Ontario MMP Referendum

[Snrrub]

In a seemingly unusual departure from U.S. politics, I'm interested in hearing the thoughts of fellow Ontarians (or anyone, for that matter) on the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) referendum taking place on October 10th in Ontario.

For those that aren't familiar, a referendum on provincial electoral reform will appear on ballots during this year's provincial general election. If the referendum passes, the Ontario parliament will be re-organized so that 39 of the seats (out of a total 131) will be filled proportionately by the popular vote earned by each party province-wide. The remaining 93 seats will be decided by regional contests as exists today. The idea is that if a single party gets, say, 5% of the popular vote, but not enough votes in any particular juristiction to send a representative, they will still be able to control 2 seats (5% * 39). The 39 individuals will be selected from prioritised lists pre-published by each party.

So... thoughts? I know we have a few Ontarians that might be interested in this topic. I personally hope the referendum fails, and I'll explain why if there's any interest in this thread.

[Blog]

That is interesting. You are essentially voting twice. I like it. US has a big gerrymandering problem, this seems like a way to stop that from becoming so prevalent.

[Gesslar]

I'm not sure I am on board with this system, but it could be that I am not as informed as I could be- MPPs are traditionally supposed to be representative of their ridings, if these pooled MPPs are in, then which people are they representing? Just the party?

[asgoth]

A similar system is already in place here in Germany, and it does strenghthen the parties rather than individuals, as people who lack the charm to be voted directly in any area may get their seats through the party.

I think it is a good idea.

[Gesslar]

ok..

1: Who decides what people are on the top of the list? If it's the party, then someone a specific riding voted not to get into office could still get into office. To me, that seems like not democracy.

2: I am not convinced that this actually fixes anything. It seems like they want to -mix- popular vote with representation. Sort of like, they want the benefits of both, but without the drawbacks of each, except it introduces new drawbacks.

Plus, I am also not convinced that does anything more than simply strengthen party presence for the sake of the party.

[Snrrub]

Originally posted by karahd
I'm not sure I am on board with this system, but it could be that I am not as informed as I could be- MPPs are traditionally supposed to be representative of their ridings, if these pooled MPPs are in, then which people are they representing? Just the party?

That question leads to my biggest complaint with the system. Ideally, one might think that those 39 "represent Ontario as a whole". The problem is that since they're elected by a popular vote, they don't need to represent Ontario - they need to represent Toronto, since that's where most of the votes are. As far as I'm concerned, the proposed system simply adds 39 seats to the Toronto area.

Originally posted by karahd
Who decides what people are on the top of the list? If it's the party, then someone a specific riding voted not to get into office could still get into office. To me, that seems like not democracy.

Yes, the party decides how their list of candidates is prioritised. Because I believe it will inevitably be used as a mechanism for chronyism, this is the 2nd biggest reason I dislike the proposed system.

It should also be noted, because I forgot to mention it initially, that the new ballots would include two different votes. In other words, the person you are voting for regionally doesn't have to be in the same party as the 'popular vote' part, since they're separate items on the ballot.

[Blog]

Originally posted by asgoth
A similar system is already in place here in Germany, and it does strenghthen the parties rather than individuals, as people who lack the charm to be voted directly in any area may get their seats through the party.

Actually, now that you describe it like that, I don't like the sound of it as much. I think there is too much straight party line stuff going on anyway now, strengthening the party will just make it worse.

I do like the idea of throwing a couple seats to the constant minority parties who can get 5% or so of the votes, but not a seat.

[Aristotle]

I think there are better ways to improve minority party representation than to give this enormous amount of power to political parties that already tend to have too much.

I also think a number of our Canadian brethren have raised other pretty scary points (like Toronto effectively getting 39 more seats).

[Carrah]

I'm a bit torn on this issue as it stands now.

On one side of the coin, I understand the concerns that have been raised about the list members, and the fact that you are not voting for a specific person the way you are when you are voting for your riding. I think that there are positives and negatives about what is proposed. The positive is that for ridings where a voter supports a party other then the one that wins in their area, they are not excluded from representation. Individual votes have more sway in the makeup of the 131 seats. The fact that the representation is supplimented from candidates chosen from a list is not neccessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it would be interesting to see how it might impact the flavor of parliament. Instead of having all 131 MPPs be directly accountable to constituents, including being subject to the sway of them, you will have 39 who are basically there to freely represent the politics of the party.

Whether this is a good or bad thing, that there would be MPPs not directly tied to a riding, is a matter of personal consideration. I think that it would help fix some of the problems that skew current issues of representation, namely that the candidates chosen in each individual riding are not representing every voter within that area. With the proposed change, these voters still contribute to the makeup of parliament, and receive representation from the list members.

Lastly, I want to touch on the idea that it means 39 extra seats for Toronto. Under our current system, areas with denser population are split into more ridings. Areas that are less densely populated have fewer ridings. That doesn't change under MMP. These extra 39 seats are presumably to be filled by representatives of the party as a whole, as decided by the party. So for the people who have always felt that the split between regions has been a downfall of the electoral process, isn't this a step in a better direction? A step that is based explictly on numbers rather then on geography.

Ultimately, I'm currently undecided.