Here's what one acquaintance says:
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I think a good way to position a call for electoral reform might be to relate PR to why we are failing Canadians and the world on climate change, justice, healthcare, peace and prosperity.
FPTP has fully empowered two parties to do very little (to say the least) on issues a majority of Canadians care about deeply (and suppress awareness and deliberation among the rest of Canadians).
FPTP is authoritarian, I refuse to even grant it full legitimacy as a democracy, it is in fact and effect a method of voter suppression. It is not "representative." Even internal party processes are *at best* a form of theatrically managed democracy, but in practice mostly they are autocratic institutions. We delude ourselves into thinking we are any more than a flawed democracy. FPTP is not a left or right thing, it is a means of denying a just & vibrant democracy. There's a compelling legal argument that FPTP is not constitutional as defined in the Charter. It is certainly not even POGG (Public Order and Good Government, the basic goal of our Constitution)
FPTP government has systematically defied a just and efficacious "social contract" since Confederation. Arguably, if we consider the interests of future generations, it has only gotten worse.
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Recent discussion of compulsory voting in the U.S. has inspired debate. But there seems to be a mistaken notion of what democracy is.
The U.S. is not a democracy. Look it up in the dictionary or in an atlas.
The U.S. is a republic - not a democracy.
Proof 1. If the U.S. was a democracy, Clinton not Trump would have been elected in 2016. Clinton received more votes than Trump.
Proof 2. Just cause the U.S. holds elections, that does not make it a democracy. Or for that reason one would have to say the old USSR and the new Russia is a democracy.
I think those are enough proofs to prove my case.
And consider how U.S. foreign policy has made democracy a bad word in many countries in the world. The U.S. pushes U.S. style "democracy" on these countries. If democracy means overbearing control by U.S. corporations and military, disenfranchisement of minority groups, assassination of Communists, reformers and ethnic leaders, which it seems to mean in application, then they don't want it.
In the debate on Compulsory Voting, we see the same obscuration of democracy and the existing electoral system. Prejudiced analysts have looked at the application of compulsory voting in the Americas where 14 countries used some form of mandatory voting.
The results they found they say is evidence that those who would prefer not to vote but are forced to vote are dissatisfied with democracy.
I say that they are not dissatisfied with democracy but that they are dissatisfied with the existing electoral system, where with FPTP and single member districts, 40 to 65 percent of the vote in each district is wasted.
They would prefer not to vote because they know, more often than not, their vote will not be effectively used to elect anyone, that usually they are wasting their time, especially if they prefer a party that has ever won a seat in their district for - well, for ever.
But if those analysts had looked at Australia, where Mandatory Voting is in effect and STV used for at least some elections, where each party with substantial support in each district or province/state gets some representation, I am sure they would have seen more voter satisfaction with mandatory voting and with democracy.
Probably why those governments that did had brought in mandatory voting was because people were already dissatisfied with the electoral system. The people are not dissatisfied with being required to vote under the system - they are dissatisfied with the system they are required to vote under.
Such as could be happening today in Canada. One very intelligent and successful person I know said he has never voted because he calculated the cost and benefit - how often does one vote make a difference? I had to answer never.
But if multi-member districts are used and few votes wasted as under STV, then a singel vote is more likely to make difference.
You could say that in First Past The Post winner-take-all elections life is cheap, at least the life of a vote. Half of the votes cast - give or take 20 percent - are wasted, disregarded, the equivalent of being thrown in the garbage.
But in STV or other pro-rep system, only 10 or 20 percent are disregarded that way.
A large number of votes are cherished, preserved - transformed into representation.
Under such systems, people vote without being required to vote Because they know their vote will be respected.
The idea of the U.S. gong to compulsory voting is like in the period before U.S. entry into WWII, the U.S. actively discouraged people trying to fight fascism in Spain in 1936, stayed out of the war until Japan's declaration of war in 1941, then right away brought in conscription (draft) and pushed people into the armed forces.
While a softer approach would have been more humane.
If people are not voluntarily willingly doing something you want done, then address it (through education, rewards, reform, solving the problems they express). And use brutal force and power only as last resort.
Question:
Would a voters' strike do any good? If hundreds or thousands gathered at polling places but refused to vote until they were guaranteed that their vote would not be discarded, would we see reforms quickly?
Is there a law against discouraging people from voting? If someone broke it by campaigning with lawn signs against voting, could it be made a legal case where objecting to an unfair procedure could be seen as an act of civil disobedience and sanctioned by by being proven in court to have been an action taken against an unjust law.
Thanks for reading.
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