In the summer of 2023, I am looking forward to a court challenge that is to be heard in court in September on whether the First Past The Post system is constitutional as it, I believe, is not within the limits of acceptability for fairness and political equality.
Canada didn't always use FPTP - it is not prescribed in our constitution as written in 1867.
In fact, section 40.3 of the BNA Act (1867) says the Halifax riding must have two members - until Parliament decides to change it. Halifax was finally changed to single-member districts in 1960s after a hundred years
(As originally written, Constitution does not mention possibility of non-district top-up members but likely Parliament could decide to change that.)
In the BNA Act, one member per riding (single-member districts) is prescribed in some provinces but a two-member riding is prescribed in the County of Halifax.
Single-winner FPTP is not prescribed. FPTP cannot be prescribed when Halifax has two members, unless the "post" system is used where each seat in an MMD is filled in a separate contest - an un-common system.
But any election of a single member in riding cannot be PR if the most-popular candidate in each district is elected (which is normally the process). (Dual Member PR would not follow this rule)
So if court challenge works, it will not be based on election clauses in Constitution (as far as I know - I have not looked at 1982 Constitution act)
but would be based on right to fairness and equality (every Canadian's right!)
And if court case wins, then the coutt would order a fair replacement for the present system. There are a variety of electoral systems that could be used instead of FPTP, each would be more fair than the present system - representation would be more proportional and more votes would be used effectively, would be used to actually elect someone.
The exact system chosen is not too important as each would be more fair than our present system, but some specific system would have to be adopted.
Here I list the various decisions choices that would have to made to choose the new system.
The following facts seem clear to me:
- a system with districts is more similar to the present system - and thus more easily adopted - than one without districts. (anyways votes cannot cross provincial borders.)
- a system where voters vote directly for candidates in districts is more similar to the present system - and thus more easily adopted - than closed-list list PR. (Of course any MMP or list PR system would use votes as party votes, but the voter casting a vote for an individual is still closer to present system than one without that aspect, even if the vote is then taken as party vote (for the top-up).
Secondarily.
- a system with ranked votes allows more votes to be used effectively than one with X voting. But even X voting with fair voting - there are a variety of systems with both those features - would be more fair than the present system, even if some votes are still being wasted.
With these facts in mind, PR would have to come from either:
- multi-member ridings with fair voting in them,
(there are many possibilities - STV, SNTV, list-PR*, two also-rans: CV, LV, and the not-yet-tried simpler form of STV -- Indirect STV)
or
- single-member ridings retained (with members elected by FPTP or IRV), with some more general top-up (perhaps province-wide) added to overcome dis-proportional result in districts, or
- an MMP system with MMDs (various voting methods) and top-up, or
- an MMP system with mixture of MMDs (various voting methods ) and SMDs (various voting methods), and top-up, or
- Rural-Urban PR (RUPR) system with mixture of MMDs (STV) and SMDs (various voting methods), and top-up, or
- "PR light", a system with mixture of MMDs (various voting methods) and SMDs (various voting methods), and no top-up.
Not likely that "local districts" would be discarded altogether (as in province-wide party-list PR*) so then choice is only MMDs or SMDs or a mixture of MMDs and SMDs.
* Not likely that list PR would be adopted as FPTP replacement, -- I think the people and the establishment would want to continue the casting of votes for individual candidates, partly out of fear of growing party power, (but I could be wrong)
Even when we narrow scope of options to just systems with districts where candidate-based voting is used,
we still have these options:
- MMDs (various voting methods) and no top-up or
- MMP (NZ) -- SMDs with top-up or
- MMP (Danish) -- MMDs (list PR) with top-up or
- a MMP system with mixture of MMDs and SMDs (various voting methods), and top-up or
- "PR light", a system with mixture of MMDs and SMDs, and no top-up. (as Manitoba and Alberta had 1920s to 1950s)
and for some of these options, we still have a variety of systems open to us as set by more questions:
Districting
multiple winners or single winners in each district
SMDs would be used in some places?
MMDs would be used in some or all places?
Mixture of SMDs and MMDs would be used?
if MMDs used:
size of MMDs - DM of 3 to 10? 15? 21?
MMDs would have various DM (whatever number of seats in each city), or be uniform in District Magnitude (example - consistent five seats each)
District voting methods in MMDs-- STV, SNTV, Indirect STV, CV, LV
(each gives more proportional results and wastes fewer votes than our present system.)
Some aspects to consider:
Single voting = STV, SNTV, Indirect STV
Multiple voting = CV, LV
Ranked voting = STV
Single X voting = SNTV
Multiple X voting = CV, LV
Transferable votes = STV, Indirect STV
Parallel district system
dedicated districts for certain classes of voters - (as in Maori seats in NZ)
if PR top-up,
what scale of top-up -- five-seats or districts, province-wide, or??
what balance of top-up to district members?
will the number of total members be increased? Will the number of district members be reduced to free up seats for top-up members?
will voters cast one vote for district election and another for overall (more general) party vote used to set general proportionality through top-up?
electoral threshold?
if so, where would it be set? 3 percent? five percent?
Other top-up
top-up to achieve fairness for Natives, women, etc.
top-up to achieve relative fairness between two main parties/prevent false majority governments
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Lots of decisions to make, even if we narrow options to just systems that have districts and candidate-based voting in districts
But nothing Canada couldn't handle.
Making these choices is not made easier by fact that
any one of them would be better than the present system.
Nor by the possibility that each choice might be seen as a wrong choice by as many people as who think the choice is the right one.
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A Charter challenge was debated in an Ontario court on the constitutionality of the First past the post system.
court hearings finished but ruling not come down yet. (as of Oct. 12, 2023)
Basically gist was that as our constitution and UN declaration of human rights (to which Canada has signed) says that each voter should have equal poltical power,
and under FPTP some votes do not elect anyone,
therefore FPTP is not constitutional
and as well the inequality of representation is endured by women and minority groups mostly, so is direct effective disenfranchisement of such voters.
which is also not constitutional.
the challenge is proposing judge rule FPTP unconstituional and give governments a year to change to PR voting system.
it is Ontario court case but could set precedent that would echo across Canada.
Charter challenge was put forward by Springtide Collective and Fairvote BC.
info online about it
judge hearing the case did not say how long it would take for him to make his judgement.
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Five leading replacements for FPTP
Simplest replacement of FPTP is to group districts into multi-member districts and give each voter one vote.
This can be SNTV or if ranked votes are used it would be STV.
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MMDs are simple and worked fine in the past, although experience was flawed by non-PR voting system
Edmonton used MMDs in every city election until 2010. just each voter had as many votes as the number of seats to be filled, except for 1920s when it used STV so fair voting was not achieved.
Calgary city elections used MMDs and STV mostly up to 1971 then went to FPTP.
Edmonton and Calgary used MMDs and STV to elect MLAs from 1924 to 1956, so we know it works -- it produced mixed balanced rep in each city.
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Once you have MMDs, you have four good systems that can be used to produce PR.
Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV) would provide mixed balanced rep in each district and thus each city and province, something FPTP does not give us.
(Vanuatu uses SNTV as a practical example)
STV
Using transferable votes in multi-member districts similarly to SNTV gives us STV which is even more proportional than SNTV.
MMDs can be used in SNTV (mentioned above) and also in
mixed member proportional with MMDs (ala Denmark)
or list PR with provinces or cities as districts with no top-up seats as in Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, and more listed below*
MMP with FPTP districts ala New Zealand is also very proportional, although its combination of single-winer districts and party voting combines what I think is the worst aspect of FPTP with party voting, the weakness of list PR.
SNTV, STV, list PR in districts, and the two mixed member systems are all more fair than our present FPTP and would likely be consistent with judge's ruling if he says FPTP is unconstitutional and must be replaced.
Overall top-up is very proportional but due to Canada's constitution, each province's votes are best kept separate from others.
list PR can be used in MMDs (as in Denmark).
As well, regions (composed of groupings of districts) can be created where top-up is added at that level (Additional Member System, as used to elect Scotland's Assembly). In canada to up could be based on party votes across a whole province. (Certainly no larger scale could be used if votes are not to cross provincial borders)
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*Countries that use List PR with provinces or cities as districts with no top-up seats:
(systems where list PR in subdivisions is used without top-up)
In Europe
Portugal,
Spain,
Belgium,
Iceland,
Turkey
Luxembourg,
Liechtenstein,
Czechia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia,
Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania
In Latin America
Brazil (larger in area than Argentina but doesn't have as many people as Indonesia)
Argentina
Peru,
Paraguay's Chamber of Deputies,
maybe Colombia's House of Representatives,
Ecuador and most of the rest of Central America (except for Mexico and Belize.)
Asia/Pacifica
Indonesia
East Timor
In Africa
DR Congo
Angola
Morocco and Algeria's lower houses
Brazil is the largest out of all of those by geographic size,
Indonesia is the most populous of all of those.
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South Africa uses provincial-level top-up and overall top-up
South Africa 26.7 million registered people
400 seats -- 200 filled in nine provincial party lists and 200 elected according to overall PR.
Provincial representation in the National Assembly, elected in province-wide districts, ranges from 5 seats in the Northern Cape to 48 seats in Gauteng.
That range of provincial representation echoes Canada's where one province elects four MPs and Ontario elects more than 120.
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see also my blog
https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/upcoming-electoral-reform-in-canada-issues-and-solutions
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