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Tom Monto

Democracy requires proportional representation

Updated: Jun 20, 2020

Democratic representation requires proportional representation. For if it is not proportional, it does not reflect the views of the voters.

Proportional representation requires two things: - that the majority holds the majority of seats, and thus holds the power to make decisions. - that the minority holds its due proportion of the seats, so will be heard.

But the electoral system we use, First Past The Post (FPTP), breaks down the election into a large number of separate contests. This produces inequalities at the level of the district and the "region," and at the overall level.

At the district level, only one candidate - whether she receives a majority of the votes or only a minority - is elected in each district. All other votes are wasted. If one candidate receives a majority of the votes, the minority is ignored. If the leading candidate receives only a minority of the votes cast in the district, as happens in many cases, a majority of the votes cast in a district are wasted.

This poor minority representation can accumulate in a certain way across a group of districts covering a region such as a whole province. Thus in federal elections, a whole province can be represented by candidates belonging to only one party, depriving the often significant provincial "other" vote of any representation at all.

At the overall level, the compilation of the seats won in separate contests often varies widely from the proportions of the vote that each party received.

It usually happens that the leading party takes a vast majority of the seats. Often its seat total is 20 percent more than its percentage of votes cast.

This leading party may or may not have received a majority of the votes cast. Where it did not receive a majority of the votes, the rest - the majority - are deprived of the majority of seats that they deserve democratically. These are cases of minority rule. The right of decision has been given to representatives of a minority. The majority in this case is composed of two or more parties.

Where the leading party did receive a majority of the votes, due to that party's windfall of extra seats produced by FPTP, the minority are not accorded their due proportion of the seats.

Thus in these ways, which are seen in almost any FPTP election, the electoral system does not give us the two tenets of democratic representation: The majority does not always wield power; and Minorities at the district, region and overall level do not receive their fair due of representation.

The man who led Alberta's movement in favour of pro-rep in the 1920s, John D. Hunt, stated the two tenets when he used to say "In a democratic government the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all."

(Put another way:

Often under FPTP, a party with only a minority of the votes captures a majority of the seats. This produces minority rule - the right of decision has been given to representatives of a minority, as already mentioned. And all too often such the leading party - whether supported by a majority of the vote or not - not only takes a majority of the seats in the legislative assembly but takes 70-80 percent of the seats in the legislature. The UCP's slight majority of the vote, 55 percent, was exaggerated by FPTP and the party captured 72 percent of the seats.)

And sometimes party machinations, not voter sentiment, cause a government's downfall. Despite how the NDP's downfall as government appeared, it was more popular in 2019 than in 2015, receiving slightly more votes. But the merger of the Conservatives and another rightist party gave the UCP many seats and took away the NDP's control of a majority of seats in the legislative assembly.


STV the solution These various un-proportionalities and instability are addressed by the Single Transferable Voting (STV) electoral system. In a multiple-member district where each voter has one vote to cast, the majority elects the majority of the district's MLAs. Every substantial minority group in a district would elect at least some representation.

These separate STV districts compiled across the whole jurisdiction ensure that the legislative assembly would be composed of a variety of members, representative of the variety of voters' sentiment, each member representing a substantial voting block.

And compiled across the whole jurisdiction, if the member-to-voter ratio in each district does not vary widely, each party's percentage of seats in the chamber would be similar to each party's percentage of votes overall. A slight change in voters sentiment would make a slight change in party representation, not the wide swings produced by FPTP. A majority of voters would be represented by the government, whether one party or a coalition or other arrangement of two or more parties.

The use of transferable ballots would ensure that in each district, a vote cast for a candidate, even if not for the most popular one, would either elect the candidate or be transferred to a different but still preferred candidate. This ensures that a great proportion of the votes would see someone they prefer elected; that one group, unless very popular, cannot capture all the seats and produce the practical disenfranchisement of others; that each substantial group would have some representation. Votes would not be wasted but instead transferred if necessary to elect someone preferred over others. Knowing that votes would not be wasted, voters would be free to vote for whom they truly want to see elected. They would not be encouraged to engage in strategic voting, a form of misrepresentation and deception.


Unlike party-list proportional representation, under STV, there is ease of creating local representation. A medium-sized city, say with 7 representatives elected in a district covering the city as a whole, would necessarily have its own representatives. Under party-list pro-rep, a perhaps complicated mechanism would be needed to ensure the same representation of the city, to ensure local representation.


As well, STV gives each substantial group of voters liberty to choose their representative based on whatever reasons they choose -- party principles, age, religion, residency, perceived loyalty to the city or part of the city. If residency or local loyalty is what voters think is important, they can vote that way. If local representation is not as important as other factors, STV in a city-wide district does not force voters to vote for candidates running in a particular part of the city. And do remember that there is no law that a candidate has to run in the district where he or she resides - local representation is not guaranteed under FPTP. But a voter is forced to vote for candidates running where he or she lives - or not vote at all.


The single-member districts used in FPTP split and divide voting blocks, for the goal of local representation. It is possible that a single voting block, perhaps only 33 percent of the vote, will elect a candidate who does not reside in the district, thus forcing the majority of the voters against their will to be represented by an outsider. Their votes are wasted and their democratic will ignored, while perhaps just across an arbitrary line a similarly-minded voting block also likewise is ignored by the election in that district. Under STV the voting block would have a chance to be unified and to achieve its due share of representation.


All this is achieved under STV by the easy process of grouping existing districts into multi-member districts, such as a single district covering the whole city, and giving each voter only one vote, same as she has now.


Thanks for reading.


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(keyword: electoral reform, STV)


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