This letter was emailed to the leaders of the federal Conservative, Liberal, New Democrat, and Green Parties on May 10th, 2015.
Dear X,
I hope this email finds you well. There has been a great deal of discussion for
a number of years now on the topic of electoral reform. It appears to me that a
major sticking point has been that the systems proposed all favour one party or
another. Furthermore, electoral systems should both be easy for voters to use
and produce results that reflect the democratic will of the electorate.
First-past-the-post and proportional systems tend to fail on one point or the
other. I have given these problems some thought and I would like to share a
possible solution I have devised.
Before I get to my idea I would like to apologize for this email's length. I
understand correspondence with politicians is supposed to be short as you are
all busy people but there was simply no way to make it any shorter without
sacrificing clarity. I also want to inform you that I was Leader of the Pirate
Party of Canada during the 2014 term. I am being upfront with this information
in case you discovered it through other means and assumed the system I am
proposing would benefit my own party. As I will point out below, my proposed
system does not benefit the Pirate Party of Canada, nor any party currently
without representation in the House of Commons. I would also like to mention
that I have sent this email to the leaders of each of the main federal parties.
Now, about my idea...
SINGLE MEMBER-PROPORTIONAL VOTE
Under our current system seat totals and popular vote have little relation to
each other. Proportional systems often greatly (and expensively) increase seat
totals to correct for this. I believe there is another way. What if instead of
modifying seat totals we modified the relative value of each members vote so
that while seat totals would still result from the number of ridings each party
won, the relative strength of each party's vote in the House of Commons would
be based on the popular vote?
I have so far found no other electoral system that gives elected representatives
unequal, or 'weighted', votes. However, I can see no practical reason that one
member-one vote *must* be preserved and a great deal of benefits to abandoning
the idea.
I would like to also draw your attention to the 2011 Federal Election for the
sake of comparison. The Conservative Party won 166 seats (53.89%) with 39.62%
of the popular vote. The NDP won 103 seats (33.44%) with 30.63% of the popular
vote. The Liberals won 34 seats (11.03%) with 18.91% of the popular vote. The
Bloc won 4 seats (1.29%) with 1.51% of the popular vote. Finally the Green
Party won a single seat (0.32%) with 3.91% of the popular vote. Using the same
system each Conservative MP would have a vote valued at 0.23, each NDP MP vote
valued at 0.29, each Liberal vote valued at 0.55, each Bloc vote valued at
1.51, and the single Green vote valued at 3.91. As a result the results from
using the FPTP electoral system will have been rendered mostly proportional.
Advantages of the system I have proposed:
-The voting system does not change at all for Canadian voters.
-It is as understandable and simple as FPTP is.
-It renders the House of Commons mostly proportional.
-It is no more expensive than FPTP is.
-It benefits all of the main political parties in different ways.
-It makes votes for parties in ridings where they will never win matter.
Now, an astute reader will note that the number I got from splitting the
proportional vote received by the parties between their MPs is slightly off.
This is due to the presence of votes for parties that did not win seats. At the
federal level (and in many provinces) this is not an issue due to the totals of
such votes being negligible from election to election. While it is a small
concern I felt I best make you aware of it.
I hope you will give my idea some thought but I understand you (and the other
leaders) have already stated your preferences in this regard.
Respectfully,
James Wilson
Dear X,
I hope this email finds you well. There has been a great deal of discussion for
a number of years now on the topic of electoral reform. It appears to me that a
major sticking point has been that the systems proposed all favour one party or
another. Furthermore, electoral systems should both be easy for voters to use
and produce results that reflect the democratic will of the electorate.
First-past-the-post and proportional systems tend to fail on one point or the
other. I have given these problems some thought and I would like to share a
possible solution I have devised.
Before I get to my idea I would like to apologize for this email's length. I
understand correspondence with politicians is supposed to be short as you are
all busy people but there was simply no way to make it any shorter without
sacrificing clarity. I also want to inform you that I was Leader of the Pirate
Party of Canada during the 2014 term. I am being upfront with this information
in case you discovered it through other means and assumed the system I am
proposing would benefit my own party. As I will point out below, my proposed
system does not benefit the Pirate Party of Canada, nor any party currently
without representation in the House of Commons. I would also like to mention
that I have sent this email to the leaders of each of the main federal parties.
Now, about my idea...
SINGLE MEMBER-PROPORTIONAL VOTE
Under our current system seat totals and popular vote have little relation to
each other. Proportional systems often greatly (and expensively) increase seat
totals to correct for this. I believe there is another way. What if instead of
modifying seat totals we modified the relative value of each members vote so
that while seat totals would still result from the number of ridings each party
won, the relative strength of each party's vote in the House of Commons would
be based on the popular vote?
I have so far found no other electoral system that gives elected representatives
unequal, or 'weighted', votes. However, I can see no practical reason that one
member-one vote *must* be preserved and a great deal of benefits to abandoning
the idea.
I would like to also draw your attention to the 2011 Federal Election for the
sake of comparison. The Conservative Party won 166 seats (53.89%) with 39.62%
of the popular vote. The NDP won 103 seats (33.44%) with 30.63% of the popular
vote. The Liberals won 34 seats (11.03%) with 18.91% of the popular vote. The
Bloc won 4 seats (1.29%) with 1.51% of the popular vote. Finally the Green
Party won a single seat (0.32%) with 3.91% of the popular vote. Using the same
system each Conservative MP would have a vote valued at 0.23, each NDP MP vote
valued at 0.29, each Liberal vote valued at 0.55, each Bloc vote valued at
1.51, and the single Green vote valued at 3.91. As a result the results from
using the FPTP electoral system will have been rendered mostly proportional.
Advantages of the system I have proposed:
-The voting system does not change at all for Canadian voters.
-It is as understandable and simple as FPTP is.
-It renders the House of Commons mostly proportional.
-It is no more expensive than FPTP is.
-It benefits all of the main political parties in different ways.
-It makes votes for parties in ridings where they will never win matter.
Now, an astute reader will note that the number I got from splitting the
proportional vote received by the parties between their MPs is slightly off.
This is due to the presence of votes for parties that did not win seats. At the
federal level (and in many provinces) this is not an issue due to the totals of
such votes being negligible from election to election. While it is a small
concern I felt I best make you aware of it.
I hope you will give my idea some thought but I understand you (and the other
leaders) have already stated your preferences in this regard.
Respectfully,
James Wilson
