I’m experiencing delays in my last stages of academic preparation for fieldwork right now, which is frustrating. One good thing that has come as a result is that I will be here to vote in the upcoming Ontario election. While that in and of itself is hardly exciting, I am very interested to see how the referendum for the MMP reform goes.
The proposed changes would mean that 39 seats in the legislature would be “at large” and would be used make representation in the legislation proportional to the percentage of votes. It would also mean that in the future we would vote both for a local candidate and for a party.
It sounds like a pretty good system to me. What do you think (I’m looking especially at you, mathematician of the new world order)?
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I’m in favour of it. It’s quite similar to the systems they use in New Zealand and in Germany, neither of which have had any significant problems with it. The really clever part of mixed-member, AFAIC, is how neatly it separates the two roles of an MPP: as a representative of their particular riding, and as a vote for their party. By decoupling those two things, I think it’ll end up making the riding-based members more responsive to their constituents. (That is, once people understand the full impact of the system.)
I’ve heard some people claim that it’s too complicated, which I don’t think is true; certainly the sample ballots I’ve seen seem to be more or less self-explanatory.
The other main objection is that it gives “party bosses” too much power in their ability to set up the lists for the proportional members, who ultimately aren’t responsible to anyone except the party. Given how most MPPs under the current system are elected with rather less than a majority in their ridings, I think it’s a little delusory to claim that their current responsiveness to their constituents is anything other than theoretical. It’s possible to mitigate this somewhat through an “open list” system, where on the proportional side of your ballot you also get to select or rank-order people on the party list, but that becomes genuinely more complicated.
As for the fear of permanent minority governments… how is this a problem? It doesn’t seem to be one in Germany or NZ, where firm coalitions are the order of the day. A majority government is one that rarely if ever has to compromise, except in the case of internal dissension, and that’s dangerous in the hands of a highly ideological party; more so if the “majority” is just an artifact of the voting system, which it typically is.
Set your own life time more simple take the home loans and all you want.
I just linked this article on my facebook account.it’s an interesting read for everyone.