Electoral Reform in Two Countries

[velvetpage]

Last May, I signed a petition and got myself on a mailing list for an organization called Fair Vote Canada. As its name implies, this group is a grassroots campaign to change the electoral system in Canada to get rid of some of its inherent inequalities. Having learned more about the American voting system in the last few days than I ever knew before, I can see some parallels here between the reforms we need in Canada and the ones Americans need (IMO). Here's a summary:

1) The Electoral College - this system works to disenfranchise voters in states that swing predominantly to either side. As such, it needs to be scrapped. A truly proportional government should not require such a thing. At the very least, it needs to be changed so that the electoral votes in each state reflect the percentages of actual votes - that is, if 47% of the popular vote went to Kerry, then 24 out of 50 electoral votes should go to him. A simple change that would benefit the entire electoral system. (As an aside: does anyone have any numbers about differing voter turnouts in different states? If I'm right about the effects of the electoral college, the turnout should have been significantly higher in Florida and Ohio than it was in, say, Texas.)

The Canadian equivalent to this issue is our first-past-the-post system. Basically, we don't elect a prime minister. We elect a Member of Parliament in our own local riding. The party that ends up with the most MP's elected across the country forms the government, and that party's leader (also an MP) is the Prime Minister. The problem is that it is entirely possible, in a close race, for an MP to win a seat with only about 35% of the popular vote. My MP had 37%, and the runner-up had 35%. The next runner-up had, I believe, 25%, and the rest went to the little guys. That means 63% of the voters feel they are unrepresented by their MP. The result is strategic voting (don't vote for the third guy, because it reduces the chances that the first-place guy will have enough; it's Ralph Nader all over again.) The other result is a lower voter turnout at every election since I started voting.

2) A standardised, paper voting system. I'm sorry, guys - the electronic version, or even the punch-card version, is too prone to error. One sheet of paper per voter with those little computer-read bubbles to colour in, and a whole bunch of golf pencils, means a lot more trees, and a much more transparent system. Also, it needs to be standardised as much as possible across the entire country. I realize that every district has different stuff they're asking about, that it's voting for all the little guys and the big guys and some referendum-type questions too; so long as the basic format and rules for appearance and logos are standard, things would be much improved. If you need to watch a video to figure out how to vote, then it's too complicated. If the information on the video doesn't match what voters were told by officials, or the machine fails to work properly - you've got bedlam.

There is no parallel for this in Canada. Municipal votes are counted with a bubble-card system and tallied instantly; all other votes involve marking an "x" in the little circle next to the name of the candidate you want. Simple. Transparent. Counted by hand, so it's unwieldy (believe me, I've done the counting.) Generally much easier to see where things go wrong, if anything does. (It did, in the Quebec referendum in 1995; it was a big outcry, too.)

3) I don't know if you have this one or not, but I didn't see any sign of it. Do you have a non-partisan Chief Electoral Officer? In Canada, this is the only person not allowed to vote, because their job requires them to be impartial. This one person oversees the election process, including registration, hiring, printing of ballots, etc, etc. They also hire electoral officers for each riding. I think these people are allowed to vote, but they are not allowed to show any preference for one party over another. It eliminates potential conflicts of interest caused by, say, business affiliations.

There. That's my take on the American election process, from the point of view of an outsider out to change her own system.

Comments welcome. :)

Comments

[kianir.livejournal.com]

I think we would see a significant liberal trend in the mountain region if Democrats had any reason in the world to vote. In our current age of literacy and mass media, we all have the capacity to be well-informed, making the electoral college unnecessary and, as you said, disenfranchising.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

What was the original reason for the electoral college?

[kianir.livejournal.com]

Low literacy rates and much smaller population are the most often cited reasons. It may have been a compromise between open democracy and a congress-picks-the-president system as well. (The number of electoral college votes, if I recall correctly, is equal to the number of members of Congreess, senate plus house.)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

So it's based on the British system, which is the one Canada has inherited. The idea is similar to our leader-of-the-party-with-the-most-seats system.

Well, if it's not working here, why would we suppose it works for you guys?

[kianir.livejournal.com]

(continuing the reply I accidentally sent too soon..)

As for two, a standardized system would be difficult here because each locale has a federal mandate to hold an election, but not instructed as to how. A lot of mixed things are included in each election, federal, state, and local officers and propositions. I'm not sure a federal requirement for specific voting machines would be taken well by local officials, especially if it wasn't federally funded. As it happens, the ballots for my precinct were the optical mark type you speak of.

I don't think we have any equivalent to a chief electoral officer. But making him ineligible to vote wouldn't seem to make him invulrnerable to large caah donations.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Well, providing some federal funding so that everyone could switch to the same type of system would probably be worth it - if this government is at all interested in fair voting. They have every reason not to be, after all - they've benefitted twice now from the problems.

Surely some kind of standardised form for a ballot could be created - a section for the President, one for congress, one for senate, one for municipal/county positions, and one for referendum issues. It takes a grassroots demand for this kind of clarity in order to make it happen.

As for the large cash donations - pay the person reasonably well, install some checks and balances, and you should be able to eliminate or at least control that problem. It's better to have fraud motivated by greed than by politics. Greed leaves a better paper trail.

Still Skeptical

[neosis.livejournal.com]

I'm still skeptical of proportional representation, it seems to have failed to work too often. However, it's interesting to note that Australia has a huge voter turnout (http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa060100a.htm). Voting is compulsory, though the penalty for not voting is a $25 fine.

Another interesting note is that Australia uses several different voting systems including both preferential first-past the post and limited proportional representation (http://www.australianpolitics.com/voting/systems/). However, it appears that the Condercet Method (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetEx.htm) would be more reliable than preferential system the Australians use.

Re: Still Skeptical

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'll look into these a little more closely when I have more time, but as far as I'm concerned, anything that results in more votes actually electing someone will be a change for the better. The fact that an average of 60% of voters vote for someone who doesn't win is discouraging at least and anti-democratic at worst. I like the preferential first-past-the-post mixed with proportional representation best, because it retains its regional flavour without being totally blocked in by it.

The regionality issue is the other reason we need change in this country. The NDP and the Bloc got the same number of actual votes nationwide, but the Bloc has more than double, in fact nearly three times, the number of seats. The same thing happened with the Conservatives in Ontario; they got about 30% of the popular vote but a lot less than 30% of the seats, because the guys who got 38% took home all the prizes.