Proportional Represetation? | |
I think in that case you need preferential voting. If you want A to win, but would choose B over C, you can vote 1 A And if A doesn't get enough votes to matter, your vote goes to B instead. That way you can vote for minor parties without fear they are going to be too minor and your vote wasted, and two similar parties can't split the voters so much. You should also have compulsory voting and a star sign in your flag | |
in america a seat in the house is won by districts (county) allocated in every state. and each district(county) votes for its own rep. the senate is decided by personal votes of the people in each state, but thats the u.s i don't know how Canada handles things like that. | |
The thing about proportional representation is that you can create a new (and viable!) political party any time a significant part of the population has interests that coincide and aren't adequately represented by the existing parties. Yes, the politicians are accountable to the parties. And the parties are accountable to the people. And if you don't like the parties, you can make a new party that, should people agree with it, they have no tactical voting reason not to support: if they like the party the best, and its interests coincide with a larger party, they are likely to form a coalition with that larger party anyway. With single member electoral districts and plurality voting you are generally left with two competitive national parties and then some regional parties such as Bloc Quebecois in cases of large cultural differences. It's a lot better than having a choice between giant douche and turd sandwich, and feeling compelled to vote for the one that is less shitty than the other. | |
I'm not sure how it would work here in the US since we have the State/Federal structural issue. Senators and Representatives are supposed to represent the interests of the State. Theoretically this comes before the interests of the party. While I think that it could be a good change I doubt many people would go for it if they tend to believe that their representatives will be representing their interests as a resident of such and such a place rather than representing a nation wide party. Since the House is elected based on citizen representation we might be able to get away with restructuring the Senate though the smaller states that gain more power through their Senators may not be very happy about that. | |
copy australias system /end thread ok in seriousness australia does not have full proportional representation, only in the senate i do believe. labor atm are technically in power with something like 37% of the primary vote, but they had to bribe the independents and greens to do so because it was a hung parliament you need the majority to be in power here. anyway, personally i feel for americans in the bible belt, they really get screwed by americas system | |
That's a pretty misleading post. Firstly, ALP and the Coalition both won 72 seats each out of the total 150 seats meaning that, after deferred votes, both sides had around 48% of the votes. ALP convinced more independents to join their coalition than the Coalition did (4 to 2) and thus formed the minority government. | |
Labor had 37.99% of the vote, Coalition 43.32%, Greens 11.76% and Independents 2.52%. For 150 seats proportional representation would have resulted in 57 seats for Labor, 46 for Liberal, 14 for Qld Nationals and 5 for Nationals (total of 65 for Coalition), 18 seats for Greens, 4 for Independents and 6 for 'Other'. Of course the way the system is geared is that the larger parties have an advantage. To get a seat you actually have to get the most votes in an electorate. So even though 12% of the population voted for Greens, because they are still divided over the entire country the Greens only ended up winning 1 seat. Then since the Greens are closer to Labor (only just), a majority of their votes in electorates where there is no majority winner go to the Labor candidate in the preferential system. In effect anyone voting for Greens are really voting for Labor. When you add up Labor + Greens and then Coalition and everyone else you get the 50/50 split that we see in the two party popular vote. The winners of the system are Labor, the losers are the Greens. Saying all that, there is not much I would change with the system. I think having a de facto 2 party lower house is a bit better than having a tonne of parties like in many European countries. The provision is though that the Senate is more open to 3rd parties, as it is. To have both houses with several parties would just slow things down and make back room deals worst. | |
I think proportional representation is the best way to get a governement that can make decisions on long terms by working together. If there are only 2 opposites, they try always to make undone what the other did so the country will be conservative. (I'm progressive so that ofcourse can influence my opinion). If you think this theory is untrue I would like to hear your opinion. | |
It is untrue, speaking from experience. While I prefer proportional representation over the "winner takes it all" system, let me outline some issues I see in my own country. 1) The coalition and the opposition still try to undo each other's work, but that's down to some individuals who (hopefully) are going to be out of politics soon one way or the other...we held emergency elections on Dec 4th after the opposition managed to topple the government by blocking necessary reforms then blaming the government for being ineffective...and now they have the gall to propose the exact same reforms as their own. 2) The smaller parties who get into the parliament get all ballsy because they know they can tip the scales either side in coalition negotiations, and often manage to extort a much wider influence than they should have according to the election results. 3) Set the bar too low, and you have a fragmented parliament, and it's harder to build a coalition. Set it too high and you're back to the other system. It's 4% currently in Slovenia, and I personally think it should be 6%. | |
Yea, that's very true. I live in Belgium at the moment and there was no goverment for 541 days.:D (Now there is one) And in the netherlands there are 150 members in the and no bar so the you can win 1 with 0,66% of the votes. They dont really have a good goverment at the moment.* (there is a minorty goverment supported by the extreme intolerant PVV) *In my opinion it's not good since I support tolerance and pluralism as important values. | |
Proportional representation does not reduce accountability--it creates it. PR was invented precisely to give voters power to hold political parties accountable. There is zero accountability under the current system, where the outcome of the election does not match the way we voted. Most of us live in safe ridings (which is what we call our electoral districts in Canada) and know who will be elected before the votes are cast. Most of us have few real choices, or none at all. Under no proportional system is the seat "given to the party to fill with whom they will". Under a party list system, parties put up a numbered slate of candidates before the election, and the voters can choose which party to vote for, based on the party list, just as they base their votes on the party leader and platform. Under the proportional systems most talked about for Canada (MMP and STV), voters will still have local representatives to whom they can turn for constituency services. Above all, PR prevents one political party from having all the power even though most people voted against them, which is the normal and present situation in Canada. PR requires parties to share power, creates a strong Opposition, and keeps Government accountable to Parliament, which is the way it should be. For more info: http://FairVote.Ca | |
Now when you say proportional...ah nevermind that joke is beneath me. | |
We use proportional representation in Scandinavia and we have managed to create some of the most pleasant and wealthy societies on the planet. I must say I love your decision to allow an undemocratic system to go on is based almost entirely on "It's inefficient." The point of democracy isn't efficiency, that just comes along on its own most of the time. | |
As someone living in Canada, I live in a democratic system where votes exist essentially within an electoral district to elect a single representative within a district. It's a first past the post system, whoever gets the most vote or the majority vote within a riding wins that riding. It's very similar to the system that elects congressmen and senators in the United States. Ridings are distributed by population with each representative representive a certain number of people. I don't think I need to explain much more becasue most Escapists should be fairly familiar with how a first past the post, representative democracy works.
Some people in Canada attack the system for being undemocratic becasue it's so easy for votes to get marginalized. For example, in Canada in 2011 the conservative party won a majority government with 39% of the popular vote. In 2008, 4.5% of the popular vote went to the green party and yet they didn't win a single riding.
The response to this problem that is usually suggested is to enact a system of proportional representation, where seats are portioned out according to popular vote. Becasue the conservatives won 39% of the vote they get 120 seats instead of the 166 they did. The Liberal win 58 instead of 34. Et cetera.
Now I personally don't like the idea of proportional representation, not becasue of the inevitable minority governments that arise (If anything minority governments encourage cooperation, despite being generally inefficient) but becasue I don't see it as being particularly democratic. The reason I don't see proportional representation as being democratic is twofold; becasue it reduces government accountability to its citizens and becasue it increases the power of political parties. It reduces accountability becasue if a representative is representing a riding they are accountable directly to the people inside that riding, in proportional representation (pure, that is) the seat is given to the party to fill with whom they will; instead of the people, the representative becomes accountable to the political party. While the people did vote for that political party, the ultimate goal of the party is to stay in power, and if the people disagree with a party action they don't have a person who is directly accountable to them with whom they can confide their greivances in and threaten with voting out of office.
My main question is how does the Escapist feel about proportional representation? I know several countries in Europe used mixed proportional and traditional representative democracy so how does that work? Are people in those systems happy with that system? Do you think the pros of proportional democracy outweigh both the cons of the same and the pros of representative systems?