Yes, a Canadian election may be decided before polls close in Alberta and BC as to whom will form majority government,
But the election is conducted actually as little 338 sub-battle, and they are not decided until they are decided. at least they are not decided until the last one in BC is decided, and even then they are announced on election night in BC (by then perhaps it is the next day AM in Newfoundland!), they are actually only preliminary results and the final results announced not until days or a week later.
Here's another instance where there is a blurring in people's minds of the chamber make-up and the district contests. (breaking the divisions defined in my five-levels-of-election structure)
That a large majority of the HofC is decided by the time the ridings east of Manitoba are filled (even going by preliminary results), with one or another party sometimes taking an unassailable lead, is just the result of our human geography.
No democratic system can prevent that, with each person having one vote and each vote being valued (or disvalued) equally). East of Manitoba is just where the bulk of our population is.
The time zones mean that polls close in East before closing in the West.
We can't just stop the vote count when a party takes majority of seats in the HofC. and we don't want to.
sometimes that would mean we would have no AB and BC MPs... and that would be denying the voters there their voice -
PR is not about determining majority, or about shifting majority from one party to another necessarily, but is about allowing appropriate voice to majority and to minority groups,
and the voters of each riding are a minority group and deserve a voice.
allowing voice does not mean minority rule but only giving a voice in due proportion to the party's due share of votes as fairly as possible.
often a rule of STV is vote counting process in the district stops as soon as last seat is filled. then people can just go home, a job well done.
transfers shifting votes after seat is filled is what I mean by false statistics.
until the Victoria riding MP is decided, that seat is not filled.
if nothing else, FPTP is concrete that way too - once seat is final decided days or weeks after election, votes are not shifted from unsuccessful candidates to successful candidate to make vote look better.
actually votes are never shifted from candidate to candidate at any time in FPTP.
But a valid goal is to have each voter see their first choice or second choice be actually counted as much as possible.
STV may be considered messy in that a vote may not be transferred at all or may be transferred multiple times
and some that are transferred and some that are never transferred may be counted for a winner
and some that are transferred and some that are never transferred may not be counted for a winner.
and some that are never used are marked with preferences for candidates who are elected without the vote's application. so voter is completely happy with result even if his/her vote was not used to elect the voter's preferred choices.
similarly, in two-vote MMP, some voters see both of their votes used to elect someone, some see none of their votes used to elect anyone, some see one used.
But the mechanics of both STV and MMP produce proportional results, even if some ballots are busy, busy and others not.
It is the results that are important, not that each vote goes through the same process identically.
=======================
Comments