When are they going to get to acceptance?

Watching the proponents of MMP fumble around with the referendum results is becoming a joke. There is a strong mixture of anger and denial. The denial came today from some hearty academics. The conclusions from this article is that if people had been told only good things about MMP they would have voted for it. Here we go: I propose a system of government that will have incomparable immediate economic growth, rapid decision making, high levels of security, low levels of crime and strong social cohesion. Do you agree? Well, probably. But you might not if you realized you were voting for fascism. I'm not comparing MMP to fascism. I'm talking about the ridiculous nature of that line of argument. Of course, if you talk about a system only in positives without any substantive detail people are going to agree. In a democracy, however, we have something called debate. This allows people to see the whole picture and make a decision. As I've argued before, the results of the referendum were predictable based on a reasonably well informed population. Knowing the exact make up of the citizen's assembly would not have changed the results.

Andrew Coyne is on a warpath

So, Andrew Coyne is mad as hell. See, he liked MMP. MMP lost. Now, he's trying to figure out a way for him to be right and not be against popular opinion. First, he tried to claim that the people were cowed by Islamophobic propaganda. This is of course absurd. First, there was no mention of a possible Islamic party on behalf of the No MMP campaign and almost none in the media (a brief half-mention in the Globe). Secondly, this makes no sense considering the plethora of Muslim candidates elected in ridings that rejected MMP. Ontarians are not bigots. Finally, I can guarantee that the Canadian Islamic Congress was not motivated by Islamophobia when they rejected MMP.

Now Mr. Coyne has changed tack. He's now decided that in fact MMP won. Well, after all it got almost the same percentage as the premier. Well, if we're going to play games with the numbers, let's play games. Under FPTP the Liberals won a plurality of the votes in a majority of the ridings. How did MMP fare? They won 5 ridings out of 107. Reslicing the pie doesn't change the result. He also levels the ridiculous criticism that the low voter turnout invalidates the result. Every Canadian has a rigt not to vote. If you want to change that, bring in mandatory. I think it may be a debate worth having (I'm actually not sure where I stand on that one). If 48% of Ontarians didn't think it worth their time to vote, all we can interpret is that they didn't think voting was a priority. There are millions of reasons why people don't vote. We can't judge it to be any one of them with any certainty. However, their absence does not invalidate the result. Bad things happen when we allow the absent to delegitimize the actions of the present (see the Weimar republic). No one was disenfranchised.

He's also claiming that people were actively misinformed. I stand by every statement I made regarding MMP. The rise of fringe parties has taken place across Europe. It has been fostered by PR systems. It is not surprising that France and the UK (who use non-PR systems) remain the two major countries without a major Christian Democratic or Green movement. France also has had the most success in rejecting the right-wing nationalist movements that have swept Europe. Marie le Pen has lost the popularity that he once had and has remained out of power. Meanwhile, PR based countries of seen the inclusion of nationalist movements in government from the Netherlands to Denmark. The Belgians are still trying to form a government while a Flemish nationalist party threatens the destruction of Belgium. Not in Germany you say? Well, there are laws against nationalist parties in Germany. Seems that they had a bad experience with nationalism back in the day. MMP wouldn't have stopped the kind of xenophobia that has spread across Europe. The Swedes who use MMP (a slightly different version but built on the same principles) have seen a fringe nationalist party gain prominence all across their regional councils. Analysts predict they will be in the Riksdag after the next election (they were just under the threshold last year). This would throw the normally stable Riksdag into chaos. The carefully built coalitions would have to realign in order to accommodate the new party. In other words, they would get power, king-maker power. These new parties are not popular movements. They represent a tiny portion of the population and receive a disproportionate influence.

The rise of a Maori party in New Zealand is not a good thing as some people claim. The fact that there are Maori voters in New Zealand who feel they can only be represented by fellow Maoris is a failure. Integration is important to the success of any minority group. Note: integration not assimilation. There is a major difference between the maintenance of a distinct culture and the feeling that no one outside your culture can possibly represent you. This is the failure Canada has felt so profoundly in French Canada. The rise of the Maori party should be viewed in the same light as the rise of the PQ and BQ in Canada. A failure of political leadership. The line of argument that sees the rise of an ethnically based party as a success is the same argument that supports the segregation of our schools and the division of our country.

I said what I said during the campaign, not to scare people, but because I believe them and want to share my beliefs with my fellow citizens. Civic duty propelled me. It is insulting in the utmost to insinuate that I was acting out of some sort of malicious intent. I'm a university student. I was not trying to hold on to my own power (as Mr. Ferguson et al. may claim). If you disagree with me, fine. Don't call me a self-interested, bigoted liar.

Why MMP Failed

Now that I have access to Elections Ontario's riding by riding referendum results, it is time for some analysis. We need to start by debunking some myths about why this referendum failed.

Myth #1: McGuinty and the Liberals wanted it to fail.

This is absurd. It is absurd on so many levels. First, why on earth would prominent Liberal cabinet ministers (Smitherman, Bryant, Gerretsen et al.) be working on the pro-MMP side if the Grits were plotting its demise? Second, there is NO proof for this. Zero. Don't talk about the threshold which was copied almost verbatim from BC. It is a) not McGuinty's and b) in keeping with the Constitution and the principles of the Clarity Act. This kind of conspiracy is usually relegated to late night talk shows.

Myth #2: The media ignored the issue.

This is blatantly false. Almost every newspaper and most columnists in the province put out an editorial. Radio talk shows spent hours debating its merits. The blogosphere was saturated. The debate was out there. People just had to listen. A major television debate (outside TVO) was the only thing missing. Given the low ratings of the leaders' debate I wouldn't call this all that important.

Myth #3: The No MMP campaign killed it.

Our Lilliputian efforts (all $12,000 of it) may have helped to shape the debate (I'll come to that later) but we did not cause a landslide. I'd love to say we did, but we didn't.

Myth #4: The information campaign left people uninformed and they voted out of uneasiness.

This on the surface seems like a reasonable hypothesis. The information campaign was pathetic (see my last post). However, it is disproved by the results that we got from across the province. In order for this theory to work, you must assume that information was distributed relatively equally across the province. Everyone received the same useless pamphlet. Almost everyone has access to the internet somewhere so they could view the website. In other words, people should vote the same way across the province. There should be no noticeable difference between ridings. In fact support for MMP ranged from below 30% to 59.2% (Trinity-Spadina). That kind of thirty point spread indicates to me that a large number of people knew exactly what they were voting on or at very least had formed an opinion. Even if you assume that people in the large cities were better informed due to higher media and campaign saturation, you still can't explain why people in wealthy (and therefore more likely educated) urban ridings rejected MMP. It is also worthwhile to note that people voted predictably. Steve Paikin nailed on The Agenda when he surmised that the pro-MMP ridings were in downtown Toronto. How did he know they weren't in Thunder Bay or Ottawa? The answer is the reason MMP failed.

MMP failed because it didn't resonate with what Ontarians value in their politics. In my first post on MMP I discussed the principles behind both systems and how the choice was basically a philosophical one. The results confirm that hypothesis. First, let's look at who voted for MMP. The ridings are: Trinity-Spadina, Toronto-Danforth, Beaches-East York, Davenport and Parkdale-High Park. First off, let's recognize that the four of these ridings are NDP strongholds and the fifth (Davenport) has been on the Dipper wish list for some time now. What do these ridings have in common that makes them vote NDP and for MMP (unlike the Northern NDP ridings which rejected en masse)? First, they believe that political decisions are moral decisions. No, not in the bible belt sense but in the compassion for your fellow human beings sense. People in these ridings believe that everyone should have an equal chance. The argument that FPTP is unfair resonated here. Secondly, they are imbued with pluralist views. What is common about these ridings is their diversity. The whitest is probably Beaches-East York but even then, there is significant diversity. There is along with that diversity a fierce belief in multiculturalism. There is a pluralist belief that society is best when it includes everyone in the discussion. This pushed them in favour of getting small parties more say in the legislature. Now, to a certain extent these views are present everywhere in the province but they are especially present and relevant in voting behaviour in the old city of Toronto. In other words, MMP was in keeping with the values that drive voters in these ridings.

Different motivations governed the rest of the province. A strong attachment to local representatives, I would argue is one of them. It is not unreasonable to assume that the people that voted for Kathleen Wynne in Don Valley West valued local representation more than the performance of various leaders. The easy re-election of Khalil Ramal in London Fanshawe is a better example. The pundits argued that London Fanshawe set up perfectly for the NDP. After all, if you combined the vote totals from the various polls in 2003 that were under the redistributed London-Fanshawe boundaries they would have won. Furthermore, the NDP was much more popular in 2007 than they were in 2003. Ipso facto, well, nothing. The NDP decided to go youth, which while commendable, is not usually the best strategy for getting elected. Voters stuck with the experienced Ramal. Local candidates matter. They matter a lot in certain ridings. Voters who thought this was important didn't like the lists no matter how democratic the advocates of MMP thought they were.

Other areas vote because of regional preferences. This is particularly relevant in Northern Ontario. Why did NDPers in Toronto say yes to MMP but similarly NDP supporting people in the North reject it so fervently? This is because Northerners want to maintain a Northern voice. This is true in other rural parts of the province as well. I think the election of Randy Hillier last night is proof enough of that. No list can replicate the local representation provided by a FPTP based system.

The other reason MMP failed is because the referendum was about MMP. The debate ended up being about the merits of MMP which I think is appropriate. However, when Elections Ontario changed the yes/no question to an either/or question I feared that the debate would focus on FPTP. If the vote for MMP campaign had managed to make the referendum about that, they may have been more successful at overcoming the natural predispositions against this system. John Tory and the vote for MMP campaign have this problem of directionality in common.

Finally, the referendum campaigns did have a minimal impact. You can certainly see the impact of Michael Bryant and Carolyn Bennett's work in getting the usually small c conservative St. Paul's near 50%. Similar things can be said of George Smitherman in Toronto Centre and Hugh Segal and John Gerretsen in Kingston and the Islands. The impact of our No MMP campaign is hard to decipher in the landslide. I'd say we were successful in Nipissing, Ottawa and elsewhere but I don't know that we would have been less successful had we sat on our hands. As I've said, if we made any major contribution to the overall results last night, it was keeping the attention squarely on MMP. Both referendum campaigns and perhaps the referendum in general were impacted by Elections Ontario's decision to treat the referendum campaigners as third party advertisers. The lack of tax receipts robbed both campaigns of the cash necessary for a full out debate. However, I don't think this is a major cause of the defeat.

Vote to Keep Our Existing Electoral System

This marks my 29th post on the subject of this referendum. It will also be my last before election day. So, here we go 10 reasons to vote for FPTP and against MMP:

10. Stable, effective government. Governments in ONTARIO which fail to get a majority rarely last longer than a couple of years and have difficulty executing a coherent agenda. Majority government allows for long term strategies instead of short term placating. We need to be able to make tough decisions. We can do that under FPTP, we can't under MMP.

9. Small parties should not control the agenda. I don't want a situation like that which exists under MMP systems where small parties control the agenda in spite of voter preference. I would rather have a parliament where a party that receives 40% of the vote has a majority than have a legislature where a party that receives 3% of the vote has the majority of the power. If you want a point of reference look at the power of New Zealand First in the first MMP coalition government or the influence of the Green party on Germany's insane energy policy.

8. Vote for the system you understand. I don't just mean that if you haven't done your research. I am talking about the large number of things we just don't know about MMP. The exact means of list selection is still among them. Does "democratic" mean Democratic Republic of Congo "democratic"? Sorry, not good enough, not by a long shot. Do you understand the process for a recount under MMP? No? That's because there isn't one. Understand what happens if a list MPP crosses the floor? No? That's because there's no provision for or against it. Ontarians don't understand MMP not only because Elections Ontario has failed them but also because there is a lot nobody understands.

7. Ballots should be easy to vote on and easy to count. Neither applies to MMP.

6. All of Ontario matters. Not just Toronto. I say this sitting in Toronto. A one member one vote system of choosing party lists would guarantee Torontonian dominance in the legislature. Voters will vote for who they want first. They won't be thinking about the look of the overall list. With the concentration of population and party members in the GTA, GTA candidates would have a major advantage under MMP.

5. Don't give more power to political parties. They are too powerful as is. Elections should be decided on election night by the voters of Ontario, not a month later by party elites in a Toronto hotel.

4. We are not threatened by nationalism. The boundaries that face minorities have nothing to do with the electoral system. We don't need MMP. You want First Nations politicians? How about Todd Russell? Tina Keeper? Nancy Karetak-Lindell? All in our Parliament today because of First Past the Post. There are more. There's a riding in the 905 where every single candidate is Muslim. Both the Liberals and the NDP have met their targets for increasing women in the legislature. Expect those targets to go up next time around. Our current ministers of health and education are openly gay. The Premier of Orange Ontario is Catholic. Let's look how far we've come before we look at how far we have to go. We don't need MMP to artificially solve our remaining problems.

3. Our electoral districts are too big, don't make them bigger. This is true not only in Northern Ontario where MMP would make a riding larger than France, but also in the GTA where a burgeoning population makes ridings harder and harder for independents and small parties to cover.

2. Our legislature at its best when it is a representation of Ontarians from across this province. I call this blog All Politics is Local because I believe in the importance of community based politics. Today's media based politics have wounded our local politics, we do not need MMP to finish the job. We should be working to restore our local democracy. This is crucial if we are to increase our voter turnout and diversify our legislature.

1. Related to the point above, list MPP's are accountable to absolutely no one. They are not accountable to the whole province as pro-forces claim. They are also not accountable to the people who voted for that party. This is an absurd argument that assumes that voter preferences on election day stay the same the rest of the term. Accountability is crucial. We need to be able to throw out the bums. It is the foundation of our democracy. We must preserve it. For all of our MPP's. We need to reject MMP and keep FPTP to do this.

Vote for our existing electoral system (First-Past-The-Post)

MMP at PEI levels in latest poll

The most recent poll from SES research on MMP breaks down as follows:

FPTP: 47%
MMP: 26%
Unsure: 21%
Not Voting: 5%

If we only look at decided voters:

FPTP 64.3%
MMP: 35.7%

If these polls are accurate the threshold is going to prove quite irrelevant. A strange note: more than twice as many women identify as being unsure then men. 29% of women v. 13% of men. Does this go back to the whole men being more confident in making decisions with incomplete information thing?

MMP Trashed in MSM

So, the reviews are in and MMP is about as popular as Gigli. First, from the left, came a stinging rebuke from the Toronto Star. Then today from the centre and right the Globe and the Post shoot it down. The pro-MMP folks are undeterred. They've dug up a positive review from the folks at Eye Weekly who have written such mainstream editorials as coming out against male (note: MALE) circumcision. One of their rationale on that one was that foreskin is fun.

On a more depressing note, I went to a MMP debate last night in Kingston. There were about 25 people in the crowd. Sean Conway who was on the panel mentioned afterwards that this was his 5th MMP panel and the 25 people was his biggest crowd. None of the rational arguments for or against will matter if people are uninformed.

Random MMP based thoughts

Woke up this morning to some good news in the form of the Toronto Star rejecting MMP from their editorial page. Now, editorials don't mean as much as people may think but I'd still rather have the Star on side then off side. I just came back from canvassing here in Kingston. People are in general very happy to receive any information regarding the referendum. The failure, thus far, of Elections Ontario's education campaign is downright pathetic. I don't care which side of this referendum you support. However, the pro-MMP side's advantage was on display for me again today. They had apparently canvassed the same area yesterday and I found numerous mailboxes loaded up with both vote for MMP propaganda and the the supposedly neutral Citizens' Assembly flyers. No MMP has cobbled together our pennies and paid for a few radio ads in major centres this week. So keep your ears out. I missed the TVO debate Thursday night but I look forward to watching it when it is released on the Agenda's website.

Referendum? What Referendum

A good editorial today in the Star complaining about the lack of knowledge regarding the referendum. I particularly like the accompanying cartoon.

By the way, another prominent Liberal blogger has said No to MMP.

Does the Establishment have Cooties?

So the Vote for MMP folk are putting out the message that the No MMP campaign is a bunch of establishment types. A couple of points:

1. The official No MMP campaign is not exactly being run or backed by a bunch of big names. Unless the establishment is being secretly controlled by a retired engineer, a immigrant university professor, a PhD candidate and other such nefarious types as the No MMP campaign is. The fact that a lot of media types have come out against MMP is a symptom of the problems with MMP not some grand conspiracy. Secondly, this line of argumentation is being put forward by a group backed quite publicly by folks like Hugh Segal and George Smitherman. Who's the establishment here?

2. Second of all, what exactly is the problem with the establishment? I kind of get this line of argument from dippers but when Grits (like Scott Tribe on MMP and the YLC) start spewing this stuff... The establishment believes in such terrible things as public health care and economic prosperity. Wouldn't want to agree with them. Give me a break!

Campbell on MMP

Murray Campbell in the Globe on MMP:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070917.wcampbell17/BNStory/ontarioelection2007/home

Can we find Elections Ontario some boxes?

This is ridiculous. Why on earth are we putting the referendum ballots in the same box as the election ballots. Why don't we have two sets of boxes? It would save hours of separating the two ballots at the end. What were they thinking?

Monday...

Ah, the last Monday of the summer... Okay, on with some thoughts from the last few days:

• The Globe's editorial this morning is an inconvenient truth. We have to fight climate change. We also have to give up on meeting our Kyoto targets.
• Dion now faces a challenge akin to the one Chretien faced on free trade. Move the party away from an economically disastrous if internally popular position.
• CNN reports that the perjurer in chief is no more. I'm not sure this makes it any easier to get him for all that nonsense surrounding the federal prosecutors but I don't think it makes it harder.
• I like the idea of the Canada-Russia 35th anniversary superseries. However, I got a chance to watch a few minutes before coming in to work this morning and, well, let's just say you can tell it's August. It is hard to get excited for something when the play is so sloppy.
• The population growth in Toronto's suburbs is frightening. There should be one priority above all others for GTA politicians: density.
• For Iraq to succeed it must have complete and unfettered control of who leads its country. For Ms. Clinton to comment on the job performance of the Prime Minister of Iraq is both inappropriate and dangerous. Ms. Clinton may claim to be from about 5 different states but she is not Iraqi. Therefore, who the Iraqis decide to elect is none of her business. I certainly wouldn't want an American leader commenting on elections in this country.
• The Americans have a serious constitutional crisis on their hands. The ability of a modern president to go to war without Congressional approval makes it very difficult for Congress to stop or end a war. This is a check and balance that needs to be reinforced.
• I don't see a major difference between pre-election spending and campaign promises. If a party that is in government hasn't taken any steps to do what they now promise to do if re-elected, we would be highly suspicious. Sorbrara has the money and is going to spend it. If you want to criticize how it's being spent, fine.
• This article on MMP is mostly pointless. There are already prohibitions on parties campaigning for or against MMP. I do agree that the most important thing in this whole process is to have a well-informed public. Referenda with an ignorant populous are rubber stamps in democratic clothing.
• Contrary to what Christiane Amanpour may think, the diaspora support for Israel is much more a case of nationalistic sympathy than religious fervour. It is much more about memories of the Holocaust than memories of Judaea. Furthermore, the majority of Israelis are highly secular. They are certainly not at war with modern secular society. To paint the Arab-Israeli conflict as purely religious is to miss most of the point.

Friday Musings

Okay, it's friday and I'm lazy here's a bunch of quick thoughts:

• To those who want my proposal for our electoral system, it's on the citizen's assembly website here.
• Did anyone else catch Gov. Mike Huckabee comparing gun owners to monkeys on the Colbert Report last night? That tape is not going to play well at a NRA convention. I don't care if he is one of the most pro-gun candidates out there.
• I have changed my opinion on Bill Richardson after his moronic comments about homosexuality being a choice. Jet lag? Give me a break. I officially like none of the Democratic contenders.
• Sticking with presidential polititcs, the Iowa Straw Poll has got to be one of the stupidest things in existence. Ron Paul got like 9% of the vote? What the?!?!?!?!?!
• Okay, I don't need a Nobel Prize in economics to know that giving millions of dollars to people who shouldn't qualify for a mortgage is stupid. Why didn't the markets figure this out BEFORE everyone defaulted?
• However, as silly as the reason for the crisis is, the crisis itself is still pretty scary. When central banks are taking steps to prevent a bank run, there's a bit of a problem.
• Cabinet shuffles are a waste of time. Although, it was nice to see Diane Ablonczy finally get her chance.
• I understand why the Grits keep comparing Harper to Bush. I just wish we'd spend more time attacking the Tories on substance.
• I'm not sure I agree with Jean Charest about the whole Charlebois thing. After all, if Marois can't win a seat the PQ won a few months ago under Boisclair, how much legitimacy does she really have? It may be tradition, but it seems to me like a pretty foolish one that stems from the days when leaders ran in ridings that they were going to get super-majorities in anyway. If the ADQ actually feels they can win the election, especially with how close the National Assembly is, why shouldn't they be allowed to try?
• I said the political class supports this not that they chose it. I know what the Citizens' Assembly is. I also know why it came to be: pressure from well-connected (and well- funded) interest groups like Fair Vote Canada. The political class is larger than the membership of the PC's and Liberals. The other two parties are almost wholly in favour of MMP along with a slew of academics and bloggers. There were big names against Charlottetown too. You ever heard of a guy named Pierre Trudeau? I think the poll which was conducted over at Progressive Bloggers shows a good indication of where the chattering classes are on this. I don't think that most Ontarians will agree.
• Oh yeah, as long as Scott's mentioning it, the Young Liberals did overwhelmingly vote down MMP in a straw poll in North Bay last week. Unlike the straw poll in Ames, we didn't even bus anyone in!
• The 60/60 requirement for passing MMP may seem extreme but it is in keeping with Canadian tradition. It mirrors the requirements for passing a major constitutional ammendment. Electoral change is too important to be decided by a simple majority.

MMP and Charlottetown

I am increasingly seeing similarities between MMP and the failed Charlottetown accord. In both cases, honest people set out to solve a problem facing them. In both cases, they arrived at a solution that much of the political class appproved of. However, much like Charlottetown, MMP should be defeated. It is not the idea of electoral reform that I find repulsive just as it was not the idea of ammending the constitution to bring Quebec on board. In both cases, it is not the intention but the execution which make them fail. Small clauses are important. It is not good enough to say, as some in the yes camp do, that our current system is broken and therefore we need change. We must realize fully the consequences of that change both positive and negative. Until we find a solution which does not create more problems than it solves, MMP must go the way of Charlottetown and be voted down.

Coalitions, eh?

I keep forgetting to post this. This is straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. From http://www.yourbigdecision.ca/ comes this gem:

"The political party with the largest number of seats in the legislature, including ‘Local Members’ and ‘List Members’, is asked to form a government."

Oh dear. The problem is that coalition governments are often led (as is the case in Sweden today) by parties who did not receive the most votes. The assumption is that people voted for the coalition and not the parties. However, with this kind of language in the official explanation a King-Byng style showdown may be inevitable. If this statement is executed to the letter, you can throw the idea of stable coalitions out the window. This education campaign is getting off to a great start, don't you think?

Cherniak has our official press release on his site and our website is now up and running. Oh, and by the way, our communications director is in Toronto, not London, England as has been erroneously reported elsewhere.

I Called It!

This just in from Elections Ontario:

"If Mixed Member Proportional is accepted during the Ontario referendum in October, there is a possibility that there will be two ballots in future elections. Legislation would have to be passed to make the new electoral system the law. Then the Chief Electoral Officer would design the form of the new ballot(s) to be used. "

Here's my comment on the subject a few weeks ago:

"This leads me to believe that Elections Ontario may prefer to have two ballots instead of the one proposed by the Assembly. I am not sure what implications that has but surely they proposed one ballot for a reason."

Just to point out how important the one ballot idea is to the Citizens' Assembly: they've called their handout "One ballot, Two votes."

Once again, it is absurd to have voters vote when their is no proposed legislation or implementation plan.

Side note: Please notice that the explanation of MMP is three times as long as the explanation of FPTP. This is not because people are familiar with FPTP. MMP is just three times as complicated.

Edit: Great catch by Andy over at I, Ectomorph. Apparently, not even Elections Ontario knows how the system works!

One More Thing...

I will return to my preview in my next post (probably), but I just thought of another problem with MMP. You'd think I'd run out of problems by now? Okay, so this might not happen in every election but bear with me. The proposal allows for "dual candidacy" meaning that candidates can run both locally and on the list. If the candidate wins locally, "[t]he candidate’s name is crossed off the list, and that position is taken by the next candidate on the list who has not won in a local district" (Citizens' Assembly Report). This seems logical but leaves the system open to a fairly major problem: what happens when the list runs out? This is not as unlikely as it seems. Assuming parties follow modern trends and use a fully democratic (ie one member, one vote) means of nominating list candidates, who will be better positioned to get on the list than candidates who already have enough support to win local nominations? Therefore, it is entirely likely that party lists will be dominated by candidates who have strong support from a large riding association and are therefore more likely to win election. If you are wondering why someone with a strong riding association would want to be on the party list, just ask yourself, when is the last time a politician didn't take every possible measure to try to get re-elected? This makes it entirely possible that large parts of the party list will be crossed off. This means there is a distinct possibility that either during the election or in susbsequent by-elections there will be no one left on the party list.

Here's a simple scenario where this would happen. Party A wins 30 local seats but earns 45 seats meaning they must receive 15 list seats. However, 25 of Party A's list members have been crossed off after winning locally. That leaves only 14 people left on Party A's list to fill 15 seats.

The means of solving this problem are simple, but decrease accountability substantially. Parties in all likelihood will have more than 39 people competing for the list seats. Therefore, it would be relatively simple to simply take the person who finished 40th and put them in. However, that person would never have been presented to the people in any way shape or form. They would be literally appointed by the party. Of course, that method only works if the process is democratic. If parties appoint parts of their list for the sake of diversity, we could have a party leader/president just choose a person on little more than a whim.

The point of drawing out this nightmarish and very possible scenario is to demonstrate how incomplete the proposal from the Citizens' Assembly is. We know exactly how First Past the Post works. We know every possible contingency. We don't know how MMP works and no education campaign is going to teach us about contingencies they haven't thought about yet.

This is Not Promising

So the video put out by Elections Ontario/ Citizens' Assembly on how the new electoral system works misrepresents the referendum question. Now, it is possible that the video was produced before the ballot question was put out but I still think it is a poor indication of how this education campaign is going to be run. I wish it was a yes/no question, but it's not.

No campaign is up and running

The campaign to stop MMP is up and running. Our website will be up shortly. A link should appear in the sidebar of this blog.

Why MMP is Wrong for Ontario pt. 10

This is really an update on a couple of reasons I've already discussed. The first is the end of majority governments. I decided to look through election results looking for governments which satisfied the criteria for a majority under MMP. The criteria to review are either:

1. 50% of the popular vote

and/or

2. 72.2% (65/90) of riding seats

Since the formation of the NDP in 1963 exactly one election produced the requisite conditions for a majority. Any guesses? If you said David Peterson's win in 1987 you would have been right. Peterson got won in over 72.2% of the then 130 ridings. It is good to note here that NO government since the emergence of the NDP has got over 50% of the popular vote (some parts of the Tory dynasty got close, but no cigar). Thus, only one majority would have been elected in Ontario in the last 45 years. Of course, the second criteria is really an aberration as MMP is designed to ensure that parties receive seats according to their popular vote. In this case, the compensatory list seats would have been insufficient to deny Peterson a majority. The intention of the system is to prevent majorities. If we want the system, we should want it fully functional and that means majority preventing.

There are those that argue that coalition governments will prevent constant elections. I have already noted the short tenure of the last coalition government. I want to add that while MMP receives the incentives that a governing party may have to call an election i.e. a majority, it does not prevent the opposition from wanting an election to form a government or just increase their standing as the case may be. The 2006 federal election was not called because Martin wanted a majority.

Also, I noted earlier about the complicated nature of the new system. I do not think it is that complicated, however, I know that voters do not necessarily have a strong grasp on the electoral system. Having scrutineered in a couple of elections in the past, I know how often people are confused by the current system. It is also not enough merely to know how to vote, people should understand EXACTLY how those votes translate into seats. In my view, a referendum only works as a means of determining policy if the electorate is fully informed. Otherwise, referenda can lead to poor decisions like those that have handcuffed the California legislature.

Oh, and I don't know whether I should applaud or laugh at the fact that my anti-MMP posts are showing up on the vote for MMP website. I really doubt they are doing it intentionally to encourage debate and, therefore, I'm going to laugh.