Just because FPTP elections produce majority government, that does not mean that that is a just and fair result --if no majority of voters support a single party, why should any party have majority of seats?
Here's a classic case of making that wrong assumption -- of putting the wagon before the horse, or at least taking the superficial look of things as proof about their rightness.
====
The case against Proportional representation By Jim Nielsen
(http://www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp?art=1118¶m=163)
Here's an extract where the mistake is made:
“Debate in the legislative assembly may be entertaining, enlightening and important but unless someone is listening and in authority to act on the matters discussed and decided then there is little purpose of having members.
Therefore a government must be created from among the members chosen. The best manner for a government to be chosen is for a party to have a majority of seats in the house and be called upon to form a government and then provide the needed leadership required to conduct public business.
Proportional representation tends to foster minority government and history would suggest most citizens do not want minority government. British Columbia elections have been held along party lines since 1903 and there have been only three instances of a minority government resulting from a general election — in 1924, 1941 and 1952. If the voters of British Columbia believed minority government was the preferred option then the results of those elections would reflect that opinion. Of the 28 governments elected since 1903 twenty five have been majorities.”
-----
But in the history of BC, in most of the elections no party took a majority of the vote. If we use votes as guides, there have been very few times when voters overall actually showed they wanted a majority government. The only times when a party received a majority of the votes: 1909 1912 1928 1945 1949 2001 And each time a party did take a majority of the seats. Of course each voter wants majority government for his or her own party. But if we look at overall votes, as Nielsen wants to do, we have to say that only in little more than a handful of elections did BC voters overall vote for a majority government. But despite this, in all but four times they were governed by a majority government - a government composed of one party that took a majority of the seats, even if it did not receive the majority of the votes. Only the 1924, 1941 and 1952 elections resulted in minority governments, just as Nielsen said, plus now we have to add 2017 as well. But the small number of minority governments are not evidence that voters overall seldom want minority governments. The small number of minority governments are not true reflection of how votes were cast. Instead the small number of minority governments were achieved despite how votes were cast. BC has had 33 elections since 1903. In all but six of them, voters did not give a majority of votes to any one party. Thus, in 27 elections, no party was in fact due majority government but in 23 of them BC voters got majority governments. They got things called false-majority governments. Only in four of the 33 elections did voters ask for minority government and get it. Mostly they asked for minority government and got majority government – false-majority government. So Nielsen is wrong. BC voters overall did want minority governments – they just didn’t get them under FPTP. At least that is what BC elections of the past show us again and again. ==================================== BC Governments/Elections 1903 false-majority government 2 1907 false-majority government 1909 hugely disproportionate majority/majority government 4 1912 hugely disproportionate majority/majority government 1916 false-majority government SC 36 out of 47 seats SC got barely less than half of the votes just 11 shy of a majority 6 1920 false-majority government Liberal 25 out of 47 seats (38 percent of votes) 1924 minority government SC 23 out of 48 seats (33 percent of votes) 8 1928 majority/majority government Conservative 53 percent of votes 1933 false-majority government Liberal 10 1937 false-majority government Liberal 1941 wrong-winner minority government Lib-Prog-Cons coalition Liberal 21 out of 48 seats 33 percent of votes. Conservatives 31 pc of votes 12 out of 48 seats 12 1945 majority/majority government Lib-Prog-Cons coalition 37 out of 48 seats 56 percent of votes (coalition actually ran one less than the number of seats so conducted an organized joint campaign) 1949 majority/majority government Lib-Prog-Cons coalition 39 out of 48 seats 61 percent of votes 14 1952 minority government SC 30 percent of votes 1953 false-majority government SC 46 percent of votes 16 1956 false-majority government SC 39 of 52 seats overall 46 percent of votes 1960 false-majority government SC 32 of 52 seats overall 43 percent of votes 18 1963 false-majority government SC 33 of 52 seats overall 41 percent of votes 1966 false-majority government SC 33 of 55 seats overall 44 percent of votes 20 1969 false-majority government SC 38 of 55 seats overall 46 percent of votes 1972 false-majority government NDP 38 of 55 seats overall 39 percent of votes 22 1975 false-majority government SC 35 of 55 seats overall 49 percent of votes 1979 false-majority government SC (31 seats of 57 seats overall 48 percent of votes 24 1983 false-majority government SC 49.7 percent of votes 1986 false-majority government SC 49.8 percent of votes 26 1991 false-majority government NDP 41 percent of votes 1996 wrong-winner false-majority government NDP 39 percent of votes 28 2001 majority/majority government Liberal 77 out of 79 seats (58 percent of votes) 2005 false-majority government Liberal (46 percent of votes) 30 2009 false-majority government Liberal (46 percent of votes) 2013 false-majority government Liberal (44 percent of votes) 32 2017 minority government NDP 41 out of 87 seats (40 percent of votes); Green 3 seats (17 percent of votes) 33 2020 false-majority government NDP 57 (48 percent of votes) =================================== [Much of above is from FVC BC elections https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iQQgLeGGup7jzihRkqEd_b3jfqEB9iNlSpPamDKOwvo/edit#gid=2009260182 (I must take responsibility for any mistakes that appear in this work.)
Comments