Minister of Democratic Institutions Introduces 8 Principles for Electoral Reform

[blahface]

Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef has outlined 8 principles for Electoral reform in Canada:

1) Canadians should believe that their intentions as voters are fairly translated into elections results, without (the) significant distortion that often characterizes elections conducted under the first-past-the-post system
2) Canadians’ confidence needs to be restored — in their ability to influence politics and in their belief that their vote is meaningful .
3) Reforms need to increase diversity in the House of Commons and politics more broadly.
4) The chosen reform can’t make the electoral system more complex.
5) Voting needs to be more user-friendly and accessible.
6) Local Connection an MP has with their constituents should be maintained.
7) It needs to be secure and verifiable.
8 ) Canadians need to be inspired to find common ground and consensus.

If you want to keep it simple, approval voting is the way to go. It easy to understand, it is easy to tabulate, and it tends to elect the Condorcet winner if there is one. You can always support your favorite without being penalized for it and you can also make compromise votes if you feel that you have to. It is just as easy as FPTP, but it is more expressive and representative.

If you want proportional representation, the simplest solution is to use asset voting. The ballot instructions can read:

Vote for a single candidate. Top 5 candidates win a seat in the House of Commons. Candidates may transfer all or part of their votes to other candidates.

Each candidate can have a transfer list that is public to the voters and STV can be used based on the candidates transfer list.

Using STV directly is a bit confusing and complicated for voters. It is not very transparent and it is hard to tabulate results. Also, you can't expect voters to want to rank 50 candidates. Voting for a candidate would be like voting above the line in Australia, but the list would be tailored to the individual candidate instead of the party.

[Grumman]

The ideal solution from the voter's perspective would be to combine the best parts of approval voting and single transferrable vote: vote for the candidates you want in order of preference, then stop. A system that lets you say Candidate A is your first choice and Candidate B is your second without also demanding to know whether Candidate Hitler Was Right is your 109th choice or your 110th.

[bilateralrope]

The ideal solution from the voter's perspective would be to combine the best parts of approval voting and single transferrable vote: vote for the candidates you want in order of preference, then stop. A system that lets you say Candidate A is your first choice and Candidate B is your second without also demanding to know whether Candidate Hitler Was Right is your 109th choice or your 110th.

Imagine a party that would be the first choice for about 15% of the population, but that population is pretty evenly distributed across the country, but everyone else ranks that party below others. For example, because the parties policies appeal to people of a specific age/income bracket.

I can't see any way for such a party to get a single seat under an STV system. But I feel that a party that is supported by 15% of the population deserves 15% of the seats in parliament. If you disagree with either point, I'd like to hear why.

When you are voting for a specific individual for a specific seat, and that individual disagrees with their party in some areas, how do you make it clear if you are voting for the party or the individual ?

How do I propose solving these problems ?

Proportional representation.

Get rid of the idea of electing a specific individual to represent a specific region of the country. Implement a simple proportional vote. At the election each person votes for a single party. The proportion of votes each party gets across the entire country determines what proportion of seats they get in parliament and they fill their seats from a list of people, starting at the top of the list and working down. If an issue becomes important for a region, then the people in that region will favour a party that deals with that issue, even if the region doesn't match the official region borders, so regional representation can happen if it's important enough to voters. Otherwise expect them to vote based on the issues they do care about.

But, if you really want to have regional representatives, Mixed-member proportional representation is an option. Party vote to determine how many seats each party gets, the seats first get filled by the regional representatives*. then the remaining are filled from the parties list. Just make sure that the number of regions is low enough that no party should get more regional representatives than the number of seats the party vote allocates them.

*Picking them by STV would be a good idea. But FPTP works well enough from what I've seen.

[Simon_Jester]

This may well work in a parliamentary system with a very centralized government.

Out of intellectual curiosity, what about a state which has a more decentralized federal system, and multiple branches of government with elected officials?

In the US, for instance, the same person might well want to vote Democratic for the state legislature (because they trust their legislator as someone who fights for their community), Republican for the state governor (because the incumbent Democrat is notoriously corrupt), Democrat for Congress (because the Republican nominee is an extremist loony), and Republican for president (because they trust the Republican's hair better).

Do they get to check "vote this party" in one box, or four boxes?

[bilateralrope]

This may well work in a parliamentary system with a very centralized government.

Out of intellectual curiosity, what about a state which has a more decentralized federal system, and multiple branches of government with elected officials?

In the US, for instance, the same person might well want to vote Democratic for the state legislature (because they trust their legislator as someone who fights for their community), Republican for the state governor (because the incumbent Democrat is notoriously corrupt), Democrat for Congress (because the Republican nominee is an extremist loony), and Republican for president (because they trust the Republican's hair better).

Do they get to check "vote this party" in one box, or four boxes?

Good question. I'd say:
- State legislature is selected by proportional vote where each person in the state votes for the party.
- Congress is another proportional election.
- State governor is a position for a single person. Proportional voting is obviously not an option here. So if you want the governor to be elected, go with STV. Having him appointed by the legislature is another option.
- The President is another single position for a single person. Treat this election the same as the state governor.

So that means 4 votes. Two votes for a party, two votes for an individual.

[Tribble]

Another option in Canada's case would be to elect one house based on proportional voting and the other house based on local representatives. Of course that would require a constitutional amendment, so fat chance of that happening anytime soon.

IMO mixed-proportional representation would be the best way to go though IIRC the Liberals are considering using ranked ballots.

[blahface]

Another option in Canada's case would be to elect one house based on proportional voting and the other house based on local representatives. Of course that would require a constitutional amendment, so fat chance of that happening anytime soon.

They could always do a parallel system. Elect half the house through approval voting or IRV and half through proportional representation.