11 Responses for "A Prisoner’s Dilemma for Voters"

1. AJ Sharma (Liberal) September 27th, 2008 at 9:02 pm 1

   PR is pretty much a dead issue in Canada. It has been tried at the provincial level, what .. 3 or 4 different times in different provinces – including B.C. ?

2. Kim September 27th, 2008 at 9:05 pm 2

   We had that vote in Ontario during the last provincial election. It wasn’t even close. People voted overwhelmingly to keep to the current “first past the post” system.

   While I see some of the relative merits of a more proportional system where some seats are allotted based on actual overall voting results, I’m not convinced that it actually gives us a better government. In the end, I’m much less concerned about how people “feel” about their votes than what the government is actually able to accomplish. Still, it’s not an easy debate.

3. Chrystal Ocean (Green) September 27th, 2008 at 10:12 pm 3

   PR isn’t dead in Canada.

   Voters in BC voted YES for STV by 58% and a simple majority in 79 of 81 ridings. They overwhelmingly beat the second requirement imposed by the Liberal government and missed the other by only 2%.

   That’s not a rejection by the voters. That’s a rejection, in virtue of setting a 60% majority requirement, by the Liberal government and the Opposition NDP, the major parties in BC who profit most by retention of FPTP – the very same parties who have been happy enough to win false majorities in the Legislature with less than 40% of the popular vote.

   It’s also why BC will be voting again in a referendum in May 2009. With the 60% majority threshold once again in place and still supported by the so-called Opposition.

   As for the other provinces, you have to look closely at the processes that were used and the time allowed for them to understand why PR “failed” there.

   Our Citizens’ Assembly was given a year and even that wasn’t enough. Nor was enough money or time given to educate voters about the option being offered. Which makes that 58% in 2005 even more compelling.

4. David September 27th, 2008 at 11:10 pm 4

   I’m more interested in how the left have co-opted ‘progressives’ as theirs. Is this the new ‘comrades’? If so that is unfortunate because comrade was a truly wonderful word until the communists got hold of it and now I fear ‘progressives’ is about to suffer its own ideological redefinition.

   Why not call the left the ‘changers’? That would be more accurate and descriptive. All change is good, after all, in their view. No need to explain how or why. It is new so it must be better.

   Progress, of course, relies on an historical explanation of humanity as opposed to one rooted in nature or science. It is an idea not found until the 19th century as an explanation of the human condition. I forget who originated it but it was definitely Marx who made it famous.

   Now, of course, everybody just accepts it without thought even as Marx sinks into disrepute. I clicked on the link where you used the word ‘progressives’ btw. The people on that site are a little nutty don’t you think?

5. Kim September 28th, 2008 at 3:25 am 5

   David, the trouble with leftist “progressives” is that they are modernists by nature. You’re right, by the way, modernism had its hay day in the late 19th / early 20th centuries. It is the rejection of everything traditional and the acceptance of change for change shake. Modernism fell into disrepute during the WWII era when people saw the results of “progress” in the killing fields of Europe, Africa and Asia.

   Modernism has reared its ugly head again since the 1990’s by people who are too young to remember the harsh lessons of the past.

   Chrystal. I agree with you that BC may well pass the next PR vote. It’s no where near close to passing in the rest of the country and, as much as I like my friends in BC, it is not exactly the most influencial province in Canada. BC voters are so different from the rest of the country, it is hard to fathom. We’ll look at the experiment with interest.

6. Wayne Smith September 28th, 2008 at 8:44 am 6

   The Catch-22 of voting reform is that you have to get the government to change the voting system, but any government elected under the current system thinks it’s working just fine.

   Dalton McGuinty promised us a citizens’ assembly and a referendum on electoral reform when he was in opposition, when his party had been in government for only five of the previous sixty years.

   After he formed a “majority” government with 47% of the votes, he kept that promise, but sabotaged the outcome. The Citizens’ Assembly was a wonderful process, and designed an excellent system for Ontario, but it received no promotion. McGuinty never visited the CA.

   The referendum campaign was a farce. They decided that the CA itself was to be considered “partisan”, and the excellent explanatory materials produced by the CA were never distributed. The final report of the CA was not distributed to every household in the province, and in fact they suspended printing of it during the referendum campaign.

   An excellent academic study done during the referendum campaign by the Institute for Social Research at York University showed that there was little real information available to voters (but much misinformation), and that half of them knew very little about what they were voting on.

   They concluded:

   “We can simulate the outcome if all citizens had known: (1) that MMP would give voters two votes, elect some members whose names never appear on a ballot, produce proportional outcomes with more parties and infrequent majorities; and (2) that assembly members “were ordinary Ontarians,” “had an equal chance of being chosen,” “represented all parts of Ontario,” “became experts on electoral systems,” and that “most members wanted what’s best for all Ontarians” (rather than themselves).

   “Under these conditions, our data indicate the result would have been 63 per cent for MMP and 37 per cent for the existing system – exactly the mirror image of the actual outcome.”

   In PEI, both major parties were opposed to changing the system, and they stifled their referendum in similar ways, for example by reducing the number of polling stations for their stand-alone referendum campaign to one-third what they would have had during an election.

   In any case, a fair voting system is a question of fundamental justice, and it will never go away. Even after we have achieved fair voting, somebody will immediately be trying to take it away, so it will be a matter for continual vigilance.

7. Mike September 28th, 2008 at 9:25 am 7

   If FPTP were such a bad system, then how did Canada evolve into a country where 4 parties have at least 30 seats in Parliament? PR erases local issues from a federal election, since all candidates are on a federal slate. Is this a good thing? I’m a péquiste from the Rive-Sud of Montréal, but I welcome the competition for votes that FPTP brings. The breakthrough of the Tories in Québec in 2006, and now the strength the NDP has shown in quite a few ridings in Montréal and the Outaouiais this time show that, even with the current electoral system, change is possible.

   Canada has had minority or coalition government for almost 5 years now. Ain’t it been fun?!? PR will only insure that all governments are coalitions, and the example of Italy and 3rd Republic France should teach us how unenviable a position that is…

8. Bernard September 28th, 2008 at 1:08 pm 8

   Only certain PR systems use party list systems on a nationwide basis.

   In STV, all the representatives are still elected from a given geographic location.

   STV has the huge advantage of making strategic voting impossible. You have no earthly reason not to vote your first choice first.

   STV is also a system that inherently rewards good constituency MPs over weak ones.

   It is system that does not lend itself well to negative campaigning. With negative campaigning the goal is always to limit choices of the voters to only one option. STV’s focus on the concept of expanded choices and the vote being a positive for someone, it makes the negative very hard to accomplish.

   A PR system that uses lists creates political parties that are not interested in compromise because they are seeking a small share of the vote nationally. Compromise drives away the hardcore supporters.

   STV by nature rewards politicians that are seen to get things done. Compromise goes down well with the general public.

   We get a second chance to vote in favour of it in BC next May. Several Conservatives MPs like the idea, one of them being Gary Lunn.

9. Kevin September 28th, 2008 at 6:56 pm 9

   PR is on the ballot this May in BC. Anyone putting effort into strategic voting now should switch over to supporting PR after this election. Maybe take a few days off first…

10. Wasyl Wysoczanskyj (Non-Partisan) October 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 pm 10

    The problem with PR is that party candidates are chosen by the party bigwigs instead of locals. If the list were made up of contestants from the FPTP contest, you might convince me.

11. Darwin O'Connor October 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 am 11

    It is much easier to manipulate nominations by “local” then nominations done across a whole party.

    Many parties the big wig can appoint a local candidate or manipulate their favorite into winning. Also, it’s also not too difficult to bring in a bunch of instant members to win a local nomination.

    To select list candidates they will be elected by tens of thousands of individual party members, or hundreds of delegates (believe me, a delegate is not a bigwig) in a more transparent process then local nominations.

    It’s easy to point out problems with PR (it’s not perfect), but because people don’t understand how our current system works, they don’t realize the problems with FPP are much worse.