Showing posts with label First Past the Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Past the Post. Show all posts

2022-05-25

Can Proportional Representation Save Our Parliamentary Democracy

           Parliament - Etymology

The English term is derived from Anglo-Norman and dates to the 14th century, coming from the 11th century Old French parlement, "discussion, discourse", from parler, meaning "to talk".[2] The meaning evolved over time, originally referring to any discussion, conversation, or negotiation through various kinds of deliberative or judicial groups, often summoned by a monarch. By the 15th century, in Britain, it had come to specifically mean the legislature.[3]   Source:Wikipedia

The very essence of our Parliamentary system is talking, and more importantly listening, and debating and elected representatives actually changing their opinions. Parliament and the provincial legislatures is where policy and laws are supposed to be made.

We have let our system become one where policies are made by political spin doctors designed not for the good of the people but for the purpose of winning the most votes. Individual Members (MPs and MPPs) have become meaningless with all the emphasis on the parties and particularly the leaders.

We have this situation because we have a system where a party can win a majority of seats with a minority of votes and where party leaders, particularly leaders of the governing party, have almost absolute control of their parties making individual Members nearly irrelevant.

Supporters of our current system like to claim a Proportionate Representation electoral system would give fringe parties excessive power, But what it would really do is give individual MPs or MPPs power. One party and one leader would no longer have absolute power but the elected Members would have to work together to build consensus, meaning individual Members would actually matter.

The one benefit of the current First Past The Post/Single Member Plurality (FPTP/SMP) system is that we elect local constituency representatives. We can still have that with a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system with the addition of extra Members to align the membership of the legislature with the votes by party overall. Everybody’s vote would count even if you lived in a constituency were the party you support has no chance of winning. Your vote would still count and you would still be represented., Indeed you would actually have a reason to vote.

We could actually have a system where the elected Members govern and we do not simply elect a dictator (usually with a minority of votes) every four years.

For a more comprehensive look at our parliamentary democracy and how to improve it see On Democracy.

2018-10-13

On Democracy

What a better way to restart The Fifth Column than by a treatise on how to make our democracy actually democratic. Hopefully this will be the first posting in a newly regenerated Fifth Column.

I write this at a time when there are so many examples of democracy failing us from the “republic” to the south to our own provincial government in Ontario. Much of the emphasis has been on our First Past The Post (aka Single Member Plurality) electoral system but the problem goes much deeper than that.

Democracy Defined

But what is “democracy”. Wikipedia actually has a pretty decent definition here:


Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία dēmokratía, literally "rule by people"), in modern usage, has three senses—all for a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting. In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue. In a representative democracy the citizens elect representatives from among themselves. These representatives meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature. In a constitutional democracy the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association.

Direct Democracy

Let us first dismiss the idea of a direct democracy, not just because it can too easily become the tyranny of the majority but because modern government is too complex for us to all have the expertise and knowledge required to govern our societies while maintaining our normal lives. That is to say governing has become a full time job if one wants to make rational informed decisions. Thus we have invented representative democracy where we chose from among ourselves those we trust to have the wisdom to make judgments in our best interests, usually those are people that share our philosophical approach to society. I fear, in this day and age direct democracy, such as a system of online voting on individual issues (similar to the “initiatives” used a great deal in the aforementioned republic to the south), would turn voting into shopping where the best marketing campaign wins.

Representative Democracy

Choosing representatives that are accountable to us and represent the views of all of the voters, not just the majority, to meet and debate and make laws is what distinguishes democracy from electing a dictator every four years, which is what the present state of our democracy appears to be moving towards.

Public Participation

So we have our first big problem. Democracy requires the participation of all the people to work. Just looking at voting statistics, never mind greater participation in the political process such as choosing candidates and influencing political parties policies. We have barely over a majority of citizens participating. Adding the fact that the wealthy and privileged have a greater participation rate, not to mention greater political influence, than the poor and vulnerable in our society and we can see that our democracy is not truly representative.

So how do we increase the participation of the public in the political process. We have to look first at what is suppressing it, and to that I see a conspiracy of sorts, not a conspiracy of secret meetings and plots but a conspiracy of shared interests on behalf of the ruling class that control our media that influences public opinion. There is a concerted effort to turn government and politicians into an evil them and taxes into our money that they take from us. There is a concerted effort to distance the people from their government and turn it into the enemy. Ironically that allows the “ruling classes” to take control of it and make that claim come true while discouraging the general population from becoming engaged and involved in evil politics.

Government is the People

The truth is quite simple. Government is how the people as a whole make collective decisions for the common good and taxes are how we spend our money collectively for the common good. It is your government and your money. Don't let them convince you there is something evil about it. It is your right and your responsibility to participate.

First Past The Post (aka Single Member Plurality) Electoral System

The other big factor discouraging public participation is that many feel that with our First Past The Post (aka Single Member Plurality) electoral system their votes do not count, that they do not help determine the composition of the legislature if they do not vote for the winning candidate, or they feel forced to vote strategically against the candidate (or party) they least favour rather than for the candidate (or party) they prefer.

Political Parties

So let us talk about political parties. Political parties have become the way that we elect our representatives, at least at the federal and provincial level. There have been exceptions of independent MPs or MPPs, but in most of those cases they have been individuals who were elected as a member of a party and then left it.

Political parties allow individuals with similar ideas to come together to select candidates to seek election on policies agreed to by the party members. They also allow elected members with similar ideas and policies to caucus and work together in the legislature. And not of least importance they finance election campaigns so candidates do not have to be wealthy in order to run for office.

Political parties are what makes modern democracy work but in many ways they are it's biggest problem.

Back in my day, when I was politically active, political parties were run by party activists, the ones who attended meetings, canvassed during elections, called voters and put up signs. These were the people that voted for the parties policies, chose the candidates and elected the leaders.

Nowadays political parties have decided that it is expedient to use nomination meetings and leadership votes as a way to recruit new members. Whoever can recruit the most new members tends to win nomination votes and leadership candidates that can sign up the most new members tend to win leadership contests. It is no longer long term members choosing party candidates and leaders but new members that tend to make the difference when it comes to these decisions. And during election campaigns the policy is not taken from the party policy book but dictated by the leader.

The Loss of Responsible Government and the Cult of the Leader

We are supposed to be a Westminster style Parliamentary government with responsible government. Our Prime Ministers and Cabinets are supposed to be responsible to and accountable to the elected legislatures and can only hold power when they retain the confidence of the elected MPs (or MPPs) and they must answer to them with in the legislature, through such means (but not exclusively) as a daily question period.

However the power of not only individual MPs but also of Cabinet has been decreasing ever since Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau called MPs nobodies off of Parliament Hill and started centralizing power in the Prime Minister's Office. This practice was extended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and taken to new heights by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose caucus and Cabinet seems extremely reluctant to put any form of common sense restraint on his exercise of power.

So we have an Ontario Premier who is only in power because of the votes of new members signed up by the anti-abortion/anti-sex ed lobby to support their pet candidate who transferred her support to Ford which tipped the balance of support to him. He did not originally have the support of the majority of the Tory caucus or a majority of long term Ontario PC members. Yet now he seems to rule by decree with neither his cabinet nor caucus willing to exercise their constitutional role of actually governing.

The Effect of the First Past The Post (aka Single Member Plurality) Electoral System and The Power of Party Leaders

But this, of course is only an extreme case. The more routine situation is for a party to gain a majority of 60% of the seats of the legislature with 40% of the total votes. It needs to be noted these are votes cast for individual members in different constituencies. However most voters are voting for the party, if not the leader, rather than the individual MP or MPP.

This leads to one party with 100% of the power and with that 100% of the power more likely than not to be exercised by the leader, Prime Minister or Premier.

It is not only the sense of fealty that individual MPs (or MPPs) feel to the leader that gives him power but party leaders' powers start with a veto over who can be nominated as a candidate and extend to allotment of question period time and committee memberships and critics roles, and paid positions as Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries for Prime Ministers and Premiers, not to mention caucus membership. No wonder few MPs or MPPs go against the leader.

Electoral Reform, Mixed Member Proportional (MPP) and the Power of Parties and Leaders.

There is a way to eliminate the absolute power of parties elected with a minority of votes and
the absolute power of their leaders while electing a legislature that reflects the will of the voters. It is called Mixed Member Proportional or MMP.

Wikipedia actually has a pretty decent definition here:


Mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation is a mixed electoral system in which voters get two votes: one to decide the representative for their single-seat constituency, and one for a political party. Seats in the legislature are filled firstly by the successful constituency candidates, and secondly, by party candidates based on the percentage of nationwide or region-wide votes that each party received.

Canada is not a two-party state. We have a wider variety of political views than that and a reasonable number of political parties expressing them. The main effect of a proportional representation system is that the make-up of the legislature actually reflects views of the voters and no party gains a majority of the seats with a minority of votes and and no leader has absolute power. The government must actually be responsible and accountable to the legislature. Critics say this is inefficient and a bad thing. But if efficiency was our goal for government we would not be looking at a democracy at all.

The fact that a government must be responsible to legislators from other parties means its own caucus members will expect the party and leader to be responsible to them also. Indeed there is not one governing party but a governing legislature as it should be in a democracy. Practice meets theory.

How would this work in practice. Federally I would propose a Parliament of 300 members elected as they are now from individual constituencies using the Single Member Plurality (SMP) system and 100 members allocated proportionally so the make-up of the legislature reflects the voters party vote preferences. Each voter would have a vote for an MP representing their constituency and a vote indicating their party preference.

The proportional representatives would come from party lists known to voters ahead of time. To ensure greater democratic representation voters could be given the option to rate the names on their party's list preferentially and that would be used to select the priority in which the proportional members are selected from the lists.

Both constituency candidates and party list candidates must be chosen by a democratic process and not just selected by the party leader, nor should the leader have an undemocratic veto over the candidates chosen by this democratic process.

To those concerned about the increased size of the House of Commons and greater number of politicians I would also eliminate the Senate so that overall their would be fewer federal politicians than there are now.

Fringe Parties and Proportional Representation

One of the criticisms of proportional representation is that it empowers fringe parties, either of the frivolous kind or more dangerously those espousing bigotry and hate, providing them with a voice in the House of Commons (or provincial legislatures).

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides that its provisions are not absolute

1.The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. 
 
The same principle can be applied to the electoral system and the concept of proportional representation. We can build provisions into the system to prevent the empowerment of frivolous or hateful fringe parties. The most likely provision being a requirement that parties receive at least 5% of the popular vote before they receive representation under the proportional representation portion of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP).
Parliamentary Reforms

If we want to make party leaders, and Prime Ministers and Premiers, accountable to Parliament and the Legislature we have to decrease the powers party leaders have over individual MPs and MPPs. We can start with eliminating their control over question period access and committee appointments by making them based on seniority (but still distributed by party according to percentage of members that would now be based on popular vote) and having that administered by the Clerks at the Table. Party critics appointments should be determined by a democratic process within caucus, not simply by the leader.

Also only a vote of caucus should be able to expel members from a party caucus, not the dictatorial power of a party leader.

And most importantly party leaders (including Prime Ministers and Premiers) should not be determined in a dubious process by a small number of newly recruited party members but chosen by the people's elected representatives, the members of their Parliamentary or Legislative caucus and be accountable to them. With this process the Parliamentary and government leaders are not determined till after the election by the people's chosen representatives. This puts more emphasis on the people we actually vote for, no longer leaving them as a second thought as we vote according to party leaders. While this will perhaps require a great deal of political will it puts the representative and responsible back in our democratic system.

And of course Prime Ministers and Premiers (and their Cabinets) must also retain the confidence of a majority of members of The House of Commons or provincial legislature.

The House of Commons (and legislatures) should also establish a review of all parliamentary rules aimed at ensuring the role of the democratically elected members are strengthened and enhanced.

These proposed electoral and Parliamentary reforms are designed to ensure that we have a truly representative democracy and not simply a process to elect a dictator every four years.

Municipal Elections and Preferential (aka Ranked Ballot) Voting

Some may have noticed that I have not yet written about preferential or ranked ballot voting where voters list their choices in order of preference, 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice etc. The main advantage of such a system is that it prevents the election of the candidate disliked by the most voters from being elected, as often happens with the First Past The Post system. But it depends on voters second and third choices to elect the winner and can, and likely will, result in an even greater discrepancy between the number of MPs or MPPs elected per party and the popular vote (according to first choices) received by each party.

This of course is why it was Justin Trudeau's choice for electoral reform. Liberals see themselves as a centrist party and everybody's second choice. They believe preferential voting would likely ensure them easy victory in every election and even more dominance in the House of Commons and power for their leader. When it became clear that federal electoral reform was not likely to take that form they quickly abandoned their promise of a new electoral system for the next election.

But there is a place for preferential voting, and that is where parties are not involved, as in most municipal elections in this country.

Without parties competing municipal elections tend to be about the popularity of the incumbent. The other thing about municipal politics is that a large part of the job of a councillor is considered to be about participating in community events and being out and about in the community meeting constituents. In other words, incumbents are paid to campaign for the next election as part of their job.

Defeating an incumbent is very difficult. Even when most voters want to throw out the incumbent their votes are usually divided among several candidates. Preferential ballots allow in effect, holding simultaneous run-off elections until one challenger is left competing against the incumbent thus somewhat levelling the playing field where incumbents have so many advantages.

So I would certainly endorse preferential or ranked ballot voting for municipal elections.

2007-10-22

Why We Need FPTP

As the FPTP supporters would tell us we need FPTP so that candidates are nominated democratically at the local level and not just put on a list by the party leadership.

After all, we wouldn't want something like this happening.

2007-10-04

Perhaps the FPTP Supporters Have One Thing Right

One of the biggest arguments of First Past the Post is that it is more efficient than Mixed Member Proportional. Perhaps they are right. With one party able to gain control of the government, while receiving a minority of the seats, the Party Leader and Premier holds great power. By controlling Cabinet and committee appointments and other perks of government he can virtually run the government. With one man in control the government must be more efficient. After all, nobody ever criticized dictatorships for being inefficient, only for being undemocratic.

With Mixed Member Proportional the legislature will reflect the votes of the people. And since the people have varied positions and opinions on the issues and differing priorities one party is unlikely to win majority control of the legislature and one person is unlikely to have control of the government. The parties will have to work together, compromise and develop policies that reflect the will of those that elected them. Indeed with MMP, the legislature, rather than the executive, will govern the province.

The problem with the FPTP supporters position is that it does not go far enough. Why have a legislature at all. Why not just elect a dictator every four years, or for that matter why bother with inefficient elections.

The real problem with the FPTP approach is that it presumes the goal of electoral reform is a more efficient system, when the goal of electoral reform is a more democratic system, which of course, is what MMP provides.


No blog tomorrow as I am taking an extended long weekend.

2007-09-28

The Two Faces Of MMP

In our present FPTP system voters theoretically vote for local candidates. Indeed, that is one of the main arguments of the FPTP proponents.

However, we all know that is just theory and that most voters vote on the basis of party without regard for who the local candidates are. They vote for a party's candidate as an indirect way of voting for the party.

MMP will allow voters to vote for the party of their choice directly, rather than indirectly. At the same time it will allow voters to actually consider the local candidates, their background, qualifications and personal positions and vote for them directly without losing their ability to vote for the party of their choice.

This will lead to more interest in the local candidates, more interest in elections and greater voter turnout, and thus greater democracy.

It will also lead to getting more Independent and independent thinking candiates elected.

So why are some people afraid of it.

Vote for MMP

2007-09-24

"First Past the Post" - Who Dreamed This Up

I am referring, of course, not to the concept but to the term, which Wiktionary defines as "voting system where the candidate with the most votes (a plurality) wins, without any form of preference transfer".

There are no firsts or posts, metaphorical or otherwise, involved. The winner is not decided when a candidate reaches some defined number or percentage of votes (the metaphorical "post") before another candidate (the metaphorical "first"), but by whoever receives a plurality (the most) of votes when all the votes are counted in a particular constituency. Wikipedia uses the more sensible term "Plurality voting system".

The term "winner takes all" has also been used, and this at least makes some sense as it refers to the votes for the winning candidate electing that candidate, while the votes for other candidates or parties are of no impact at all.

At least "Mixed Member Proportional" makes sense as a term.

End of semantic rant.