Electoral dysfunction, yet again Once again, Canada's
antiquated first-past-the-post system wasted millions of votes, distorted
results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional
differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed
to a record low voter turnout.
The chief victims of the October 14
federal election were: - Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the
Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the
most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation.
By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able
to elect 27 MPs. - Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie
provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals
and NDP, but took seven times as many seats. - Urban Conservatives:
Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters
in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.
- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the
Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37. "How
can anyone consider this democratic representation?" asked Barbara
Odenwald, President of Fair Vote Canada.
Had the votes on October 14
been cast under a fair and proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada
projected that the seats allocation would have been approximately as
follows:
Conservatives - 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)
Liberals - 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)
NDP - 18% of
the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)
Bloc - 10% of the popular vote:
28 seats (not 50)
Greens - 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)
Fair Vote Canada also has data for each province on the number of seats
won and number of seats actually deserved by each party. Odenwald emphasized
that any projection on the use of other voting systems must be qualified,
as specific system features would affect the exact seat allocations. "With
a different voting system, people would also have voted differently," said
Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. "There would
have been no need for strategic voting. We would likely have seen higher
voter turnout. We would have had different candidates - more women,
and more diversity of all kinds. We would have had more real choices."Fair
Vote Canada (FVC) is a national multi-partisan citizens' campaign to
promote voting system reform. FVC was founded in 2001 and has a National
Advisory Board of distinguished Canadians from all points on the political
spectrum Fair Vote
Canada
Also, http://www.electoralreformcanada.ca/