This article in the Global News of Canada discusses whether proportional representation will come to British Columbia. The article says a major impediment is that currently, British Columbia legislative districts are not even close to being equal in population. Rural districts do not contain as many voters are urban and suburban districts. If proportional representation were implemented, province-wide, the rural areas would lose representation.
Majority rule in all regimes NOW.
END ALL the stone age / dark age stuff — ie control by monarchs and oligarchs —
for the last 7,000 plus years.
History note — SCOTUS reduced the power of the rural hacks in the USA in the various 1964 gerrymander cases —
and delayed any Civil War II a bit — at least to 2017-2020 (???).
P.R. and App.V.
The Greens in BC and NDP federal leader candidate Guy Caron know actual electoral reform absolutely has to precede everything else only that it might even have a shot at all.
There is no requirement under a PR system for there to be an equal number of voters in each electorate. factors such as remoteness can be taken into account.
If there is acceptance under first past the post that certain constituencies have a very low electorate because of such factors then that does not automatically end under PR
PR is about how votes are counted to elect someone not the size of constituencies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
20 JULY 2017
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
7 JULY 2017
In the first referendum on proportional representation in BC, there was more opposition in areas where one party was dominant, regardless of the party. If a party could gain 6 seats under FPTP in an area, they might gain four district seats under MMP, but lose the two regional seats. Politicians who are pretty sharp at electoral math, could quickly count the difference between six and four.
it depends on the systen of PR that is used.
In Scottish and Welsh assembly elections for example the constitiency element is first past the post as is the regional list that is used to help with the propotionality once the constituency results are known but no one is marking 2nd or 3rd preferences on the ballot papers – it’s an X against a party.
The Republic of Ireland has multi member constituencies many parties don’t put up candidates to fill all the seats – they may put up 2 in a 3 seater or 3 in a 4 seat. People also cast votes for individual candidates not a single party and people do split their votes. The results would be very different if people were forced to vote for a party list rather than candidates.
If you want true PR then you need a system where the whole state / province / country is a single constituency (or at least has very large constituencies) and seats get allocated based on that – e.g. in the Netherlands. However they lose the constituency link that is valued in many parts of the world. True a party can allocate a representative to cover a particular area but they are not elected by the voters in that area.
PR in multi-member districts — to greatly lessen the 1919-1933 Germany PR fatal defects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_general_election,_2017
42 NDP + 2 GRN > 43 LIB
Actually, it’s 41 NDP + 3 GRN . . . but that’s still > 43 LIB — and though the Liberal Party leader wanted to try another new election, the Lieutenant Governor recognized the quasi-coalition majority combination.