A proportional representation model for Nova Scotia
Published by admin on Tagged UncategorizedNear the onset of the current Nova Scotia general election campaign Premier Rodney MacDonald expressed his concern with proportional representation:
“One of the concerns I have . . . is the issue of proportional representation. As a rural Nova Scotian, that scares me . . . because that means less of a voice for rural parts of Nova Scotia.”
Wilf Day has taken this concern hear on in an excellent post on his own blog entitled “What would a proportional representation model for Nova Scotia look like?” We encourage you to read it and provide feedback.
Renewing Nova Scotia’s Democracy
Published by admin on Tagged UncategorizedFair Vote Nova Scotia was founded in 2004 as a chapter of Fair Vote Canada to raise awareness of electoral reform in Nova Scotia and across Canada. Our purpose is to gain broad, multi-partisan support for an independent, citizen-driven process to allow Nova Scotians to choose a fair voting system based on the principles that all voters are equal, and that every vote must count.
In other words, we believe that Nova Scotians should be able to choose a voting system that best meets the needs of all Nova Scotians.
So is our current system meeting our needs? Well, by one of the most important measures, voter turnout, it is not:
- 1960: 82%
- 1963-1993: 75-78%
- 1998-2003: 66-68%
- 2006: 60%
So people are voting with their feet: by not showing up at the polls: in fact, far more Nova Scotians eligible to vote now choose not to vote than to vote for any one political party.
Why? Since 1980, over half of all votes cast by Nova Scotians in provincial elections have not gone to elect anybody: the phenomenon of so-called wasted votes: While we question whether any vote is truly wasted, it still raises an important question: if more than half of the people that bother to show up on election day see that their ballot does not elect anyone, is it any wonder that less and less people are showing up?
Of course, it not only doesn’t count some votes, depending who you vote for and where you live, your vote might be more likely to count than someone else:
In the 2006 Election: Conservatives, with just over 160,000 votes won 23 seats, or 6,962 voters per seat; interestingly, they won two less seats than previous election despite getting over 3% more of the popular vote
- NDP, with just over 140,000 votes won 20 seats, or 7,006 voters per seat
- Liberals, with just under 95,000 votes won 9 seats, or 10,541 votes per seat
- So a Conservative or NDP votes is worth about 1.5 times what a Liberal vote is province-wide
2003 Election much worse:
- Conservatives: 5,927 votes/seat
- NDP: 8,432 votes/seat
- Liberals: slightly more of the vote than NDP, 3 less seats: 10,701 votes/seat: so a conservative vote was worth almost twice what a Liberal vote was
So maybe if you are a Liberal this looks pretty bad, NDP so-so, and for the Conservatives pretty good. But this depends where you live: at the regional level
HRM:
- Conservatives in HRM: 42,279 votes, 3 seats: 14,093 votes/seat
- NDP in HRM: 66,488 votes, 13 seats: 5,114 votes/seat
- So, not so good for Halifax Tories: an NDP vote is worth almost 3 times as much in HRM
- So now the NDP are looking pretty good, until we look at the Valley:
- NDP: 12,700 votes, no seats
- Liberals: 20,872 votes, 4 seats
So Halifax Conservatives, Valley New Democrats, and many Liberals have something in common: they all get marginalized by the current voting system! Similar disparities exist in most regions of the province, and are even worse in federal elections: I could go on throwing numbers at you, but I won’t.
Again, given that most people’s votes are not counted, and given that not all votes are counted equally (depending who you vote for and where you live) is it any wonder people aren’t turning out to the polls?
What can we do about it? Well, our FPTP system was developed a long time ago, and many other systems have been developed since: fairer more proportional systems are in use in many countries, including most new democracies, and several that got their start not long after we did, such as:
- Australia: use a form of transferable voting (IRV) for their house of commons, and a form of multiple member single transferable voting (STV) for their senate
- Ireland: use a form of multiple-member transferable voting (STV)
- New Zealand: party-list proportional representation (MMP) at the national level, and STV for local elections
These systems deliver far fairer, more proportional results, far less wasted votes (as little as 1% in New Zealand); they also generally have much higher voter turnout
There are lots of options out there, and every system differs from country to country and province to province depending on needs: the challenge is to design a system that fits the needs of Nova Scotia and that engages all Nova Scotians
We recommend the creation of a Citizens’ Assembly of randomly selected Nova Scotians from across the province who will consult with Nova Scotians, develop the criteria, learn the systems, and design the best system for Nova Scotia, which will then be put to the people of Nova Scotia in a referendum backed up with a well-funded public education campaign. In other words, the process should have both a democratic front end (an assembly which consults with Nova Scotians) and a democratic back-end (a referendum with a proper public education camapign). What better way to celebrate 250 years of Democracy in Nova Scotia than by actually engaging Nova Scotians in the process of renewing our democracy?
Again, we have a serious problem here in Nova Scotia, and what we are looking for is a Made in Nova Scotia solution.
Subscribe to our RSS feeds!
Recent Posts
- A proportional representation model for Nova Scotia posted on May.24
- Renewing Nova Scotia’s Democracy posted on Nov.30
Recent Comments
