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Tom Monto

A simple PR plan for Canada -- MMP with multi-seat districts of city or county size

Updated: 3 days ago

A simple form of PR - MMP

Each voter having one vote, and the vote to be marked with ranked preferences for one or more of the candidates running in local district.


Voter's marked back-up preferences to be used, if possible, when ballot would otherwise be wasted.


Use of multi-member districts where possible.


City-wide districts of 2 to 11 seats each, in each city that already has 3 to 12 MPs, but allocating one seat less than old number of MPs

where city already has more than 12 MPs, districts covering portions of cities district having 5 to 11 seats each, but with one less MP in the district than previously in the area covered by the district.

one- or two-seat districts elsewhere (by combining present ridings), with no "grouped" district being larger than the current largest district in the province. (if one MP in the province can represent that size area, then surely two or more should be able to.)


Provincial-level top-up 

top-up is an added complication but top-up seats are important part of MMP, which NDP promises and which many in Canada want.

(The multi-member districts by themselves would provide massively more fair election results than the present First past the post)

Votes can not cross provincial boundaries due to constitutional restrictions so each province would have its own top-up.


There would be as many top-up seats in each province as provided by the "takeback" in the cities in that province -- one freed up per each city-wide district and one per each city district, if any.


They would be filled by electing the most-popular unelected candidates in the province belonging to any party that does not win as large a share of the district seats as its share of the district vote.


The top-up elections would be based on the party label of the candidate marked as first preference by voters in the district contests.


Top-up seats would go to parties that have largest discrepancy between percentage of district vote share and its seat share, specifically to the unelected candidate of the party that received the most votes.


(There may be not enough top-up seats to bring all parties up to their due share of the seats, but overall fairness would be much better than under present first past the post.


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I have used the term MMP to define my system so that NDP can fulfill their promise to bring in MMP if they were to bring it.


But yes my simple plan could be seen as a form of Rural-Urban PR.


Rural-Urban PR is a form of MMP but unfortunately is not called that.


difference between "my simple plan" and R-UPR is: 

mine has two-seat districts in some places outside cities

that makes it different.


as well, note that R-UPR and mine both are different from usual MMP that people think of, the system used in NZ.

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(I should have mentioned that boundaries of counties should be adopted as district boundaries outside cities where possible,

instead of just lumping each two ridings together, which would layer a new layer of arbitrary-ness on the already-arbitrary ridings. 


some ridings would have to be re-done anyway as a city with three MPs has been shifted off to make its own MMD of 2 seats. I think some ridings do overlap city corporate boundaries, which would stop in cases of cities currently with 3 or more MPs, 


(or if you go by average riding population, any city with population greater than 340,000 would be hived off to make its own MMD

(114,000 being average population of a riding in provinces)

But now, I am thinking that average population per riding could be calculated differently if it is based on just district seats, anyway, once "takeback seats" are extracted from MMDs.


so even my simple plan is suddenly a full redrawing of just about every riding in Canada

not so simple...


Perhaps a city would mathematically have to have at least 220,000 to allow three seats to go down to 2, or some current number of MPs to go down by 1 (or 1 in each district)

Only 18 cities in all of Canada have pop of more than 220,000!


So that is a problem with the idea to simply free up seats by taking them out of new city MMDs.


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About what we think of when we think of MMP


R-UPR and my "simple plan" both are different from usual MMP that people think of, the system used in NZ.

my research tells me that actually only NZ and Lesotho in all the world uses MMP that includes single-member districts and FPTP.


MMP 

9 countries use form of MMP 


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5 have MMP using MMDs (district-level list PR/overall party list PR) 

 Denmark Iceland Sweden South Africa Germany



South Africa -- the National Assembly consists of 400 members elected by MMP using closed list proportional representation

200 are elected from provincial party lists in each of the nine provinces.

national allocation of seats is calculated based on party share of votes and the total 400 seats.

after that, 200 national list seats are allocated to the parties by subtracting seats won at the provincial level for each party from that party's national allocation, generating a proportional result. 


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2 have MMP (district-level FPTP/party-list PR) 

NZ Lesotho


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2 use "Other MMP" (districts use systems other than FPTP, list PR/party-list PR) 


These are :


MMP with MMDs and Block Voting


Mauritius

the small Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius uses MMP, with most being elected through block voting in multi-member districts and 8 declared elected in top-up fashion for majority party (if it does not have majority of seats) and/or ethnic representation from the "best losers".


MMP with SMDs and FPTP but sometimes no district winner


Romania

Romania -- In Romania, the 2008 national legislative elections were held under a mixed single vote system where SMD seats were only awarded to individual winners with an absolute majority.

(there is no attempt to manufacture district majority winners. either it happens or it does not. 

(when it does not, no local member is elected apparently)


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for more info on variety of PR used in world, see

Montopedia blog "Most countries in world use PR. They use variety of electoral systems"(montopedia.wixsite.com)


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although now in the 2020s the NDP calls for MMP and many in Canada say they want that system, perhaps it is not constitutional.


I think MMDs are important.

top-up regions (a form of MMD) are good as minimum replacement for MMD.


In fact, top-up can be done in conjunction with district MMDs as in Denmark's system.

but in Canada seems to imply single-member districts.


the initial goals of electoral reform are:

 -to get enough proportionality to make false majorities more or less impossible, [by reducing the leading party's windfall of 20 percent of seats usual under FPTP)

-- to give voters of smallish parties a much better chance of electing members.

I would add to also break up artificially created regionalization (one party sweeps in Sask and PEI)


Many in Canada push a specific form of MMP -- Rural-Urban PR.


it is claimed that if 15 percent of overall seats are top-up, then high or very high proportionality is possible, but this is only due to the fact that of the rest of the members, only 20 to 25 percent come from single-member districts.


Such proportionality produced by such small top-up is due to the use of multi-member districts and fair voting (STV is usually prescribed) to elect 60 percent of the members.


footnote on (2016-ish) ERRE, page 6 says 

  1. The large number of single-member ridings reduces proportionality. This can be compensated for by having larger top-up regions, more top-up seats, and more or larger multi-member ridings.


Meanwhile the statement that MMDs would have 20 seats is surprising.


First why 20 and not more?


I can see Canada-wide is constitutionally impossible.


but why not province-wide? 


But then if you consider the number of seats in each province, DM-20 is too much for most of the provinces.


the use of province-wide districts means DM of 20 is impossible in most of the provinces - in the case of SK, MB, and the four Maritime provinces.


so six of the electoral regions would have to have less than 20-DM.

plus another likely six or seven more, due to remainders in provinces BC, AB and Ontario, as shown in table below.


with several SMDs in the four largest provinces (25 percent means 85 SMDs), that likely means only 4 20-DM regions in Ontario, 2 20-DM regions in Quebec, 1 in BC and 1 in AB.


so only eight (at most) of the approx. 20 MMDs (or more) would have 20-DM.


[the following table is flawed by forgetting about the top-up members.

see below for proper numbers]


Here's how it might work with 20 as the maximum DM.

ON               6 MMDs of varying size            model: 4 X 20, 2 X 8 25 SMDs

Quebec       5 MMDs of varying size             model: 2 X 20, 1X13 25 SMDs

BC                 3 MMDs of varying size            model: 1 X 20, 2 X 7 8 SMDs

AB                 3 MMDs of varying size            model: 1 X 20 14 SMDs

the six smallest provinces as province-wide  6 MMDs of varying size

Territories                                                                                             3 SMDs

SMDs not accounted for                                                                     10 SMDs

total SMDs                                                                                          85  SMDs

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MMDs under R-UPR would have DM in range of 7 to 20.


With average DM of the MMDs being closer to DM-14

(268 total members in MMDs/19 MMDs).


if the expected proportionality of "high to very high" is based on having lots of DM-20 districts, then we got troubles.


Did the originators of this system envision districts crossing provincial boundaries?

That is a question.


(If we open the MMDs to maximum within each province

and with 25 percent SMDs and 15 percent top-up,

we have this model:

MMD (60%) SMDs (25%) Top-up (15%)

Ontario 120 DM-72, 30 SMDs 18

Quebec 78 DM-46 20 SMDs 12

BC 42 29 8 5

AB 34 22 8 4

SK 14 8 4 2

MB 14 8 4 2

NS 11 7 2 2

PEI 4 3 1

NB 10 7 1 2

NL 7 5 1 1

Territories 3

207 81 49 Tot. 337 [off by three or four]

average DM 207/10 = 20. That is with range of DM from 3 to 72.


if ON and QU split in half, average is 207/12 = DM-18 (average DM is 17.25)


If allowed range of DM is 3 to 20, then you have this model

MMD (60%) SMDs (25%) Top-up (15%)

Ontario 120 DM-72 3x20, 1X12 30 SMDs 18

Quebec 78 DM-46 2X20, 1X6 20 SMDs 12

BC 42 29 1X20, 1X 9 8 5

AB 34 22 1X20 10 4

SK 14 8 4 2

MB 14 8 4 2

NS 11 7 2 2

PEI 4 3 1

NB 10 7 1 2

NL 7 5 1 1

Territories 3

205 83 49 Tot. 337

[off by three or four]

205/16 = average DM-13

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Meanwhile are top-up regions even constitutional?


As well, top-up regions may not be technically possible constitutionally where BNA states the members are elected in ridings -- not necessarily single-member ridings -- but ridings.


Having some elected in ridings and others in regions made up of ridings (a new tier of representation) may not be kosher.


if we're looking for quick PR, we don't want to have to amend the constitution.


so IMO  MMDs are basic building block of quick PR, not top-up mechanisms.


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