Since we have a primitive, 19-century voting system — First-Past-the-Post — a minority party wins all the power on 40% of the vote due to vote splitting.
In 2011, Harper won dozens of center-left ridings because of center-left vote splitting, which turned 40% of the vote into 54% of the seats and 100% of the power.
In a real democracy, a party needs 50% for an "absolute majority" — what it's called in the developed world (31 of 34 developed countries have democratic voting systems).
Voting reform
The only way to stop vote splitting is with voting reform.
Ranked ballot voting allows for guaranteed "Anyone But Con" strategic voting. In Australia, there are 4 right-leaning parties in an "Anyone But Labor" voting coalition. This ensures right-leaning votes are distributed among right-leaning parties.
Proportional representation (true voting) ensures parties get the same percent seats they got in votes. In the developed world, 29 of 34 use PR. There, coalitions are not a dirty word — or a political ploy — they are the norm. It's called, “democracy.”
Conclusion
We need to upgrade our voting system to eliminate absurd election results.
Unfortunately, a lot of corruption stands in the way.
The neo-con party is opposed to voting reform because it would stop them from getting 4-year dictatorships.
The Liberal party is opposed because during elections they can use fear of a neo-con majority to manipulate voters into giving them their own 4-year dictatorship.
The corporate-owned media is opposed because it's easier for corporations to lobby and influence minority-party dictatorships than democratic government.
So it will take hard work from the people and the social media to bring democracy to Canada.
How would you rate each of the parties on electoral reform? It's an important issue to me, but I couldn't find anything in it in any of the party platforms (unless I missed it).
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately in Ontario, the McGuinty Liberals killed voting reform with a designed-to-fail PR referendum in 2007. Like Liberal governments in BC & PEI, they put up road blocks to ensure the referendum would fail, including an absurd 60% win threshold.
DeleteSo voting reform is dead in Ontario for the foreseeable future. (Which is something voting reforms must keep in mind: they only get one shot. No Mulligans.)
But a federal referendum is coming down the pike. Both the Liberals and NDP support it. Unfortunately, considering Trudeau abandoned his party's commitment to ranked ballot voting - a moderate version of voting reform - he likely wants to kill off voting reform with another designed-to-fail referendum.
The Liberal strategy appears to be to destroy centrist NDP leaders like Andrea Horwath and Tom Mulcair. Divide and conquer the NDP and hope they choose ideological leadership. This will marginalize the party and pave the way for Liberal fake majority governments.
The only way we can save the referendum process from failure is with a democratic referendum that puts all three main options on the ballot: FPTP, ranked ballot and PR. Then hold a runoff vote to ensure Canadians choose one system by a majority.
5 two-option referendums have failed in Canada and the UK. When voters' option is not on the ballot, they opt for the status quo. So FPTP wins every time.
A three-way referendum will also negate the absurd 60% win threshold that would've killed PR in New Zealand.
New Zealand had a two-referendum process. It takes democracy to get democracy.
The two kinds of voting reform Canadians support