2019 Federal Election

[ijmorlan]

The purpose of ranked ballots, for me, is not to increase the proportionality of the government but rather to make a better choice in each election (including the 338 elections that happened this Monday past). I agree that in provincial and federal elections it may not make a huge difference but I think it’s pretty clear that it would improve municipal politics, especially in cases where some useless blowhard is able to win over a large field of reasonable candidates. I heard of a mayoral recall election in the States where the mayor was removed as a result of Question 1 (“should the mayor be removed”, with a Yes/No answer), was was voted right back in as a result of Question 2 (“who should the new mayor be”, with the usual bogus first-past-the-post system).

Yes, the thing that I found most annoying about the vote subsidy debate was the dishonest characterization of the per-vote subsidy as being a drain on the treasury, as if there wasn’t a long-standing per-dollar subsidy that was already taking a bunch of government funds. I can absolutely respect the views of somebody who thinks there should not be a per-vote subsidy, but not if their complaint is that the government is sending money to political parties, unless they are also opposed to the per-dollar subsidy. Of course you’ll notice that Trudeau hasn’t brought back the per-vote subsidy.

In municipal elections there are no parties (in Ontario at least, and in most cases...there certainly seem to be "clubs" but they're far less cohesive than provincial or federal parties).  This means that ranked ballots make much more sense.

I don’t see how ranked ballots can be worse than first-past-the-post, even where there are parties. I do agree from discussion here and elsewhere that they probably wouldn’t have as big an impact on party politics as I would like to believe.

As for the per vote subsidy, Trudeau hasn't brought it back because it would be incredibly unpopular, and would result of screaming (wrongly) that he's taking money from the treasury for his party (of course Ford is ACTUALLY doing that, and nobody's freaking out, so the solution is apparently to lie about it). What bothered me is most people claimed that the per vote subsidy meant a party that you didn't support was getting YOUR (tax) dollars.

It would be very unpopular amongst Conservatives. Wouldn’t everybody else be in favour?

I think the real reason he doesn’t bring it back is because it would send a bunch of money to the NDP and Green parties.

Ironically, if they did bring back the per-vote subsidy, the Conservatives would actually get (slightly) more from the program than any other party over the next few years.