Take me to your leader
I
took the exam a few weeks back, but don't have my citizenship yet, so I
don't get to vote in the coming Federal Elections of Canada. No big
deal: it's pretty improbable that the winner wins by one vote in any
riding, and besides, seeing the ads that the three major parties have
put out, I can't decide which one is the dumbest.
Since the liberals are the center and in power, both conservatives and NDP attack them, with the exact opposite arguments, of course. Conservatives have been running a amateurish-looking (I honestly hope that this was on purpose) ad where several folksy people watch "news" of liberal corruption and shake their heads. Liberals countered by showing the ads consisting of nothing but the conservative leader's head, caught in a particularly unappealing freeze frame, on which they superimpose some of totally out-of-context quotes by him about matters which are not really Federal issues anyways. NDP also plays the corruption angle, but complains that liberals don't tax and spend enough but serve the greedy corporations instead of the little guy. I think I now understand much better what some American bloggers that I like mean when they say they hold their noses and vote republican.
The election system where each district elects one representative is typical in Anglo-Saxon countries, and it is an interesting contrast to the Finnish system where a certain number of representatives are elected in each district, winners determined according to the D'Hondt method. Each party puts out a list of candidates for each district, and the voters can vote any of them. For each list, the total number of votes that its members received is added together, yielding the total votes for that list, let's call it n. The candidate in the list who received most votes gets the score n, the candidate who was second in the list scores n/2, the third gets n/3 and so on. In each district, all candidates are ranked according to their score, and the given number of highest-ranking candidates are elected. This system allows smaller parties to exist, which is both a bug and a feature. Since adding a new candidate to a list doesn't hurt the party as a whole, a party might put up even 50 candidates in a district where it expects to gain 2 or 3 seats.
Far be it from me to come to a country and an immigrant and then suggesting it to change its election method, but at least it's an interesting thought experiment to think of what would happen if Canada (or even more interesting, USA) adapted a similar system for electing the MPs (congressmen). How would the existing main parties split? Or even if the single-winner-per-district system was kept, but each party could put several candidates to each district, where the overall winner was then determined as a simple special case of the above D'Hondt rule. I have often wondered how a party selects the candidate for a district, especially if that district is already a certain win for them. There must be a lot of interesting stuff going on behind the scenes, since I bet that lots of people would like to be MPs and congressmen.
Since the liberals are the center and in power, both conservatives and NDP attack them, with the exact opposite arguments, of course. Conservatives have been running a amateurish-looking (I honestly hope that this was on purpose) ad where several folksy people watch "news" of liberal corruption and shake their heads. Liberals countered by showing the ads consisting of nothing but the conservative leader's head, caught in a particularly unappealing freeze frame, on which they superimpose some of totally out-of-context quotes by him about matters which are not really Federal issues anyways. NDP also plays the corruption angle, but complains that liberals don't tax and spend enough but serve the greedy corporations instead of the little guy. I think I now understand much better what some American bloggers that I like mean when they say they hold their noses and vote republican.
The election system where each district elects one representative is typical in Anglo-Saxon countries, and it is an interesting contrast to the Finnish system where a certain number of representatives are elected in each district, winners determined according to the D'Hondt method. Each party puts out a list of candidates for each district, and the voters can vote any of them. For each list, the total number of votes that its members received is added together, yielding the total votes for that list, let's call it n. The candidate in the list who received most votes gets the score n, the candidate who was second in the list scores n/2, the third gets n/3 and so on. In each district, all candidates are ranked according to their score, and the given number of highest-ranking candidates are elected. This system allows smaller parties to exist, which is both a bug and a feature. Since adding a new candidate to a list doesn't hurt the party as a whole, a party might put up even 50 candidates in a district where it expects to gain 2 or 3 seats.
Far be it from me to come to a country and an immigrant and then suggesting it to change its election method, but at least it's an interesting thought experiment to think of what would happen if Canada (or even more interesting, USA) adapted a similar system for electing the MPs (congressmen). How would the existing main parties split? Or even if the single-winner-per-district system was kept, but each party could put several candidates to each district, where the overall winner was then determined as a simple special case of the above D'Hondt rule. I have often wondered how a party selects the candidate for a district, especially if that district is already a certain win for them. There must be a lot of interesting stuff going on behind the scenes, since I bet that lots of people would like to be MPs and congressmen.
Considering how many Americans had trouble correctly completing a usable ballot in the Bush-Gore election of 2000, I'd say the Finnish method of voting sounds way beyond our pay grade in complexity.
Posted by Steve Sailer | 8:41 PM
We often hear from lefties about proportional representation schemes. They want to vote for Naderite candidates. When I point out that I could vote for Pat Buchanan they usually think prop rep is less wonderful than they thought at the start.
On the whole, I think the 2 party system keeps everyone more reasonable and ready to be a governing party rather than bomb throwers.
-Rob
Posted by Anonymous | 1:10 AM
The big thing that would change is that non-citizens would be disenfranchised. As things now stand, districts are composed of equal numbers of residents, and it matters not whether the residents are citizens. Thus, each collection of (whatever the threshold is) residents can elect one representative.
Consider a heavily immigrant district. If what few voters there are in that district vote as the other residents would vote, in effect, all the residents have a vote when it comes to the House of Representatives.
Under proportional voting schemes, they would lose this de-facto voting power.
Posted by Anonymous | 11:14 AM