Big electoral reform news today, that I would be remiss not to share.
This weekend, the historic Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform met to deliberate and choose their preferred alternative voting system. They had been workign on both mixed-member proportional (MMP) and single transferable vote (STV) models. At the conclusion of a weekend of debate, three-quarters of the Assembly members chose MMP. The Assembly will decide on April 15 whether to recommend that system over the status quo, a decision that will trigger a referendum to be held in conjunction with the next provincial election in October.
The MMP system designed by this average group of voters ensures strong proportionality to ensure every vote counts. It is similar to the voting system used in Germany, New Zealand and for elections to the Welsh and Scottish assemblies. MMP would expand voter choice by allowing voters to make two marks on their ballots - one for a preferred local representative and another for their favorite party, which will determine the allocation of the list seats. Under the Assembly's current working model of MMP, 90 members would be elected from constituency seats with another 39 elected from province-wide closed lists, based on the second, or "party", vote.
This made-in Ontario voting reform will finally bring give Ontario a modern, fair voting system. It will improve voter choice, increase political participation, elect more women an visible minorities and promote a more collaborative Queen's Park.
In short, it will revolutionize Ontario democracy for the better. Don't worry, I'll get to explaining just HOW MMP will do all these wonderful things in the weeks and months to come.
For super electoral reform keeners, the amazing TVOntario interactive Citizens' Assembly site should have video from this historic weekend online now.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Very interesting!
I'd love to hear more detail about the specific reasons people had for choosing MMP over STV, if you wouldn't mind elaborating.
MMP will be a step forward from your present FPTP, but the system you describe will fall far short of delivering all your clearly hope for.
With 90 constituency seats (70%) and only 39 province list seats (30%), you'll not get good PR of the registered parties. The Scottish Parliament also has 129 members, but we have 73 constituency members (57%) and 56 regional list members (43%) and we do not get very good PR of the parties. Our party PR MIGHT be a little better if we had one national list, but then we would loose all local connections with the 56 list members.
You will also find that MMP entrenches the power of the political parties at the expense of the voters. The 'closed list' version is the worst option you could have chosen. This is one of the most frequent and most serious criticisms of the Scottish Parliament.
IP, I haven't seen this latest session yet, but the discussion in the assembly has been dominated by the salability of any system they designed. I suspect they felt that MMP was easier to understand and so was the easier sell.
IP, I wish I could share more but I haven't watched as much of the OCAs deliberations as I should have. (I can see myself having to at some point academically, but that doesn't mean I'm going to now).
But my sources tell me that Greg is partly right. Saleability has been a concern, but let's not discount the importance of the consultation meetings. I went to almost all in Eastern Ontario and it was pretty pro-MMP. Also, most of the larger organizations who went before the Assembly explicitly supported MMP. I think the Assembly may have just seen that there is more support for MMP among Ontario citizens interested in reform.
Edinburgh, I'm interested how "MMP entrenches the power of the political parties at the expense of the voters", sounds like anti-PR spin to me, but I'll give you the chance to explain.
I'm surprised the required "supermajority" threshold of 60% hasn't been the subject of more discussion. Personally, I'm outraged that the Ontario Liberals unilaterally imposed this condition on electoral reform. It's an insult to the Citizen's Assembly, and an insult to the people of Ontario. While I commend these Liberals for running for election in 2003 on electoral reform and opening up the possibility of such change, I cannot but condemn these self-same Liberals for virtually making it impossible to pass such reform. Lately McGuinty claimed a "neutrality" on the subject wanting rather the voice of the people to be heard. He wants the people to decide but is willing to accept their decision only if extraordinary conditions are met. I sat in the gallery of the legislature and watched as McGuinty shocked everyone, even members of his own caucus (who evidently also remained unawares of this stipulation and showed their disgust by walking out), by imposing this nearly unprecedented prerequisite of a “supermajority” on any referendum on electoral reform. It’s classic run from the left govern from the right Liberal politics. It’s also a mere pretense of democracy. What do you think?
From the Fair Vote Canada: http://www.fairvotecanada.org/
Dr. Dennis Pilon, University of Victoria political scientist and FVC National Council member, spoke to the committee via teleconference.
“Apart from the recent PEI and BC referendums, no voting system change decision in Canada was ever subjected to a super-majority rule. In fact, the establishment of all Canadian federal and provincial voting systems was by a simple majority vote of the designers…[and] all western countries have seen the establishment of their voting systems or any changes in their voting systems handled either through a simple majority vote of parliament or a simple majority vote in a referendum.”
Post a Comment