A recent article provides a primer for perplexed US readers concerning the recent Canadian election:
But to my mind it uses loose wording.
To be technical, it is not correct to say "Once again, in one of the world’s oldest democracies, the candidate whose party got the most votes will not be awarded the most powerful office."
It should instead read:
"Once again, in one of the world’s oldest democracies, the leader of the party whose candidates got the most votes will not be awarded the most powerful office."
or
"Once again, in one of the world’s oldest democracies, the leader of the party which got the most seats -- although not a majority nor as many votes as another party -- will be awarded the most powerful office."
Why? because Trudeau was only a candidate in his local riding. The 2021 Canadian federal election was no presidential election where candidates run for the country's "most powerful office" (which of course in Canada is the governor-general anyway, at least constitutionally).
And the problem is not "an arcane political system in which small jurisdictions also enjoy a disproportionate share of seats in the federal legislature". Rep by pop was an electoral reform we actually won long ago after a hard fight.
Each small "jurisdiction " (province and territory) does not have more seats than its population warrants. In fact most of where rep by pop is not adhered too rigidly is to preserve the massive seats that Ontario and Quebec historically enjoyed. Sure, NWT or Yukon or Nunavut have one seat each when they actually don't have the vote numbers to have a seat but that did not deprive the Conservatives of their proportional lead. In fact as the Conservatives actually received about their proportional share of the seats The Liberals got about 50 seats more than they were due and that cannot be accounted for by the Territories.
I can't say I've checked but it seems un-contestable to say that the ranking of every province regarding its number of seats is in line with its ranking in size of population.
The problem -- as you may have read me say before -- is not apportionment of the seats but the waste of votes in the single-winner elections. It affects all parties but not all parties equally seriously.
Per seat won, more NDP votes were wasted than Liberal votes per seat won.
Overall, 5.4 M Liberal votes won 180 seats.
Overall, 2.9M NDP votes won 25 seats.
That stark figure tells all.
And it is not due to the Liberals getting most of its votes in the small jurisdictions.
It is not due to the liberals winning more districts with a lower minority, a lower number of votes than the NDP uses to to win their seats.
It is in part due to the NDP not winning as many seats as the Liberals.
Only votes that go to the local successful candidate are used effectively, They are the only ones that count for anything.
As military writers would say in a similar case, God is on the side of the big battalions.
In such an electoral system a the one we use, being big gives you the lucky breaks.
But things can flip.
Just as the Conservatives with more votes are denied government now, perhaps in future the luck will shift and the Liberals could be denied government even if they have two percent lead in votes.
Only a scientific system where a party, or parties, with majority of the seats based on majority of the vote is given government can be dependable base for true representative democracy.
The present electoral system is based on local successes based on widely varying number of votes to be successful.
In some districts a candidate with just a minority of the vote is elected - the majority of votes are wasted;
in some districts the winner takes perhaps twice the number of votes of all other candidates put together when a simple majority is all that should be needs and mere plurality is enough elsewhere to win.
PR systems, like other important things nowadays, are based on science. A quota tells you how many votes is needed to win and parties with that number of quota get that numb er of seats. The result is more proportional, the more strictly this is adhered to, it is less proportional the less strictly this is adhered to - but any adherence to the rule is better than none, which is what we have today under FPTP. Such science is the basis of PR.
Explaining PR today, I said (I'll smooth out the edges)
Each voter has one vote.
That is a basic part of any electoral system.
First Past the Post
Today we have FPTP where each voter marks one choice. Votes that go to the leading local candidate are used; the others , all the votes cast for anyone else, are ignored. only one candidate is successful; only one group in the district is made happy. It often happens that the one group is only a minority of the votes - a majority of the votes are ignored. Sometimes as many as 70 percent of the votes are ignored in a district.
(Here reference was made to the 2019 election in Edmonton Centre where Conservative Cummings received 41 percent of the vote and took the seats. Almost 60 percent of the votes were ignored. Meanwhile NDP and Liberal and Green together received 57 percent of the vote. It seems likely that most of those votes would have preferred the election of a candidate of one of the three parties, rather than Cummings.
This is info from the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2019_Canadian_federal_election_by_riding (hopefully someone soon does a similar article for the 2021 election!)
Single Non-transferable Voting
Say we bring in Single Non-transferable Voting. We need a multiple-member district so we group three adjoining districts - Edmonton-Centre and Edmonton Riverbend and Edmonton-Millwoods
basic numbers in 2019
(Votes will likely vary under a new system or under new circumstances but we'll use 2019 as a guide.)
Present riding Conservative Liberal NDP This ignores some
Edmonton-Centre 22,000 18,000 11,000 (5 percent ignored)
Edmonton Riverbend 35,000 14,000 9,000 (5 percent ignored)
Edmonton-Millwoods 27,000 18,000 7,000 (5 percent ignored)
Party totals 84,000 50,000 27,000
Total total: 161,000
Say we assume each party runs just two candidates for fear of splitting the vote.
One candidate in each party takes two thirds of the party vote, the other takes one third.
Imagined results: Conservative Liberal NDP
56,000/28,000 32,000/18,000 18,000/9,000
The three leading candidates are elected: two Conservatives and one Liberal elected.
no transfers. many votes wasted - 53,000 not used to elect anyone.
But voters of two parties could look to the crop of reps and find someone of the party they voted for among those elected.
The FPTP result was three Conservatives elected.
or say we allow human greed fuller play:
say we assume Conservative try for all three seats; Liberals hope to get two and NDP just run one candidate. One candidate in each party running multiple candidates gets six or eight thousand more than his or her buddies, and they get slightly different number of votes: Imagined results: Conservative Liberal NDP 34,000/26,000/24,000 28,000/22,000 27,000 The three leading candidates are elected: perhaps one Conservative, one Liberal and one NDP elected. (The result could go many different ways. but the result is likely more balanced and thus more fair than the FPTP result.) no transfers. many votes wasted - 47,000 not used to elect anyone. But voters of each party could look to the crop of reps and find someone of the party they voted for among those elected. Note that the FPTP result was three Conservatives elected.
STV
In STV each voter still casts one vote. But it is transferable so few votes are wasted.
Like SNTV, due to multiple reps being elected in a district, two or more groups can be happy about having some representation at least.
The STV process
A bit lengthier than FPTP or SNTV but perfectly do-able even without computers.
Assuming that STV districts have five to seven seats, more or less, the norm in most STV systems.
In each district, some voters may elect a candidate or two on the first count.
If not all seats are filled in the first count, the votes cast for the least-popular candidate are transferred if the voter marked a back-up preference for someone not yet elected. The votes are transferred to try to assist someone else to be elected, not the voter's first preference but someone he or she prefers over someone else. (They are not stolen as might be thought. They are allowed to live longer, although re-cast for a different candidate but one still preferred by the voter. In FPTP they are immediately ignored (die) if not cast for the leading local candidate.)
Eventually in most STV contests, three or more candidates accumulate full quotas.
And at the end one or two are elected with partial quota by being the last standing when the field of candidates thins to the number of remaining open seats. Overall, about 80 percent of the votes in an STV district are used to elect someone, a big difference from FPTP where usually 40 to 70 percent of the vote in a district are ignored.
Due to transfers the result is more certain than SNTV.
Looking at our fictitious three-seat Edmonton district
It is now very likely that two of the three main parties will elect a MP in our fictitious Edmonton multi-member district. (Sorry, NDP is not popular enough to likely get even one seat.)
Imagined results: Conservative Liberal NDP 34,000/26,000/24,000 28,000/22,000 27,000 Total 161,000 votes quota: about 40,000 votes 1st count: no one gets quota 2nd Count: Liberal eliminated. Say half to remaining Liberal. one-tenth to each other candidate, the rest of the candidate's votes are exhausted, disregarded
new totals: 36,000/28,000/26,000 39,000 29,000 3rd Count Conservative eliminated. Say 8000 votes to each other Conservative. 500 to each other candidate, the rest exhausted, disregarded 44,000/36,000 39,500 29,500 One Conservative elected -- 4,000 surplus votes. 4th Count Conservative's surplus distributed. (This would actually not be done because it can not change the NDP candidate being the least popular candidate and thus being set to be eliminated in the next count, ensuring the success of the other two.) Say half of the surplus goes to the other Conservative, the rest exhausted, disregarded 38,000 39,500 29,500 Only three candidates remaining- two seats are open. The least popular candidate will be eliminated. NDP eliminated. leaves just one Conservative and one Liberal to fill the last two seats. They have only partial quota but at this stage quota not required. Final result: two Conservatives and one Liberal elected. Note that the FPTP result was three Conservatives elected.
Mixed-Member Proportional (I ignore that voters cast two votes, not one, in some MMP systems - some think two votes works best; some think one vote doing double duty works best. Explaining it with one vote is easier.)
Each voter casts one vote. if the vote is cast for the leading candidate in the local district, the voter is happy. But even if not successful in the local contest, there is a chance for satisfaction. After the local contests are resolved, the party tallies are calculated. and the results of the local contests are compared to party tallies. if a party is due more seats, it is given them as supplemental seats as much as possible.
In MMP, the supplemental seats compensate for the dis-proportionality produced by the local contests as much as they can anyway.
SNTV in MMP system
Looking at our fictitious three-seat Edmonton district as if SNTV was used in an MMP system
It is now very likely that two of the three main parties will elect a MP in our fictitious Edmonton multi-member district. (Sorry, NDP is not popular enough to likely get even one seat.)
Imagined results: Conservative Liberal NDP
34,000/26,000/24,000 28,000/22,000 27,000
Total 161,000 votes
Say two seats filled through SNTV and one additional seat used to address the worst inequity.
A Conservative (34,000 votes) and a Liberal (28,000) lead the field so are declared elected.
Remaining votes by party Conservaive 50,000, Liberal 22,000 NDP 27,000.
Conservatives have the most ignored votes so get one more seat
Final result: two Conservatives, one Liberal.
FPTP in an MMP system
Say one seat filled through FPTP and two additional seats used to address the worst inequity.
A Conservative (34,000 votes) leads the field so is declared elected.
Remaining votes by party: Conservaive 50,000, Liberal 50,000 NDP 27,000.
Conservatives and Liberals have the most ignored votes so get one more seat each
Final result: two Conservatives, one Liberal.
STV in an MMP system
Say two seats filled through STV and one additional seat used to address the worst inequity.
Same as in our full STV election above, a Conservative takes quota anda seat.
4th Count a Liberal with 39,500 votes takes the second seat.
We look at overall party tallies from the first count and compare them to the two seats filled.
Still, the ratio of votes to seats is highest for Conservatives:
Conservative 84,000 to one seat. (42,000 if two seats)
Liberal 50,000 to one seat (25,000 if two seats)
NDP 27,000 without representation.
A Conservative is given the one additional seat as it is more deserving.
Final result: two Conservatives, one Liberal.
Summary
The way PR functions, what the system produces in the end, is generally about the same irrespective of which PR system is used. The district’s three seats produce a degree of balance, not as much as we can aspire to but at least something more fair than FPTP.
The systems each elect two Conservatives and one Liberal in our fictitious district (sometimes a NDP gets in, with the party tally being just 17 percent of the district vote).
STV or MMP in a larger district with more seats would produce even more finely-grained representation and more dependable representation for the small parties.
With five seats and STV, the NDP would be guaranteed a seat each time as long as the voters for one NDP candidate marked back-up preferences for all the other NDP candidates. None of the vote would be lost to the party and all would eventually centre on the last remaining NDP candidate, assuring him or her of a seat. There would be nothing the other voters could do about it. Quota is quota, and quota is guaranteed a seat.
Ten seats were used in Winnipeg when that city used STV to elect its MLAs from 1920 to 1952. This was perfectly do-able . The vote transfers were done thoroughly even without computers and each time the system yielded a balanced and diverse crop of MLAs to represent the city. Any candidate that had quota - about 9 percent of the vote - was guaranteed representation. And transfer meant that a wide range could run with no party fearing that vote splitting would hurt them and aid their opponents as long as the party’s supporters were careful to mark their back-up preferences along party lines. A party with less than about 9 percent of the first-preference vote would not win a seat - unless it accumulated enough votes by being the choice of many voters who had given their first preference to another party.
Votes often crossed party lines if that was the will of the voter. The voter under STV has complete liberty to mark his or her preferences along any criterion he or she wants.
I hope that explanation is useful.
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