On MMP

There is an election coming to Ontario on October 10th. More importantly, there is a referendum that day on how future elections will be conducted in this province.

I will let the official website do most of the explaining, but basically we can choose either to keep our "First Past the Post" (FPTP) way of electing representatives or choose a Proportional Representation system, MMP.

MMP is not the panacea that some claim. Its proponents contribute arguments that are either a) refuted by the experience of MMP in other countries, or b) sufficiently vitriolic enough about the shortcomings of FPTP that it hides the similar deficiencies in MMP. It isn't enough to show that FPTP is unfair in some way; one must also be convinced that MMP will change the system for the better.

I agree that MMP is more democratic. But that doesn't make it better. There is such value bound up with the word "democracy" that people tend to forget that, in the Platonic sense, democracy would be pretty much untenable in any modern society. For example, we elect representatives (less democratic) instead of voting on every single thing ourselves (more democratic). But the second option is not desirable; it would take too much time away from work and leisure. This is why we elect people to study the issues and come to decisions, feeling free to input where interest dictates.

I would be more inclined to vote for this version of MMP if the threshold was higher, but 3% is much too low. Our system is designed for big 'catch-all' parties that bring lots and lots of issues underneath its big tent. If you give an incentive for people to leave these parties and form single-issue ones, because all you need is 3% of the seats to voice your issue in parliament, it WILL happen. And when that happens, you'll have the traditional 3 parties plus some single-issue new ones that now have a voice and an ability to get their issue across by playing Kingmaker in forming government coalitions. Well the problem is that small parties don't win seats if they get 10% of the vote (in which case a sizeable number of people would agree with the issues)...under this version of MMP they will gain seats if they win only 3%. I don't think a party that has the support of 3 out of 100 people should have that much influence (and because every parliament will be a minority one, they will potentially have a great deal of influence).

Why shouldn't a party that wins 35% of the vote have a majority, so long as they win a majority of ridings? It might not be "fair" in the hypothetical, academic sense, but it's a system that everyone understands because it makes sense in reality. The party that wins a plurality of ridings wins a plurality of power. Say you were to elect a leader for your student chess club (because I know that's how you roll). 3 candidates split 97% of the vote [38%, 35%, 25%] but the one who got 38% of the votes wins. Is the fact that she won illegitimate, just because she didn't get over 50% of the vote? Should the candidate who wants to turn the chess club into a checkers club, who won 3% of the vote, have a say in how the chess club is run? Even though 97% of the people in your chess club most definitely do not want to turn it into a checkers club?

I think what ultimately wins out for me is the FACT that this will lead to a continual cycle of minority governments combined with a much greater influence by marginal parties. and I can't see how an infamously partisan Canadian political system will somehow shed its image and become more German, more inclusive and collaborative, simply because of MMP. Our politics isn't divisive as a result of our system - our politics is divisive because of our history, of our economic success and lack of adversity.

ALL that said, ultimately I don't think it will matter, because I doubt that 60% of Ontarians will vote for it. Maybe 64 of the ridings but not 60% of the whole participating electorate. First off, no old person will even understand the question, and those people have nothing better to do than vote. Secondly, even though the question is pretty clear, you can bet a lot of [insert PC way of saying "retarded people"] will be voting without any idea that a referendum is taking place, and in the process of attempting to understand what a "First-Past-The-Post" is and how they can get there, their heads will collectively explode.