Site Note

As the abstract says, I put this blog together as a way to organize all my posts and links on STV into one place, and to provide an STV-only place where I can post all I want on STV without boring readers of my regular blog who aren't interested to tears.

For the moment, the site is a bit of a work in progress, I hope to have it pretty much fully up and running by the end of the week (Feb 6).

I guess we'll see how it goes.

Cheers,
Declan.

STV Bits and Pieces

Note: Adapted from posts made on Crawl Across the Ocean, Jan 19 & 27 2005

First off, thanks to Angela for creating the STV logo used as the header for this blog - a definite improvement over anything I would have come up with!

In other news, I have been asked by the people running the Yes to STV campaign if I want to do some volunteer work for them. To tell the truth, I'm a pretty lazy guy and fairly busy, and even the Blog seems like a stretch some of the time so I'm not sure how much I can commit, but on the other hand I do want this to pass, so it's a tough one.

Finally, the Citizens Assembly website has put together some good flash animations on STV and First Past the Post here.

(If you've watched the Australian animation I linked to a few posts back, you may notice some distinct similarities.)

Another reason to support STV...

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Jan 12, 2005

...is the truly weak arguments that No supporters make when they try to argue their case.

For today's lesson, let's take Norman Spector's column in the globe from Monday:

Here's how it starts:

"Single transferable nonsense
10 January 2005
The Globe and Mail
A13

The proposal that British Columbia adopt the single transferable vote (STV) in provincial elections is such a dumb idea, one hardly knows where to begin."

He's already said it's dumb AND nonsense and he hasn't even begun yet - sounds like a balanced piece coming up. He continues...

"Have I mentioned that STV supporters are asking us to try on for size the voting system used by only one of the Commonwealth's 53 countries? Now, it's possible that 400,000 Maltese know something the other 1.8 billion inheritors of British political traditions haven't yet grasped, but I wonder."

It turns out that the place to begin was with misleading statistics, bordering on outright lies. Last time I checked, Northern Ireland was part of the commonwealth, as are Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory (of course Norman might argue that sub-national jurisdictions don't count as a valid comparison because we are talking about B.C., which is a - oh, never mind.)

At the national level, Australia uses a form of STV for its Senate. Not to mention the fact that while Ireland (which has used STV since 1922) isn't part of the Commonwealth, to say that they haven't had a chance to be exposed to the great British system of government and all its wonders might be a bit misleading.

He then continues a bit further down (Note: I'm not going to quote every single line in his piece, every now and then I've skipped a few, you should probably start by reading his piece, in its entirety)...

"Proponents of this Rube Goldberg voting system say it's as simple as 1-2-3, but they're unable to explain how STV would work in practice."

Another random insult to raise the tone, and another misleading statement bordering on a lie. A visit to the Citizens Assembly will give anyone a pretty clear idea of how STV would work.

"STV advocates contend that only one country uses the system because it transfers power from politicians and parties to the people. I smell other interests at play."

Actually, only Norman talks about only one country using the system, because as we have noted, he is the only one who has randomly decided to pretend that all the jurisdictions besides Malta which use STV don't exist.

Norman's going to go on to explain how he thinks that it is just fringe elements who want STV because it would help them get elected, but if you ask me, the reason STV isn't more widespread is because it is a more complicated electoral system than first-past-the-post. And that's pretty much how everything in the world works, things start simple, but over time you learn the limitations of the way you do things and you decide to make things better, which generally means making them more complex as well. It's like the history of organized sport (with the gradual addition of fouls, lines, referees, offside rules etc.), organized religion, politics, pretty much everything. Of course if nobody is willing to improve their system until everybody else already has, well, you can see how progress might be a little slow.

"Like all proportional voting systems, STV produces minority governments"

This is true - do you know why? Because one party almost never gets over half the votes. Shocking, isn't it. Unlike first past the post which skews the vote results to artificially create a majority, proportional systems simply reflect the actual vote, and people usually vote for a minority.

"The second largest group of voters are disenfranchised, while fringe groups are empowered. And they multiply. In British Columbia's fruitful climate, that's a recipe for disaster."

God forbid the second largest group of voters are disenfranchised. That's what ALWAYS happened under a majority government - the kind that first past the post almost always produces. And does he even remember the 1996 election, when under first past the post, it was the largest group of voters who were disenfranchised?

As for fringe groups, to get a seat under STV, a party likely needs to get at least 15% if not 20-25% of the total vote in any one riding. Just how fringe is a group that gets that level of support. And what disaster does Spector foresee if a fringe-group like the Green Party (which got 12% of the vote in the last election) gets a few seats? That they might end up in a coalition and have a chance to push for part of their agenda to be implemented? What a disaster.

The rest of the article is pretty much a personal attack on Nick Loenen which attempts to show that since he supports STV and he is opposed to Abortion, STV is an inferior system to First Past the Post (I'm not making this up, that takes up about half the article).

I like it when he says that,

"he [Loenen] and other proponents of STV are proposing to destroy the finest political system in the world, British parliamentary democracy."

Before arbitrarily deciding that British parliamentary democracy is the finest political system in the world, Spector might want to compare the results over the last 40 years of two neighbours, England and Ireland - a comparison in which we see that Ireland (under STV) has emerged from hundreds of years of British oppression to exceed England in just about any measure of societal progress (including economic growth) while England has continued to struggle despite possessing the system which Spector likes so much.

Ireland's success is no proof of anything of course, but it suggests to me that B.C. isn't headed for disaster by 'destroying the finest political system in the world'.

Anyway, here's the big finish:

"Of proposals like Mr. Loenen's, leftie activist Judy Rebick has said, “This may be the only issue where you can have a left-right alliance.” Need I say any more?"

Do you see how after demonizing Loenen for half the article, he now attributes the entire STV decision to him, as if the whole Citizen's Assembly thing had never happened? And of course, all that Judy Rebick's comment means is that electoral reform isn't really a left-right issue, which of course I agree with. For example, I, a centrist, am firmly in favour, as I suspect noted conservative Andrew Coyne would be, as are any number of left wing voices.

So does Spector need to say more? I would say yes. He needs to talk about what the purpose of an electoral system is, he needs to talk about the problems with strategic voting, he needs to address the ethical problems with designing an electoral system to achieve policy objectives (strong government, marginalization of non mainstream voices) instead of simply reflecting the votes cast, and most of all he needs to address the failings of the current system which have led us to this referendum.

Vote Yes to STV on May 17 (if you live in B.C., anyway)

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Jan 9, 2005

Since the current B.C. Liberal government honoured a campaign promise and brought in fixed election dates we already know, 4 months ahead of time, that on May 17th, B.C. will be going to the polls for a provincial election. At this point, I am somewhat indifferent about which party gets elected (they all have serious problems) although that may change as the date approaches and we actually (hopefully) see some platforms.

But what I will be campaigning for is a 'Yes' vote on the referendum to change the electoral system. The Liberals honoured another election promise by forming a 'Citizen's Assembly' to study whether the electoral system in B.C. should be changed (In the 1996 election the Liberals got more votes than the N.D.P. but the N.D.P. still formed a majority government - this soured the Liberals somewhat on the old (First Past the Post) system).

After months of study, the Assembly recommended that B.C. switch to the 'Single Transferrable Vote' (STV) system which has been used in Ireland since it gained independence in 1922. So along with voting for a party on May 17th, B.C. residents will also vote on whether to switch to STV or to stick to the old system. In order to pass, 60% of people must vote in favour, and there must be a favourable (50% or more, simple majority) vote in favour in at least 60% of the provincial ridings.

I've been reading various people's opinion on whether to vote 'Yes' or 'No' and there seems to be some confusion on what the vote is about:

So, to clarify:

It is not a referendum on how you feel about the Liberal government.
It is not a referendum on the process which was used to generate the choice between STV and the old system.
It is not a choice between STV and your ideal electoral system.
Similarly, it is not a choice between STV and the Mixed Member Proportional System
It is not, or shouldn't be, a choice of which system you think will be best for the party you support.

So, if it's not all that, what is it?

It's simple, it's a choice between whether you think the old (First-Past-the-Post) electoral system or the proposed (STV) system is a better electoral system for B.C.

In order to answer this question we need to ask: what is an electoral system supposed to do? i.e. what makes an electoral system good (or bad)?

In a representative democracy, the electoral system is the mechanism by which all the votes cast (roughly 1.5 million in B.C.) are translated into a list of individuals (79 MLA's in B.C.) who will 'represent' the voters in making laws.¹

In order to do this well, the system needs to accomplish 3 things:

1) Proportionality: The distribution of representatives should be reflective of the distribution of votes. As an extreme example, if some party received 80% of the votes in an election and got 0 seats, we would say that the electoral system had failed. If they got 80% of the votes and 80% of the seats, we would say the system had succeeded.

2) Minimize Wasted Votes: As many people as possible should be represented by someone they voted for. For example, under the current system, if I vote for, say, Bill Derlago and he doesn't get a seat in parliament, there will be nobody in parliament representing my vote, and the system has failed to fully represent me.

3) Ensure Geographic Representation: In addition to each person having representation, each geographical region should have representation as well. For example, if after the B.C. election there were no MLA's from the Okanagan region, we would say the system had failed.²

In order to assess how well each of the two systems do on these 3 tests, we need to understand a bit more about how they work.

First Past the Post

The First-Past-the-Post system is quite simple (in fact simplicity is it's main selling point). The territory in question is divided into equally sized ridings and whoever gets the most votes in each riding is elected.

Proportionality: First Past the Post systems routinely fails to accurately reflect the popular vote in the selection of representatives. Generally speaking, the more parties there are, the worse it does. There are three factors which cause distortion under First Past the Post:

1) The rich get richer: In general, the more votes a party gets, the more it is overrepresented in the legislature. For example, in the last B.C. election, the Liberal party got 57% of the vote, but got 97% (all but 2) of the seats. In the previous election, the N.D.P. got 39% of the votes and got 52% of the seats (and formed a majority). The corollary to this of course, is that parties which get fewer votes are underrepresented. As an example, in the 2001 election in B.C. the Green Party got 12% of the votes (an almost identical percentage as the Bloc Quebecois got in the last federal election) and got 0 seats. Which leads nicely into factor 2)...

2) Regional is better: In general, a party whose voters are more regionally concentrated will be overrepresented in the legislature. We see this most clearly in the national parliament where in the last election the Bloc Quebecois (whose support is concentrated in the French speaking parts of one province) gained 18% of the seats (54 seats) despite only getting 12% of the total vote. The corollary to this is that parties with broad-based support from all regions are underrepresented. The most extreme recent case of this was in the 1993 federal election when the nationally supported Progressive Conservative party got 16% of the vote but only got 0.6% of the seats (2 seats).

3) Luck: Finally, there is an element of pure chance in that a party which happens to win a lot of ridings by close margins will be overrepresented while a party which happens to lose a lot of ridings by close margins will be underrepresented - as happened to some extent in the 1996 B.C. election.

So, the First-Past-the-Post system gives unearned seats to the big, the regionally concentrated and the lucky. And by the same token it cheats the small, the broadly supported and the unlucky.

However, there are further, less obvious problems of proportionality in the First Past the Post system. Because of the way it operates, the First Past the Post system may distort the actual vote itself, by forcing people to vote for someone who is not their first preference.

Consider the case of Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. How many people would have preferred to vote for one of them but didn't because by voting for Perot they actually helped elect Clinton and by voting for Nader (instead of Kerry) they would help elect Bush.

Under First Past the Post, having two parties with a similar message is counter-productive, which discourages the formation of new parties, discourages voting for new parties if they do form, and discourages the continued existence of the new parties even if people do vote for them. Consider the case of the Reform/Alliance party and the Progressive Conservative party. The two parties had different messages which appealed differently to different people. But because they appealed to similar, overlapping groups of people, the two parties were effectively forced to merge in order to have any chance of electoral success.

The end result is that people are never really given the option of voting for the party that they would choose in an unbiased system, so the vote count itself is not proportional with the preferences of the population.

Wasted Votes: With only 2 parties, the proportion of those votes which are wasted (i.e. the percent of the population not represented by anyone they voted for) varies from a maximum of 50%, down to about 25% in really lopsided elections. As the number of parties increases, the number of wasted votes increases. For example, in a four party race, one candidate could win election with only 30% of the votes (with the other 3 getting 25, 25% and 20% respectively). In this case, 70% of the voters will be left unrepresented.

Geographical Representation: First Past the Post does a good job of this, and ensures that each riding is represented by one person.



Single Transferrable Vote:

Before explaining what STV is, it's worth considering what the opposite of First Past the Post would be. First Past the Post breaks the territory down into a number of regions (ridings) such that there are as many ridings as representatives and then chooses one representative from each riding. The opposite would be to only have one riding (equal in size to the whole territory) and then choose all your representatives from that one riding.

This opposite system is known as [Pure] Proportional Representation or Party List Proportional Representation (since it is normally implemented in such a way that who gets elected from each party is based on a list that each party puts together - although there's theoretically no necessity to implement it that way).

Pure Proportional Representation achieves (surprise, surprise) perfect proportionality, but does it by sacrificing geographic representation (and in the case of party lists, people are only really assured that they are represented by the party they voted for, not the individual). It is generally used in geographically compact places where geography isn't a big issue.

So, given that First Past the Post and Pure PR represent two extremes (One person elected per riding & perfect geographic representation vs. one riding from which everyone is elected & perfect proportionality) how do we compromise between them?

There are two ways. The first is to elect half (or some percentage) of the members from First Past the Post and half (or some percentage) from Pure PR. This approach leads to what is typically known as the Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP), the system which was recommended by the Law Commission of Canada and the one which is going to referendum in P.E.I. in November. MMP is a pretty good system and, if you ask me, it's about equally as good as STV in general and probably better for large territories with many regional parties (like the federal government in Canada).

In B.C. however, the Citizen's Assembly rejected MMP and chose the second way to compromise: fewer ridings with more than one person elected from each one - STV.

Under STV you could have, for example, a riding from which 5 people would be elected (this riding would be 5 times the size of the old ridings if you wanted to keep the number of representatives the same). Voters would rank candidates starting with #1 and continuing up to #5. After that, anyone who gets enough first place votes (more than 1/6th of the total, since only 5 people can get more than 1/6 of the votes) is elected (if someone has more votes than they need, then their 'extra' votes are redistributed among the remaining candidates) and if nobody has enough votes to get elected than the person with the fewest first place votes is knocked out and the second place votes on their ballots are redistributed. This process repeats until 5 people are left standing.

It's a bit complicated although it becomes pretty clear if you watch the cute animation here (note: what the Aussie's call Proportional Representation in the animation is what we call STV).

So how does STV do on our three criteria for an effective electoral system?

Proportionality: While not as good as an MMP system or a Pure PR system, STV does much better than First Past the Post. The more people are elected from each riding, the more it resembles pure PR and the better the proportionality.

Minimize Wasted Votes: Because it allows you to express more than one preference, STV is probably the best system for making sure people have someone in parliament who they voted for, since even if their first choice was a fringe candidate with no hope of being elected, once that candidate is eliminated, their second preference will be counted.

Ensure Geographic Representation: Under STV every representative, represents a specific geographic area and every area has (more than one) representative. Some might say this is a disadvantage vs. First Past the Post since the one-to-one connection between citizen and geographical representative has been broken. Others may see it as an improvement since now voters have a choice of more than one representative from their area they can go to in case of trouble, giving them more choice. Personally, I'd say it's a draw, but that's a judgment call.

So on our 3 main criteria, STV is clearly superior on two and about even on the other. This is why the button I added to my site says, 'STV for True Democracy' - because true democracy means an assembly which accurately represents the votes cast and which doesn't waste the votes of half the population.

--
Other Issues:

Besides the 3 primary tests I identified, there are a variety of other issues which can be considered in comparing electoral systems:

Ease of entry for new parties:

First Past the Post: Very difficult. A new party typically needs to get at least 30% of the vote in a single riding in order to elect someone. What percent of the total vote they need in order to get someone elected depends on how regionally concentrated they are. That's why most new parties which form and are able to win seats under First Past the Post are regional protest parties.

Of course even these regional protest parties generally don't last all that long since they don't have the support to form a government and under First Past the Post, they just take votes from any other party with similar policies. So not only can they not gain any power, their presence tends to lead to the party they are protesting against taking power (Perot=Clinton victory, Nader=Bush victory, Reform=Liberal government) This is why there's even a 'law' which says that First Past the Post systems naturally lead to only having two political parties.

STV: Easier. Strategic voting is no longer a problem and a new party will start getting close to gaining seats as its support reaches double digits (roughly - it depends on how many members are elected per riding - the more, the better the chances for small parties).

Support for Extremist Parties: Mildly easier under STV but since you still need at least 10% of the vote (more in most cases) to get a seat, it's a question of how extreme a view something is if 1 in 10 people support it as their first preference.

Turnout: First Past the Post - probably the worst system, due to the high percentage of wasted votes, large numbers of safe seats where the outcome isn't in doubt, the problem of strategic voting and a lack of choice among candidates.

STV: Its complexity may discourage some people, and the percentage of spoiled ballots may be slightly higher, but the far greater choice, combined with no problem with strategic voting, no/fewer safe seats and fewer wasted votes would lead one to believe that turnout would increase under STV vs. First Past the Post.

Choice Among Candidates from the same Party: First Past the Post: none - if you want to vote conservative in Calgary West in the Federal Election you have to vote Rob Anders, the party tells you who to vote for.

STV: Yes - how many choices you have depends on how many people are elected from your riding. If 5, then you would have up to 5 choices of Conservative candidates to vote for.

Complexity: First Past the Post: Probably the simplest system you could come up with other than just flipping a coin.

STV: More complex. It is easy to vote (just put a 1 beside your first choice, a 2 beside your second choice, etc.) but the process for determining who gets elected in each riding is somewhat complicated (in order to make it as fair as possible).

Party Control of Electoral Process: First Past the Post: Limited to choosing who runs in each riding.

STV: Even more limited since voters can choose among the various candidates nominated by a party in a certain riding. If they don't like one of the people who wins nomination, the other candidates will be elected first. This makes it difficult for party leaders to parachute in' outsiders.

Likelihood of Majority Government: First Past the Post: High - because parties with more votes get disproportionately more seats under First Past the Post, majority governments are more likely. This is seen as a plus by those who believe that strong government is better government (up to a point - they generally don't support dictatorship) and who don't mind skewing the results to achieve it.

STV: Lower, because STV is generally proportional, in order to gain a majority the party would need to get close to 50% of the total vote. This doesn't happen very often (although it could, if that's what voters wanted).

Some people express concern that in a minority government situation, a small party could hold the balance of power (like the Bloc does in our current Federal government). Of course, this doesn't mean that a small party can get whatever it wants. Even if it does enter into a partnership with the ruling party, it is generally a junior partner and is lucky to get progress on a couple of it's key issues (those least objectionable to the ruling party, generally). Really, the only change is that the small party holding the balance of power (and the people who voted for them) won't be completely ignored like they would be under a majority situation.

Representation of Women (+ Ethnic Groups, etc.): Although women make up half the population, they have historically made up a much smaller percentage of assembly members under First Past the Post systems. Party list systems (including MMP) can increase the number of women in parliament, basically because the party leaders decide who gets elected, so if they want, they can decide that a certain percentage of those people should be women.

However, like First Past the Post, STV require candidates to both win a nomination for a riding and then win a seat in the riding itself so it isn't likely to increase the number of women elected. In fact, since STV is both more competitive and offers voters more choice than First Past the Post, it may lead to fewer women: if, that is, women are not being elected due to an unwillingness to compete or because voters don't want to vote for women.

Level of Change from Past: First Past the Post: None, First Past the Post is the past.
STV: STV would be a fairly significant change although, if you believe this book (a fairly famous work, which probably deserves a post or two itself), any impact on government effectiveness is likely to be limited - change would be limited to the composition of the assembly. Of course, if you don't like change for any reason, it makes sense to vote for the status quo.

----
Conclusion:

Simple enough?

If not, let's just say that just about anyone who has studied electoral systems seriously (like the Citizen's Assembly) has concluded that STV is better than First Past the Post and the last few decades have seen a lot of countries switch away from First Past the Post and hasn't seen any (that I know of) switch to it. There are reasons for this, and those reasons are what I tried to capture in this post and they're why I'll be voting yes on May 17th.

-------
Notes:

¹For those of you more comfortable in the symbolic world, the electoral system could be considered: F(v) = a, where v = the votes cast, a = the composition of the elected assembly and F is the function (electoral system) which takes v as input and produces a as output. And yes, I am a bit of a math geek.

² Some may wonder why geography is so important but other possible criteria for representation (class, gender, occupational class etc.) are ignored. If so, you should go read Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs. As she explains, the work of government (and what makes it ethically different from commerce and trade) is that it involves the control and management of physical territory. Hence the importance of territorial representation in the parliament.

--------

Some Resources:

Tons of relevant information at the site for the Citizen's Assembly

Additional info on First Past the Post, and Single Transferrable Vote, at Wikipedia

Dave Pollard had an excellent post on STV over at How to Save the World

The Electoral Reform Society has been studying what electoral systems work the best longer than anyone.

The best illustration of how STV works that I've seen can be found in a flash animation
put together by South Australia's State Electoral Office

One thing to note is that what the Aussie's refer to as Proportional Representation in the animation, we call Single Transferrable Vote, and what they call 'Exclusion (Bottom's Up)' is often referred to as Instant Runoff voting here.

A report on electoral reform from the Law Commission of Canada.

Fair Vote Canada is a group that was been working on improving the electoral systems across Canada.

Here is the same Vote Yes to STV campaign website that the button links to.

Finally, if you think I'm long-winded on this topic, don't go here. Within that site, you can also find this concise summary of the experience with STV in Ireland
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STV in B.C.

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Dec 18, 2004

Daniel Girard has an informative, albeit oddly timed article on B.C.'s electoral reform situation. This is the kind of concise, informative, matter-of-fact information piece a long-winded, opinionated person like me could never pull off. The one thing he doesn't do (and realistically couldn't in the space of a column), is provide much information on how the electoral systems in question (the proposed [and far superior] Single Transferrrable Vote and the existing [outdated and undemocratic] First-Past-the-Post ) actually work.

For that, I recommend this , a flash animation put together by South Austalia's State Electoral Office, that explains it all and is entertaining enough in its own right to watch even if you're not trying to learn about electoral systems. Well, it's pretty cute at any rate.

One thing to note is that what the Aussie's refer to as Proportional Representation in the animation, we call Single Transferrable Vote, and what they call 'Exclusion (Bottom's Up)' is often referred to as Instant Runoff voting here.

OK, back to PR

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Nov 22, 2004

First of all, even though I disagree with his conclusions I have to say that in his article, STV will be very very bad for Canada Jeffrey Simpson from the Globe shows himself to be a cut above the other fearful columnists who are so scared of changing the electoral system.

He makes pretty much the strongest case you can against electoral reform, avoids (mostly) the deceptive arguments and misrepresentations of many of the other columnists, makes reference to actual experience with other systems and even manages a few valid points (valid points being defined as those I agree with).

Nonetheless, there is lots I disagree with and I could do the same point by point rebuttal I did with the last couple of articles, but I saw the way my girlfriend's eyes glazed over when she saw the length of those posts, so I'm going to try something a little different this time, and focus on a more theoretical discussion of electoral reform.

(I know what you're thinking, sounds exciting)

As I see it, before choosing an electoral system we have to answer a fundamental question: is the electoral system solely a means to an end, or is it actually an end in itself?

Put another way, if we were assured (by some verifiably omnipotent being, say) that we would receive better government under a dictatorship than under a democracy, would we switch, or would we stick with the democracy.

If one system is more democratic than another but less effective, how do we trade these two things off against each other?

Take, for example, the last Federal election. At a rough estimate, I'd say that the average MP elected received about 50% of the vote (probably less), meaning that about half of all voters have someone in parliament representing them.

Under a Single-Transferrable-Vote system, that number would likely rise to at least 80%. Now say, (only for the sake of argument), that STV would lead to poorer decisions (for whatever reason). Does that mean we should stick to the current system which is 50% democratic, vs. one which is 80% democratic? If yes, then what if we had an option in which only 25% of the votes counted, but we figured it would provide even better government? 10%, 5%? Is there a line somewhere?

So where do our columnists stand in this debate? Murray Campbell quotes Churchill as saying,

"the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

in his argument that we don't want the system to be too democratic. Simpson says that,

"PR systems can make hard decisions if they absolutely have to, as in a crisis. But they don't instinctively put a premium on long-term thinking or provide the smack of strong government."

in his argument that we don't want the system to be too democratic.

Ian Urquhart of the star says that,

"If we end up with the B.C. model [STV], that delay [in implementing it] will be a blessing"

in his argument that we don't want the system to be too democratic.

From what I've seen, the only major columnist who has put the principle of democracy ahead of the goal of good (strong in their view) government is Andrew Coyne, for which I give him credit.

(Note: Richard Gwyn didn't really seem to take a side, he was focussed on his odd digression into the urban/rural split).

Darn it, every time I talk about PR it turns into another long post, I think my next one will simply say,

"PR is better - go study it for yourself, and don't believe everything you read in the paper."

Columnists and PR #2

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Nov 21, 2004

OK, I hope the pace at which columnists write absurd stories about PR is going to slow down because otherwise it's going to be hard for me to keep up.

Today in the star it's Richard Gwyn's turn with an article about how the push for PR is really a secret plan by urbanites to steal power from rural areas.

First off, he argues that election finance has already achieved some of the aims of PR saying that:

we've already achieved many of the benefits of PR through our new system of election financing. In our last election, the Greens didn't elect a single MP, as is commonly the fate of small, widely dispersed parties under the existing, winner-take-all system. But the Greens will get a lot of public funding for their 4 per cent share of the vote, so their voice will be heard across the nation anyway.

It could be just me but I haven't been hearing the voice of the Green Party across the nation too much lately. And I have this funny feeling that when it comes time to decide which party leaders get to participate in the debate prior to the next election, the media will argue that the Greens shouldn't be there because they don't have a seat in parliament. So they don't need a seat because they can make their voice heard anyway. But they can't make their voice heard because they don't have a seat. OK, then.

"But none of its advocates have yet explained the most radical consequence of a switch to proportional representation. This is that PR will significantly increase the number of urban MPs in our legislatures, and decrease correspondingly the number of rural MPs."

There are two forms of PR which are likely to be recommended in a switch to PR: either the Single transferable Vote system (STV) or the Mixed-Member Proportional System (MMP).

Under STV (which was recommended in B.C. by the Citizen's Assembly) there would be no such transfer from rural to urban (unless it was explicitly designed into the system).

Under MMP, some percentage (probably around 60%) of the seats would be elected the same as now and the rest would be elected based on party-lists (most likely, anyway). Whether those 40% would be more urban or rural would be up to the parties themselves and not a product of the system per se.

So, I can conclude that, far from being 'the most radical consequence of a switch to PR' a change in the rural-urban distribution of seats would only be accomplished via a specific attempt to do so, not by stealth.

"our most glaring political imbalance is the overrepresentation of rural Canada and the underrepresentation of urban Canada."

Even if you were to even out all the ridings so that they had the same population, I doubt that it would cost rural areas more than about a dozen seats across the country. Meanwhile, the Bloc received 54 seats in the last election, even though they were only entitled to 38 based on their share of the popular vote. And that's just one party.

If you ask me, the most glaring political imbalance in our system is the overrepresentation of regionally concentrated interests (like Separatist/protest movements) and the underrepresentation of more dispersed interests (like the Green or Libertarian parties).

Further down, Gwyn writes:

"Involved here, as PR advocates take care not to admit, is a transfer of power from voters to party professionals. In advance of the election, each party would compile a list of its second-choicers, in descending order. Those most liked by the party insiders would head the list and most likely would make it to Parliament."

Of course, this is the main reason why the Assembly in B.C. is recommending STV, a system which gives voters even more power (and parties even less) than they have in the current system. It's funny how, just a sentence after talking about how "there are innumerable forms of PR", Gwyn ignores the fact that for one of the most prominent ones, his next sentence just isn't true. Furthermore, an MMP system could be designed to reduce the influence of the parties on who gets elected, if that's what we want.

"These second-choice MPs won't be rooted in any riding. So star urban candidates would be natural choices, as well as representatives of ethnic and other minority groups, all of whom are concentrated in cities."

To his credit, Gwyn now gets around to defending his earlier assertion that MP's picked by parties under MMP are likely to be from urban areas. Still, it's not clear to me why there can't be star rural candidates and I would note that the biggest 'group' underrepresented in parliament is women - and last time I checked they weren't overly concentrated in cities.

"It's possible that the advocates of proportional representation don't realize this. It cannot be a coincidence, though, that almost all of them are urban types."

This is by far the most objectionable line in the article. First of all, it seems clear to me that, far from Richard Gwyn knowing so much more about PR then the people advocating it, the reverse is in fact true.

Secondly, the implication that the only reason people would support an electoral system is because it supports their urban/rural class is absurd. Is it so impossible to think that people are motivated to implement PR simply because it is a better system? Is it possible that the reason most of PR's advocates are urban dwellers is because (as Gwyn himself notes), most people in Canada live in cities? Does Gwyn really think that if I had never left the town I grew up in (an overrepresented rural area) I would be opposed to PR - and that the fact that I support it and believe that it is a better system is solely because I now live in a big city?

What is it about PR that leads columnists to write such absurd things? What are they afraid of?

Columnists and PR - What's the problem?

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Nov 21, 2004


Columnists like to write about electoral reform, but they don't seem to like studying or researching it.

Here's a copy of the letter I wrote to Ian Urquhart of the Toronto Star after he published this column filled with half-truths, quarter-truths and worse.

----

Dear Mr. Urquhart,

I am writing to you because I feel you have done your readers a disservice with your inaccurate portrayal of the Single-Transferable-Vote System (STV).

To begin with, your description of it as 'whacko' seems odd when you consider that it was originally promoted by the famed political scientist John Stuart Mill, is the recommended system for the group which has been studying electoral systems longer than anyone (Britain's Electoral Reform Society), has been successfully in use for over 50 years in stable democratic countries, and was overwhelmingly chosen by the Citizen's Assembly members in B.C. after long and careful consideration of all the alternatives.

Furthermore, you imply that STV is a rejection of compromise when in fact the opposite is true. Our current system has a large number of ridings with one person elected per riding. Party List PR has only one riding (the entire country) with a large number of people elected from it. STV compromises between these two extremes by having a smaller number of ridings than our current system (larger number than PR), with more people elected from each one (fewer people than PR). MMP compromises between the two extremes by effectively running the two systems in parallel, with some people elected under our current system and some under Party List PR.

By making this compromise, STV addresses your fear that "voters would lose their constituency-based representatives in the Legislature" by ensuring local representation. At the same time, it largely corrects the problems with proportionality, and strategic voting that plague the current system. Finally, it also avoids the problem of letting parties rather than voters decided who gets elected under a party list system like is used in much of Europe, while also being less prone to electing fringe/extremist parties than pure PR.


On this topic, your comment that "It seems tailor-made to elect extremist and fringe elements." is also untrue. Consider for a moment that the new assembly in Northern Ireland adopted STV for electing it's members and realize that you are suggesting we reject a system used in Northern Ireland, because it may elect extremists here in Canada! More to the point, even with 7 member ridings, a 'fringe' party would have to get at least 12.5% percent of the vote over a fairly large area (say the city of London, for example) in order to elect someone.

As an example, the Green Party, which received almost half a million votes in the last Federal election, likely wouldn't have won a single seat (or only a very few), even if 7 member ridings were used all across the country (they would have gotten more seats under MMP however - which makes your rejection of STV in favour of MMP on the basis of it favouring extremism a little odd as well).

The ranking of candidates from 1,2,3 etc. actually works against fringe candidates because all the members of the mainstream moderate parties are likely to choose other moderates as their second, third, fourth etc. choices. That is, not many people with a non-extremist first choice will make an extremist second (or third) choice.


"The B.C. assembly noted that the system is now in use in Ireland, Malta and Tasmania. Hmmmmm."

I imagine my parents, who immigrated here from Ireland back in the 60's, wouldn't be the only ones who wonder what you are implying with "Hmmmmm". Is Ireland not a successful, peaceful, democratic country? Have you checked to see whose GDP/capita is higher lately? Maybe you could clarify what it is about Ireland that is so different from us. Is everyone there whacko perhaps?

Anyway, It's not like the list of countries using our system is so impressive either, and if you can find any place in the world which has switched to it in the last 100 years, let me know (lots have switched away from it).


"If we end up with the B.C. model, that delay will be a blessing."

I find it amazing that you can reach that conclusion when you haven't made any kind of comparison of the pros and cons of STV with our current system. Especially bearing in mind that pretty much anybody who ever has made a serious attempt at such a comparison has concluded that STV is better than our current system.

As a journalist, you have a great deal of influence in your ability to reach readers and you also have an incredible luxury in being able to analyze political topics as a full time job, while most of us who are interested in these things have to do them on top of a full time job.

Bearing this in mind, I feel that you also have a responsibility to actually research the topics you write about in order to provide information which will inform rather than mislead - something you have failed to do in this column.

If you ever plan on writing about this topic again, I urge you to please visit and read the following links before you do so.


The Electoral Reform society (the section on voting systems is quite good):

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/ers/intro.htm

Dave Pollard's excellent post on the topic:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/10/26.html

The Wikipedia entry on STV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Transferable_Vote

If you made it this far, I thank you for your patience and look forward to your next column on the topic (assuming that you agree with me by that time, of course).

Sincerely,
Declan Dunne, Vancouver.