after a couple of terms. The point of a referendum is to stop change, not to get good, publicly endorsed change.

by oehpr 7y ago

vkou 7y ago

> So not only is reform on it's own nearly impossible, it seems impossible to ask reform of people whom got in to power with FPTP. I mean, it's similar to the problem of reforming a system where the winner of an election gets to pick the winner of the next election. It's not going to happen, without divine intervention.

kennywinker 7y ago

“Just got back to power” with a mandate from 21% of eligible voters. Hooray for FPTP :(

lambertsimnel 7y ago
And, also thanks the FPTP, the party with the most votes didn't get the most seats.
- kennywinker 7y ago
  True, but given that the vast majority of canadians voted for progressive candidates (green, ndp, and liberal) it's unlikely the conservatives would do better under a more fair voting system... in fact a lot of the seats they have are the result of more vote splitting on the left than the right. Edit: i crunched the numbers. If you pool the green + lib + ndp votes from this election, conservatives end up with only 69 seats. The reality probably wouldn't be that bad for them, since some large percentage of Liberal voters would pick Conservatives as their second choice over the NDP or Greens... but it gives you a lower bounds. i.e. they would be somewhere between where they are now and 69 seats.
  - lambertsimnel 7y ago
    That's a fair point, but it's worth noting that FPTP risks vote spitting and handing power to the wrong party. Perhaps they cancelled out in this case, but these problems often don't cancel out. These problems reduce voters' equality, power and choice, even where they do cancel out in terms of election winners.
    - kennywinker 7y ago
      Totally agree. I'm very much in favour of using almost ANY system other than FPTP. I'm only arguing that calling the conservatives the "party with the most votes" is a distortion of reality enabled by FPTP. They have the most votes of any single party, but their _ideas_ have far fewer votes than progressive ideas.
      - lambertsimnel 7y ago
        FPTP systematically underrepresents left-of-centre voters in legislative elections, due to their concentration in urban areas and due to their votes dividing between parties. Chapter four of this PDF explains in more detail (with a summary on pages eight and nine): https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/s/peterloo_web.pdf https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/s/peterloo_web.pdf
- caf 7y ago
  That's actually thanks to single-member-electorates. As long as you have single memeber electorates, you can have one party narrowly win a whole lot while another party wins crushing landslides in fewer. In the Canadian election the Conservatives 'wasted' a lot of votes running up the popular vote scoreboard in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
  - lambertsimnel 7y ago
    I agree, but arguably switching to multi-member districts entails replacing FPTP. (Another way of looking at it is that closed party-list PR, single non-transferable vote and/or multiple non-transferable vote are generalisations of FPTP to multi-member districts. The non-transferable vote systems have a lot of disadvantages.)

ant6n 7y ago

"Just got back into power" after telling people to vote strategically to ensure the Conservatives (which only have support of 1/3 of the electorate) wouldn't get into power. Basically this was Trudeau scrapping electoral reform, thus making it possible for Conservatives to have a majority again. Then asking real progressives to vote Trudeau, because otherwise they may split the "left" vote. And it worked for Trudeau, but damn it's cynical.

munk-a 7y ago

Ouf that BC referendum, I've never seen a more poorly worded referendum in my life. As someone passionate about good representation I had to google around to actually comprehend what Rural-Urban PR was. Additionally I know that some of the more progressive folks I know voted no on the referendum because all the options ended with a disclaimer of "This is all advisory and the actual implementation will be determined later" which they interpreted as "We'll actually end up deciding this by committee behind closed doors". Both of the leading parties lobby so strong against any PR that we just need to switch over to IRV to clear out the incumbent power base.

ferzul 7y ago

I seriously don't get the obsession with using a referendum to change the electoral system. Who came up with that idea? Better to change it, and then maybe seek endorsement after a couple of terms. The point of a referendum is to stop change, not to get good, publicly endorsed change.