Electoral Reeeeeeform

Even though I don't agree with the man's politics, I maintain it's a crying shame Preston Manning didn't run for the Alberta PC leadership in 2006, out of fear some chap named Dinning would beat him. Hindsight being what it is, it seems obvious Manning would have won, and his time as Premier would have been fascinating to watch.

Manning's latest idea, is to move Canada to an open primary system, something I wholeheartedly agree with - not just for nominations, but for leadership races too. I'm not convinced it would work unless coupled with some sort of voter registration system, but I do like the idea in theory. It's hard to see how anyone who watched the US primaries last year couldn't.

Often it takes a crisis of some sort to create opportunities for reform. In Britain, the recent scandalous abuse of expense accounts by members of the House of Commons from all major parties has created precisely such a crisis and opportunity.

In order to bolster public confidence in its candidates for the soon-to-be-held general election, the British Conservative Party has become willing to experiment with democratic innovations.

One in particular is being introduced in the constituency of Totnes. It should be watched closely by Canadian politicians and parties.

The Conservative MP for Totnes, Anthony Steen, was recently forced to “stand down” when it was revealed that he had claimed more than £87,000 over four years in parliamentary expenses on his country home.

Rather than choosing a candidate to succeed him by the conventional method of a constituency nominating meeting in which only card-carrying Conservative Party members can vote, the party has decided to experiment with an “open primary” in which every voter in Totnes will be invited to help choose its candidate for the next general election.

NDP Fantasy

There's some internet speculation floating around about the NDP extracting a referendum on PR as the price for keeping Harper's government afloat.

Ain't gonna happen.

Not a chance.

No way.

As much as the NDP would love a PR referendum, they couldn't even get that deal out of Paul Martin when he was desperately trying to cling to power in 2005. So given the Liberals are maybe-kinda thinking about voting down Harper sometime in the fall, it's not like he has a gun to his head.

And it makes absolutely no sense for Harper to sign on. Since the rise of the CCF, first past the post has been exceedingly kind to the Conservatives. They won the only two Gore Elections (lose popular vote, but win), in 1957 and 1979. And with governing coalitions the norm in a PR system, it has to concern Conservatives that their popular vote exceeded the Liberal-NDP vote in just two elections over that time period.

Now, that's not to say they'd only be in government for 8 years out of every 60. You could argue that a Conservative-NDP coalition would have been the logical end result in 2006. Or maybe they could try to go at it solo in a minority or form a grand coalition every now and then. But if Conservatives hate the compromises they've had to make now, it seems odd that they'd give away any chance of ever forming a majority government and condemn themselves to perpetual deal-making with the socialists and tree huggers.

NDP supporter Robert McCelland does prescribe a motive for Harper:

Harper’s coalition of reformers and red tories is fracturing once again. Proportional representation would allow these two factions to separate and pursue their own agendas without losing a disproportionate number of seats like they would under the current first past the post system. The right half of the political spectrum would essentially then have the same dynamic as the left with the red tories battling the liberals in the centre while the reformers pulled to the right in the same way the new democrats now pull to the left. Without the reformer baggage the red tories would then have a far greater chance of pulling support over to them from the liberals.

And that is probably what would happen eventually in a PR system. But you need to ask yourself this: If Stephen Harper's legacy is that he was the man who united the Conservative movement in Canada, why, oh why, would he want to also be the man who oversees the destruction of that party? Especially when you consider the PC/Ref/CA vote never matched the Liberal vote in three previous attempts, never mind the Liberal/NDP vote.

STV

There's a lot of buzz out in the blogosphere about the latest poll. No, not that one - this one:

Vancouver, B.C. – The numbers are in and British Columbia voters are giving a big thumbs up to electoral reform with 65 per cent saying they will vote for BC-STV in the upcoming referendum on May 12. That is the top line result of a major survey conducted by Angus Reid Strategies. Support for a new way of electing our MLAs is particularly strong among younger voters – those 18 to 34 – at 74 per cent.

Now, before people get all wound up on this one, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, the poll is over a month old. Second, according to this recap, the poll was partially loaded up by asking people to rank a series of (largely pro-STV) voting system characteristics first. And the fact that STV support is strongest with young voters - who don't usually vote - will also hurt its chances of passing.

If we compare to the last election four years ago, the April Ipsos poll had STV at 53% among decided voters, with their May poll at 57%, and the referendum question drawing 58% support in the end. So there's certainly some growth potential, especially if we assume that people grow fonder of the system as they learn more about it. Add it all up, and the odds probably favour STV passing, but it's hardly a done deal.

And, as for the system itself?

My biggest beef with a lot of the electoral reform ideas out there, like mixed-member, is that you'd have a class of MPs not directly elected and, as a result, not directly accountable to the voters. STV keeps the accountability and principles of FPTP in play, but should produce a more representative outcome.

So while I do like first past the post, there's something to be said for making BC the guinea pig of Canada, and seeing how the system works there.

One Member, One Vote, Several Opinions

Grab a beer, sit back, and get ready for a stimulating post on the nuances of internal party electoral reform!

As you may have heard, the Liberal Party will be voting on changing its leadership selection process from the current system of choosing the leader at delegated conventions (when we feel like it), to a weighted one member one vote system (WOMOV). This is basically the system the Tories use - every riding gets 100 points and if you win half the riding you get 50 points, if you win a quarter of a riding you get 25 points...the math is fairly easy to figure out so I don't think I need to include any other examples.

So what do I think about this and the proposal to set "youth quotas"? What system would I like to see? Glad you asked!


The Leadership Selection Process

First off, I don't think the current system is quite the affront to democracy it's often made out to be. For all intents and purposes, we currently have a WOMOV system since, instead of 100 points, every riding gets X delegates. In both cases, the points and delegates are divided based on the percentage of votes a candidate receives.

So if you "cleaned up" the current system by removing ex-officios and delegates from clubs and commissions, the only difference would be that the delegated convention transfers the second choice vote from everyone to Liberals elected as delegates.

It also has the added benefit of making for one hell of an exciting show - and I don't think that's something that should be discounted completely when it comes to getting Canadians and Liberals excited about the party and the new leader.

That said, WOMOV is a fairer system, so I'd be supportive of making the change.


Youth Quotas

The Young Liberals have proposed amending WOMOV to WOMOVW25QFY - Weighted one member one vote, with 25% quotas for youth. In short, at least 25 points in every riding would be reserved for youth. I know a few of my young Liberal friends will disagree with me on this one, but I'm not a big fan of this amendment.

For starters, it really defeats the entire purpose of "one member, one vote", and if you argue there should be quotas for youth, there's no valid reason to argue there shouldn't be quotas for the other commissions - that means points for women, seniors, and aboriginals. Hell, it also means there's no valid reason to argue there shouldn't also be quotas for immigrants, farmers, or bloggers.

But the main reason I don't like this amendment is that I don't think it's needed. Youth still get their delegate spot quotas for conventions which means they still have their previous influence when it comes to policy, party executive positions, and constitutional amendments (such as this one). The main argument for having youth delegate quotas before was that it got more young people to conventions, getting them excited about the party, and making them members for life. Is there anyone out there who can really say that a youth who knows his or her vote is worth 1.5 points is going to be more excited than a youth who knows their vote is worth 1.3 points?

In the end, if the intent of WOMOV is to democratize the party, then let's go all the way on it.


My System of Choice

As mentioned above, WOMOV lacks some of the excitement you get from conventions. So, to remedy this, I'd propose the following version of WOMOV (copied somewhat from the primary system):

1. Carve the country up into, say, 30 regions of around 10 ridings each - so, for example, Edmonton would be a region, BC Interior would be a region and so on...it doesn't really matter how you divide them up.

2. Randomly divide up the voting schedule so that it takes place over 4 weeks. I'd set it up where you had 2 regions voting the first week, 4 the second week, and then 12 each of the last two.

3. On the final weekend, you could also hold a series of provincial or regional "mini-conventions" that anyone would be free to attend, to watch the results come in - this would include the reading of the second choice votes if candidates fail to reach the necessary majority on the first ballot.

This would give you the New Hampshire/Iowa/Super Tuesday excitement of the US primary system condensed over a month and, since the order would be drawn at random, it wouldn't favour any one particular region. You'd get Canadians more excited in the entire process, compensating for the loss of convention pizazz.


In Conclusion

My sense is that there's enough support for WOMOV that it will pass at the convention. So the real question becomes what kind of WOMOV system we get.


See Also
A BCer in Toronto
Scott Tribe
Far and Wide

MMP, not really for me

I've been watching what has turned into quite the blog war over the Ontario MMP referendum with fascination. I'm fully aware that most people in the general population probably aren't very interested in the debate but, if you're reading this blog, odds are you're a political geek, in which case, West Wing reruns aside, you probably love nothing more in life than debating electoral reform (unless you stumbled across this by mistake on a weird google search).



Does Ontario Need Electoral Reform?

In general, I do think electoral reform is a good thing. Fixed election dates, more openness and transparency, maybe a preferential ballot...I can generally get behind a lot of moves aimed at "democratizing" the system (whatever that means).

But do we need to change the system? I dunno. First past the post has given Canada, and Canadian provinces, pretty good government over the past 140 years. Yes, there are some problems with a lack of diversity among elected officials, representation not directly related to vote totals, and low voter turn-out rates. For me, I think the system can be fixed with tinkering but I can at least see where people are coming from when they say that change is needed.


The Effect of MMP from a Practical Perspective

OK, so you're one of those people that wants change. But we could change the system to anything from a Monarchy to a philosopher king - there needs to be reason enough to believe that MMP would be an improvement. So what can we reasonably expect MMP to change?

Well, the smaller parties would get more seats, for starters. That's good news for NDP and Green supporters. It would also mean perpetual minority/coalition governments - whether that's good or bad is debatable. As for fringe parties, they'd need to pick up 3% to get seats so it only changes things if you think the "abortion party", "jewish rights party", or "NDP" could reach that threshold. My main fear is that there's no incentive to be a big tent party under this system. I could guarantee that the PCs would split within five years because it makes more pragmatic sense to have a PC party hugging the centre and a separate right wing party to bring out the hard right wingers.

As for being more representative, yeah, if the list candidates were appointed, you'd get more females and minorities for sure. Then again, if the list candidates were appointed, it could get consumed with patronage.

Then you get voter turn-out. I know the argument is that certain ridings are slam dunks so people feel there's no reason to vote because their vote doesn't matter. If you think about things, the odds that one vote, out of five million province wide for 39 seats will make a difference is nearly non-existent. Maybe there'd be a psychological thing that would encourage more people to vote, but I'm a little skeptical myself.

Since I'm not a huge fan of minority governments and MMP increases the odds of large parties fracturing, it doesn't do much for me from a pragmatic point of view.



MMP from a Theoretical Perspective

Liking the system because of actual benefits it would bring is one thing. Liking it from a theoretical perspective could also be a good reason to bring it in. You know, all that feel good "fairness" and "democracy" crap people seem so attached to for whatever reason. And, having the percentage of MPPs correspond to the percentage of votes certainly sounds fairer.

On the flip side, you have MPPs being elected indirectly. Like him or hate him, Rob Anders does get directly elected by the voters of Calgary West so there's a certain legitimacy to him being in Parliament. That gets blurred a bit once you start talking about lists. I personally think STV makes more sense from a theoretical perspective than MMP but I guess that's a preference thing - Coke or Pepsi, Marianne or Ginger.

The very least I can see where MMP supporters are coming from when they talk about it from a theoretical perspective.


Conclusions

MMP would be an interesting experiment but I just don't think the problem is big enough or that the solution would improve things. And I'm saying this fully aware that MMP would mean a lot more Liberals, both federally and provincially, elected in Alberta. For a counter-point, here's a good post on the New Zealand experience.

Open Thread on MMP

A lot of Libloggers are getting into the MMP debate. Since political geeks love nothing more than to debate electoral reform, I figured I'd toss open a thread on the topic for people to weigh in.

I personally don't have strong feelings on the topic. I've always had a soft spot for the first past the post system, but MMP would likely mean nearly permanent Liberal government in Ontario so I don't have a huge problem with it.

Random Thoughts on the MMP Ontario Referendum

1929.

The year above was the last time the Tories got more votes in Ontario than the Liberal and NDP cumulative vote.

Just thought I'd toss that out there.

Random News Clips

1) Harper has finally delivered on the disappearing fifth priority, a wait times guarantee. Huzzah! Well, that is, he's made sure provinces will guarantee one procedure. Yes, O-N-E. I'm not a doctor but I figure there can't be more than, what, 3 or 4 known medical procedures out there so this is clearly a monumental step forward.


2) The Macleans 50 have waded into the never ending PR debate. I say this only because I know poli-sci geek types enjoy debating this sort of thing and I suspect that that demographic makes up a large percentage of my readership.


3) Bharat Agnihotri was tossed from the Alberta legislature yesterday.


4) Lucienne Robillard, one of the most low key Cabmins over the past decade, has announced her retirement. This certainly is shaping up to be a "changing of the guard" election for the Liberal caucus, win or lose.



5) My Edmonton residency may limit the Calgary content of this blog so to try and fix this imbalance, I present the national anthems from last night's Flames game. This is in the same league as Roseanne Barr. Oh, and while we're talking about music videos on YouTube, this is the greatest remix parody ever.


6) Since today seems a little news-lite, I'll simply add, on a completely off topic note, that Arrested Development rocked, and that anyone who enjoys quality television should pick up the DVDs. Oh, and while I'm off topic, let me say that I loathe people who take the elevator down one floor when there are stairs right next to it. Just thought I'd mention that.