Excerpts from The Politics of Voting by Dennis Pilon.
We can do better ... with governments that
really do reflect a majority of the Canadian electorate
Pilon (pages xii-xiii) An examination of western countries that are politically comparable to Canada, and their experiences with different forms of proportional representation, suggests that we can do better, and can create more accurate and inclusive representation in our legislatures with governments that really do reflect a majority of the Canadian electorate... PR is about empowering individual voters to get what they want by equalizing their voting power Let's not "sever the consideration of institutional values from the concrete political realm"
from page 6: Another impact of this different politicization is that it has tended to sever the consideration of institutional values from the concrete political realm, contributing to a mismatch between the laudable goals of the reformers and political reality in terms of organized political forces and their interests.
For instance, in 2004 the BC Citizens’ Assembly (BC-CA) decided in favour of the single transferable vote (STV) form of PR, which was opposed by all three of the province’s major parties and most key groups in civil society.
They chose STV instead of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) form of PR, which was favoured by two of three major parties and many forces in civil society, including most of the public submissions to the BC-CA itself.
Even in terms of the deliberation process, the values approach tends to limit critical inquiry precisely because it converts what should be seen as potentially questionable attributes of different systems into morally equivalent value commitments. Thus local representation is characterized as a question of value (i.e., do we like or prefer it) rather than as something that should be investigated and assessed in terms of its real functioning within the political system (i.e., does it really matter in political outcomes).
=========
The arguments for or against change
we need to understand the politics behind the arguments for or against change, or between supporters of different forms of PR, or about where and how to seek reform, or concerning the composition of the reform and anti-reform campaigns.
Thus, understanding the politics of voting — that institutions are embedded in a process of political contestation — is crucial for a successful deliberative process that might contribute to change.
Another reason to set aside the “values” approach is that it tends to limit critical scrutiny of all aspects of the voting-system debate. By converting issues like majority government and local representation into value questions, deliberators shift from a critical exploration of what these things mean and how they function within the political system to a normative assessment about whether they like or prefer them. Whether one likes local representation may be irrelevant if it can be demonstrated that it plays no important role in politics.
====================
[I make the same point in my Montopedia blog on local representation, "What kind of electoral reform do we want? And what does local mean?"
Local for most means based on the city or town where you live. A district that contains a tenth of the city is not connected to a person on any real level but is an artificial construct.
If a federal riding holding 100,000 people is considered local, then a multi-member provincial district of that same size would be local as well. And such a "grouped district" electing multiple MLAs would produce more proportional, more fair and more democratic representation.
Local single-member districts mean that in many cases the majority of voters are ignored and only the minority (less than half) of the voters in a district elect anyone.
Multi-member districts consistently produce majority representation. As much as 80 to 80 percent are represented in district elections that use STV.
Districts like that elect fairly and are local in the sense that most people use the term.
Thanks for reading.
=======================================
Also, when the NDP publishes survey results that claims that most respondents stated they wanted local representation, we have to ask what did they think they were showing support for.
Was it a local district representative often elected with support from minority of district voters?
Or was it local district representatives that together represent the diversity of opinion in a "grouped district"? Was local representation taken to mean a single local representative only or did the term include both single local representative and also plural local representatives? If given a choice would the respondent had insisted on only a single representative or would the respondent had said multiple local representative is better but single would do?
Or was it a local representation of the voter's opinion by a local district representative?
Where a district elects just one member, in many - sometimes most - voters will not be represented by that member. Often most of the voters vote for someone other than the elected member. Almost always at least a third of voters vote for someone other than the person elected. In two particularly undemocratic cases in Canadian history, 72 percent of the votes cast were for someone other than the successful candidate.
So did the voter say he wanted representation of his opinion by a local representative or just a local member elected as now often without support of majority of district voters?
We can't know.
The NDP is proposing Multi-Member Proportionality where local members elected through district contests and overall top-up is applied to make the party seat shares line up with party vote shares, as much as possible anyway.
But why continue to divide Canadian cities into micro-local districts?
Does Canada actually need to be split into 338 separate political dogfights, each decided by a method that often elects a minority choice?
No, it does not. Large cities could use districts electing 5 to ten members. Small cities could elect two or more in a city-wide district.
Through fair voting such as STV, each substantial group would have representation.
Such is done in Denmark today and that country is consistently rated as being very democratic. Denmark uses a system of MMP where its districts (except for one) elect multiple members. (It can work!)
Representation would still be local in the same way that cities provide local government.
Then Canada would be split into something like 200 districts, instead of 340 or so.
Larger and fewer districts would eliminate much of the waste of votes we see today and mostly prevent gerrymandering. Fair voting would eliminate much of advantage to be gained by gerrymandering anyway.
That is the kind of local representation that I could support
see my Montopedia blog https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/a-canadian-stv-simulation-and-a-city-based-stv-system-for-canada for more information on this.
===================================================
Comments