2019 Federal Election

[tomh009]

Louis and van Koeverden are good examples of solid candidates with strong campaigns, who managed to buck the vote trend and beat the incumbents. Mike Morrice had a tougher starting position (it ain't easy being green!) but still came pretty close, too.

[taylortbb]

It's final, with Louis winning by 305 votes (subject to potential recount).
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/965...-12-hours/

And a probable example of the Liberals, rather than the Conservatives, winning a seat due to a vote split, in this case with the People’s Party. Although in this case I suspect they also would have won with a ranked ballot because Green and NDP voters would probably prefer a Liberal candidate to Conservative. Interesting!

I'm not sure vote splitting is the only, or even biggest, factor. I read in local coverage that the riding has gained about 2500 people, mostly in Kitchener. Given the riding has been defined by urban liberal vs rural conservative that definitely affects the balance.

While rationally PPC vote should come from the Conservatives, it isn't so clear cut in practice. A lot of voters aren't nearly so rational. I've witnessed both the Conservative-Green swing vote (a strategic anti-Liberal in Kitchener Centre) and the Liberal-PPC swing vote (no idea how they reconciled that). Also many PPC voters might otherwise have stayed home.

[jgsz]

If we had proportional representation (where 50% of the vote = 50% of seats)  this is what the results of the election would look like:

Conservative: 116 seats instead of 121 seats

Liberal: 112 seats instead of 157 seats

Bloc: 26 seats instead of 32 seats

NDP: 54 seats instead of 24 seats

Green: 22 seats instead of 3 seats

Independent: 1 seat

PPC: 5 seats instead of 0 seats

Once again, the winners of FPTP voting system are the Liberals and the Conservatives (and this time the BLOC).  The biggest losers, once again, are the NDP and the Greens.  It's not surprising that the Liberals and the Conservatives like FPTP.  It has served them (and not necessarily Canadians) very well over the years.  But this system leaves one third of Canadians out in the cold.  It seems almost criminal to essentially disenfranchise so many Canadians.

[ijmorlan]

And a probable example of the Liberals, rather than the Conservatives, winning a seat due to a vote split, in this case with the People’s Party. Although in this case I suspect they also would have won with a ranked ballot because Green and NDP voters would probably prefer a Liberal candidate to Conservative. Interesting!

I'm not sure vote splitting is the only, or even biggest, factor. I read in local coverage that the riding has gained about 2500 people, mostly in Kitchener. Given the riding has been defined by urban liberal vs rural conservative that definitely affects the balance.

While rationally PPC vote should come from the Conservatives, it isn't so clear cut in practice. A lot of voters aren't nearly so rational. I've witnessed both the Conservative-Green swing vote (a strategic anti-Liberal in Kitchener Centre) and the Liberal-PPC swing vote (no idea how they reconciled that). Also many PPC voters might otherwise have stayed home.

Indeed, it is a complex question. I just usually get frustrated by Conservatives winning seats that it seems clear to me they shouldn’t have — in the last Ontario election, there were a bunch of seats where if the NDP and Liberal voters had gotten together, they could have easily elected an NDP or Liberal instead of the Conservative. I don’t remember if it was enough to deny them a majority. So in this case it was notable that there is at least a possibility that without the PPC the Conservative candidate would have won.

[panamaniac]

If we had proportional representation (where 50% of the vote = 50% of seats)  this is what the results of the election would look like:

Conservative: 116 seats instead of 121 seats

Liberal: 112 seats instead of 157 seats

Bloc: 26 seats instead of 32 seats

NDP: 54 seats instead of 24 seats

Green: 22 seats instead of 3 seats

Independent: 1 seat

PPC: 5 seats instead of 0 seats

Once again, the winners of FPTP voting system are the Liberals and the Conservatives (and this time the BLOC).  The biggest losers, once again, are the NDP and the Greens.  It's not surprising that the Liberals and the Conservatives like FPTP.  It has served them (and not necessarily Canadians) very well over the years.  But this system leaves one third of Canadians out in the cold.  It seems almost criminal to essentially disenfranchise so many Canadians.

I thought the Liberals preferred a ranked ballot system.  Until the Liberals and Conservatives come to an agreement on electoral reform, I don't see it happening whether it's minority or majority government.

[robdrimmie]

I wonder if the Conservatives winning the popular vote but not forming a government will increase the frustration with FPTP among those voters. It would be very interesting to me to see them take up the banner. It is an important enough change to me that I'd absolutely consider voting for most any party that I thought would actually pull it off.

Edit: "Winning" is probably the wrong word. Getting the most votes but not earning the chance to form a government has to be aggravating.

[JoeKW]

And of course, if we had a PR system, candidates would campaign much differently and voters would vote much differently so a straight conversion like the one above is not actually realistic.

[jgsz]

And of course, if we had a PR system, candidates would campaign much differently and voters would vote much differently so a straight conversion like the one above is not actually realistic.

You are correct but I can only work with the numbers of the past election.

[danbrotherston]

If we had proportional representation (where 50% of the vote = 50% of seats)  this is what the results of the election would look like:

Conservative: 116 seats instead of 121 seats

Liberal: 112 seats instead of 157 seats

Bloc: 26 seats instead of 32 seats

NDP: 54 seats instead of 24 seats

Green: 22 seats instead of 3 seats

Independent: 1 seat

PPC: 5 seats instead of 0 seats

Once again, the winners of FPTP voting system are the Liberals and the Conservatives (and this time the BLOC).  The biggest losers, once again, are the NDP and the Greens.  It's not surprising that the Liberals and the Conservatives like FPTP.  It has served them (and not necessarily Canadians) very well over the years.  But this system leaves one third of Canadians out in the cold.  It seems almost criminal to essentially disenfranchise so many Canadians.

I thought the Liberals preferred a ranked ballot system.  Until the Liberals and Conservatives come to an agreement on electoral reform, I don't see it happening whether it's minority or majority government.

Liberals prefer ranked ballot because it allows them to look like they're in support of change, and a change that on the surface looks like a good idea, but which still maintains the status quo and doesn't actually result in a more proportional government.

Ranked ballot is almost the definition of liberal.

[tomh009]

I thought the Liberals preferred a ranked ballot system. 

Liberals prefer ranked ballot because it allows them to look like they're in support of change, and a change that on the surface looks like a good idea, but which still maintains the status quo and doesn't actually result in a more proportional government.

Ranked ballot is almost the definition of liberal.

... and I think you are again referring to a single-member ranked ballot.

It would eliminate the need for strategic voting, but, no, it would not provide any real proportionality. For that, need multi-member electoral districts, with ranked ballots -- or another voting system.

[tomh009]

Edit: "Winning" is probably the wrong word. Getting the most votes but not earning the chance to form a government has to be aggravating.

This could easily happen with PR, too. If you look at the PR scenario, the Conservatives would have the most (116) seats and yet would be unlikely to be able to form a (stable) government, as they would not have the support of the other parties (Conservatives + Bloc would be only 142 seats).

Even Liberals + NDP would be only 166 seats; they would also need the support of either the Greens or the Bloc in order to be able to govern.

[robdrimmie]

Edit: "Winning" is probably the wrong word. Getting the most votes but not earning the chance to form a government has to be aggravating.

This could easily happen with PR, too. If you look at the PR scenario, the Conservatives would have the most (116) seats and yet would be unlikely to be able to form a (stable) government, as they would not have the support of the other parties (Conservatives + Bloc would be only 142 seats).

Even Liberals + NDP would be only 166 seats; they would also need the support of either the Greens or the Bloc in order to be able to govern.

You're absolutely correct. Thanks for noting that, I'd completely overlooked it.

[ijmorlan]

Liberals prefer ranked ballot because it allows them to look like they're in support of change, and a change that on the surface looks like a good idea, but which still maintains the status quo and doesn't actually result in a more proportional government.

Ranked ballot is almost the definition of liberal.

It would not maintain the status quo. Many ridings are won by somebody different from the outcome that can reasonably be inferred with instant runoff, usually but not always to the benefit of the Conservatives (Liberals when there was a big split between Reform and PC). I really should run the analysis, but I suspect that Ontario wouldn’t even have a PC majority right now under instant runoff.

In a situation where C, L, and NDP share the vote almost equally with the C winning, I think it’s safe to say that most L and NDP voters would prefer that whichever got more votes should win rather than the C candidate. I could of course be wrong but we don’t know unless we start using ranked ballots. And unlike some people I would still want the change even if it turned out to be bad for my preferences. If the Liberals only win because the conservative vote is split between different parties, then the electoral system is not reflecting the will of the population.

That is why I say step 1 is to start using ranked ballots for all elections. This is not a change to the electoral system as such, which currently consists of running a separate election in each riding, only to the way the ballots are marked and counted. I mean, I literally could have written 1, 2, 3 on the ballot I filled out on Monday, but it would have counted as spoiled. Then we can have the more complicated discussion of what actual changes should be made to inject some measure of proportionality or something like it. I think we should start by getting rid of the current longstanding per-dollar subsidy on political donations and bring back the per-vote subsidy. That gave the smaller and more grassroots parties monetary support more connected to their actual popularity rather than to how many well-off donors they could attract.

[jamincan]

I don't think it's that straightforward to predict. A lot of voters flip between the Liberals and Conservatives, possibly more than vote strategically for Liberals. It's reasonable to believe that some of those voters would put Liberal and Conservative as 1-2 in some order and have third parties lower on the ballot. Similarly, I think a fair number of Green supporters would put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals on a ballot, especially if they manage to put together a halfway reasonable plan for climate change.

A ranked ballot would also result in a changed political landscape. The Conservatives might not feel like they have to be so beholden to their base, and drift more to the center. A new social conservative party might emerge to their right. A lot of Green Party supporters are actually generally more conservative in the fiscal sense and wouldn't necessarily throw their support to the Liberals. I know that it apparently would favour the Liberals most of all, but I believe that's only really true if parties remain static and don't respond to the change, which is absurd.

[danbrotherston]

Liberals prefer ranked ballot because it allows them to look like they're in support of change, and a change that on the surface looks like a good idea, but which still maintains the status quo and doesn't actually result in a more proportional government.

Ranked ballot is almost the definition of liberal.

It would not maintain the status quo. Many ridings are won by somebody different from the outcome that can reasonably be inferred with instant runoff, usually but not always to the benefit of the Conservatives (Liberals when there was a big split between Reform and PC). I really should run the analysis, but I suspect that Ontario wouldn’t even have a PC majority right now under instant runoff.

In a situation where C, L, and NDP share the vote almost equally with the C winning, I think it’s safe to say that most L and NDP voters would prefer that whichever got more votes should win rather than the C candidate. I could of course be wrong but we don’t know unless we start using ranked ballots. And unlike some people I would still want the change even if it turned out to be bad for my preferences. If the Liberals only win because the conservative vote is split between different parties, then the electoral system is not reflecting the will of the population.

That is why I say step 1 is to start using ranked ballots for all elections. This is not a change to the electoral system as such, which currently consists of running a separate election in each riding, only to the way the ballots are marked and counted. I mean, I literally could have written 1, 2, 3 on the ballot I filled out on Monday, but it would have counted as spoiled. Then we can have the more complicated discussion of what actual changes should be made to inject some measure of proportionality or something like it. I think we should start by getting rid of the current longstanding per-dollar subsidy on political donations and bring back the per-vote subsidy. That gave the smaller and more grassroots parties monetary support more connected to their actual popularity rather than to how many well-off donors they could attract.

Yes, it would "feel" different to you as a voter, but if you look at the actual composition of government, in places which use ranked ballots, you find that the government is not much more proportional than we have today.  The data shows this quite clearly in practice.  We don't need to test these things here as if we're some special flower, there are countries which have tried out all sorts of electoral systems.  We can and should learn from them.

On the other topic, yes, a per vote subsidy is a good idea, ironically when it was removed, conservatives whined that it was giving money to someone you didn't vote for (which is fundamentally 100% false...it literally gives money to exactly who you voted for), and ignored the fact that this is exactly what the per dollar subsidy does. At a fundamental level, we need to solve this ability to lie to people, when the truth is complicated, and lies seem to fit the facts so well, it's almost impossible to convince people in these cases.