On October 10, Ontario voters chose a new provincial government. In addition, they were asked if they want to use proportional representation for future provincial legislative elections. Exit polls and early returns indicate that the question received support from only 37% of the voters.
This was Ontario Province’s first ballot question in 83 years, and many voters arrived at the polling place, unaware that any question was on the ballot. Proportional Representation would not have taken effect unless it had received at least 60%. A somewhat similar proposal in British Columbia a few years ago received 57%. It also needed 60% to go into effect.
The MORONS doing the pro MMP PR stuff failed to note –
the UNEQUAL votes for each gerrymander district winner and
the UNEQUAL total votes in each gerrymander district and thus
the resulting ANTI-Democracy indirect minority rule regime — a plurality of the votes in a bare majority of the gerrymander districts is about 25 or less percent of the total votes.
Democracy NOW
Party Seats = Party Votes x Total Seats / Total Votes
— before the EVIL gerrymander incumbents start World War III.
To Dem Rep:
I should remind you that Hitler was elected by the same election method that you propose… HE STARTED WW2
I would suggest you give one example of a political system with a full representational system as you suggest that is generally stable…
The citizen’s assembly process that brought about the initiative was proposed too soon. The window of discussion for the assembly and the window of time before voting was hardly enough time to really educate the public.
As for the mention of unstable governments, such things are always brought up to invoke fear of PR voting methods. There are several nations like Japan, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and New Zealand to name a few who have relatively “stable” governments. Things like the Hitler comment may have more to do with each country’s respective political climate. I would ask what evidence is there that Hitler wouldn’t have risen to power regardless of election system used?
The level of representation is optional. Israel for example has around a one percent threshold for representation. Therefore smaller fringe parties often hold up the legislative process. However, countries like Germany and New Zealand, which use the MMP form, have around five percent, which creates a more moderate threshold, and more workable process.
Compare that with our winner-take-all format which disenfranchises almost fifty percent of the individual district electorates. No voting system is perfect, but PR methods provide better representation than what we have now. BTW, several U.S. municipalities are already using or considering using PR election methods.
For more info on PR check out IDEA.int for analysis of voting systems around the world, and FairVote.org for more on PR.
In related Ontario news, the Green Party of Ontario finished a very strong second in one seat and was within striking distance of taking it for quite a while. They also quadrupled their vote share. Oh well, maybe next time.
STV (proportional representation) like IRV takes care of the problem of wasted votes.
I imagine this is less about unequal votes than a winner getting voters second or third choices. This is about counting all votes pure and simple. In a plurality based system those votes would be discarded, thrown away, lost, not counted.
It would be similar to a Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich voter having their second or third choice counted if their preferred candidate was not in the top 3. In our plurality based system those votes don’t count, in an IRV / STV system they do.
It is not about the unequal distribution of votes, but counting all the votes. It can only be an unequal distribution if you start from the assumption those votes should not be counted in the first place.
Hitler was not elected because of proportional representation. PR slowed his ascent to power. The Nazi Party polled more votes than any other party in both of the last two free elections (ironically, it declined in the last free election from its previous showing). But it never got as much as 50%. So under “first past the post”, the Nazi Party would have won a majority of the seats, but under PR it didn’t. The Center Party voted with the National Socialist Party in parliament to give it its majority. The Center Party was a party that mostly represented Catholic voters.
IRV/STV still discards votes. Unless _all_ preferences on the ballot are considered _simultaneously_, you are voting with only a partially-expressed preference. IRV/STV _sequential_ consideration (and elimination) is an inferior system compared to Condorcet methods.
I am very much in favor of PR used in one house of a bicameral legislature. It would provide a very good balance (to district representation) to ensure that everyone has a voice. It’s rather foolish to have two houses that are apportioned by the same method…what does that gain you? (That–and cutting the salary budget–is why Nebraska went unicameral in the ’30s.) Sounds like the folks in Ontario didn’t have time to learn about the issue, which is too bad.
Attention MORONS —
Hitler was APPOINTED to be the prime minister of the German Parliament regime by the senile Prez Hindenburg — a killer German general in World War I.
Due to the MORON Allies, the 1919 German Weimar Constitution had a FATAL section allowing the suspension of the German Bill of Rights in alleged emergencies.
Hitler used such section after the Feb. 1933 nazi burning of the German Parliament building (Reichstag) to impose the nazi tyranny in 1933-1945 (with about 60 million dead in World War II) — i.e. an EVIL NUTCASE mass murderer got control of a major nation. See the late Saddam in Iraq — a similar story.
OBVIOUS remedies —
100 percent P.R. in separate legislative body elections- NO parliament type regimes.
Separate NONPARTISAN elections of elected executive officers and all judges using Approval Voting — vote for 1 or more, highest wins — will cause executive / judicial *moderates* to get elected.
NO MORON section allowing any suspension of Bills of Rights — especially have fixed date elections with SHORT terms.
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About 20 percent of the voters elected the lowest 54 Liberal Party winners of the 107 gerrymander winners in the new Ontario regime — the DICTATORSHIP in Ontario and each other part of Canada continues. Will post prelim math a bit later.
Democraticus Republicus
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ontariovotes2007/story/2007/10/10/leaders.html
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McGuinty wins massive majority, Tory loses seat
Last Updated: Thursday, October 11, 2007 | 5:39 AM ET
CBC News
Dalton McGuinty won a second majority government for the Liberals in Ontario on Wednesday night, a triumph for a party that earlier expressed fears of a drop to minority status.
The Liberals managed to increase their numbers from the 67 seats they had coming into the campaign. By late Thursday morning, with 99.9 per cent of polls counted, they were elected in 71 of the province’s 107 seats.
Progressive Conservatives were elected in 26 ridings and New Democrats in 10.
———
Rest of JUNK story omitted.
NO mention by the MORON media *news* that ALL Lib Party candidates got 42 (repeat 42) percent of the total votes — due to about 5 to 7 candidates per gerrymander district.
Democracy NOW regardless of ALL math MORONS —
Party Seats = Party Votes x Total Seats / Total Votes
Majority Rule (DEMOCRACY) and minority representation on each issue.
ONTARIO GERRYMANDER ELECTION 10 OCT 2007
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS 1:58 PM 11 OCT 2007
25 POLLS NOT YET REPORTED
VOTES PERCENT
GERRYMANDER / PLURALITY WINNERS
1,369,232 *30.99 70 LIB WIN
173,037 3.92 10 NDP WIN
568,832 12.87 27 PC WIN
2,111,101 47.78 107 WIN
—————–
980,179 *22.19 54 LIB LOW WIN
* ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE PERCENTAGES
—————–
ALL LOSERS
496,371 11.24 37 LIB
567,419 12.84 97 NDP
828,968 18.76 80 PC
354,717 8.03 107 GRN
59,418 1.34 171 OTH
2,306,893 52.22 492 LOSE
—————–
PARTY VOTES
1,865,603 42.23 107 LIB
740,456 16.76 107 NDP
1,397,800 31.64 107 PC
354,717 8.03 107 GRN
59,418 1.34 171 OTH
4,417,994 100.00 599 TOT
***************
DEMOCRACY P.R. MATH
PARTY SEATS = PARTY VOTES X 107 TOTAL SEATS / 4,417,994 TOTAL VOTES
45.18 > 45 LIB 70 WON
17.93 > 18 NDP 10 WON
33.85 > 34 PC 27 WON
8.59 > 9 GRN
1.44 > 1 OTH
107.00 > 107 TOT
DEMOCRACY NOW — REGARDLESS OF ALL ANTI-DEMOCRACY GERRYMANDER / PLURALITY (AKA FIRST PAST THE POST) MATH M-O-R-O-N-S — LIVING IN THE STONE AGE.
I’m afraid the politicians may have found a way to turn the Citizens’ Assembly process on its head.
First, make sure that no one has the resources to educate the public about the proposal. (As joel suggests above, rushing the process can be one aspect of this.) Second, just to be safe, set the bar for passage very high. (In fact, set two bars, 60% of the total vote and a majority in 60% of the districts.)
In Ontario, step (1) was sufficient by itself. The government can control the “official” educational campaign to make sure it doesn’t actually teach anybody anything. It can also pretty much rely on the electoral reform movement to have very little fundraising capability.
Opponents of the Ontario MMP proposal were able to zero in on one feature: the list portion of the ballot is closed list, rather than open list. They were able to spin this so that bloggers were saying that legislators in lists seats wouldn’t be elected at all, but would be “appointed” by the party leaderships. They got a lot of mileage out of that lie.
Proponents of the Citizens’ Assembly concept need to consider whether CA’s should be supported without ironclad commitments to fund meaningful campaigns once proposals are put in front of the voters.