2019 Federal Election

[ijmorlan]

I’d prefer a ranked ballot to PR, but the problems with FPTP will be very apparent in this election’s results nationally, I suspect.

Why do you prefer ranked ballot to PR?

I’ll answer for myself. I am not absolutely opposed to PR; but I think that first we should replace all FPTP elections with a ranked ballot, then later ask if our legislatures should use PR or a similar system. When I say “all” I mean everything — MPs, MPPs, mayors, councillors, school board, representatives on the University board of governors, student council president and councillors — everything. There is no scenario in which FPTP is an acceptable way of choosing democratically between alternatives, and the problem exists in many more places than just federal and provincial politics.

The other thing about a ranked ballot is that it really isn’t a change in the system; it’s just marking and counting the ballots in a reasonable way. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t change the system, but let’s start with a simple intervention.

When you look at the statistics of it, ranked ballot does not achieve a proportional government, and instead still prioritizes major parties.  In fact, many US elections actually use ranked ballots (instant, or non-instant runoff).

This is a circular argument: you’re basically assuming that representation in the Commons should be proportional to the popular vote share, which is pretty much the definition of proportional representation. While it is obvious to me that representation shouldn’t be wildly out of line with the vote (e.g., majority government from 33% support), it’s not at all clear that the representation needs to be exactly the vote share. Keep in mind that power is not proportional to representation. A couple of elections back the NDP went from holding the balance of power in a minority parliament with 37 seats to being the Official Opposition in a majority parliament with 103 seats; but this was a reduction in power. There are ways of allocating representation that keep the voting power in the assembly closer to the share of the vote in the election; maybe these should be considered as well. Also we should see if a ranked ballot gives us more appropriate representation before completely changing our system.