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Tom Monto

Two nifty voting reforms!

Updated: Jan 9, 2021

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Allow voters to cast their vote for any candidate anywhere.

One way to increase liberty to voters and make elections more interesting - to increase minorit representation and help stop the waste of votes - is to allow voters to cast votes for candidates running outside the district in which the voter is registered.


In the last provincial election voters could cast their votes in any polling station in the province but had to vote only for candidate running in their district.

But why not he other way around - to allow voters to cast their vote for any candidate anywhere.

This would allow say Green voters anywhere in the province to join together to elect a single candidate.


However it would do nothing for the waste of votes say that happened in Edmonton Strathcona where Rachel was re-elected with more than 70 percent of the vote in her district.


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Gove system - easy vote transfer mechanism

If STV is too complex or difficult to sell, how about a simple system of transferring un-needed surplus votes? This could be a variation of the almost-forgotten Gove system - where candidates advertize ahead of time where un-needed votes would go in case they receive a surplus or in case they are eliminated from the running. As well, voters could write in a replacement destination if they did not agree with the candidate's indicated course.


After that all votes would be transferred and none wasted except for a few at the end of the process. Votes would travel along the stated route indicated by the candidates until most would find a home. After the initial first-choice count, districts would be examined, starting alphabetically, and each candidate in each district alphabetically,

either elected or eliminated,

if elected, the second-choice ballots would be consulted and proportionally transferred onto next available choice, whether the candidates' choice, for the great mass of them likely, or each individual vote moved to the voter's own preference if so marked.

If eliminated, all the votes moved to the next available indicated preference, whether the candidates' choice, for the great mass of them likely, or each individual vote moved to the voter's own preference if so marked.

After the first transfer a vote would go along lines indicated by candidates. but many votes in this system and in STV find homes by electing a candidate by the first choice or the first back-up preference. (In FPTP, there are no transfers - so many votes are wasted and voters have no liberty to have their vote transferred so the FPTP system really says if you don't find a winner in the first choice, it is transferred to the trash can.)

No votes would be wasted except for less than half the votes remaining when there are only two candidates left and no transfer is possible.

Thus voters would have liberty to set their first choice and one back-up preference.


Two useful mechanisms to increase democracy - they offer many of the same benefits as STV but without many of the complications.

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