Comments on: Regional MPPs Provides Rationale to Increase Legislature Size

By: Rick Anderson

Rick Anderson — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:39:57 +0000

Good stuff, Greg…shifting to an open regional list instead of a closed provincial list, very important that the OCA members think this “detail” through properly as they finalize things. The closed-list path they defaulted to is inherently undemocratic, and equips opponents of the larger PR-MMP initiative with a useful weapon to defeat the whole project. Sure hope they fix that….

By: Wilf Day

Wilf Day — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:35:54 +0000

“How do we guarantee equal representation for women?”

Parties can find any number of ways if they wish.

An example which you may not have realized is this: suppose this MMP model had been in effect in 2003. Suppose the Ontario PCs nominated their same local candidates, and put them all on the list. Now suppose they put men and women in alternate spots. (In reality most Conservative Parties in Europe put women in every third spot, but let’s suppose they used 50/50.) The PCs had 21 women candidates. The top 42 list spots could have gender equality. With fewer seats, the PCs might have won 22 local seats. Out of those top 42 names, say 17 of them won local seats. PC voters deserved 47 seats. That leaves 25 list seats. That makes up the top 42 names of which half are women. Okay, then the final five local MPPs are all men, so the PC caucus is only 45% women, but the point is, they could do that if they really wanted to, without putting anyone on the list but locally nominated candidates.

By: democraticspace

democraticspace — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:24:35 +0000

eeid — we can’t “guarantee” 50% women (we would need legislated quotas to do that, which is probably a bad idea). But, parties can and should take it upon themselves to ensure they run an equal number of men and women. How can they do that? The most obvious first step is to ensure that their regional list is gendered balanced. The second step is to nominate women in ridings not already held by an incumbent. And thirdly, of course, is to recruit women to run for the nomination when incumbent males retire.

By: eeid

eeid — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:13:00 +0000

How do we guarantee equal representation for women? Closed lists as used in Wales and the Basque country had ensured that 52 per cent of representatives in the Welsh assembly are women.

By: democraticspace

democraticspace — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 01:42:37 +0000

Wilf — one way to limit the size of the ballot, if that is a concern, is to simply have the regional ballot have as many candidates as there are available regional seats. In a 6-region 129-seat (90+39) MMP system, the largest region — Toronto — would have 8 regional MPPs. So each party would nominate 8 MPPs. With dual-listing allowed (running on both local and regional ballots), parties would have to be very strategic in who they nominate regionally. They could, in theory, simply run all their local candidates on the regional ballot. But since about 80% of local candidates are men and minorities are under-represented as well, parties would be under pressure not to run all local candidates on the regional ballot. It would not be wise to run a candidate on the regional ballot who is assured of a win locally, for example. Regardless, this is not a large ballot. People look for the party they want to support and they mark an X next to one of the 8 candidates for the party of their choice. I’ll give Ontarians a little more credit than you seem to — I think they can pick their preferred candidate off a list of 8. It’s quite simple. And the ballot isn’t very big. So instead of the 5 on my sample ballot, there would be 8. There’s no significant difference. I don’t think the OCA even looked at my proposal, so I doubt “they didn’t buy it”.

By: Wilf Day

Wilf Day — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 16:21:39 +0000

Keep in mind the OCA emphasis on simplicity: that an open list may cause too big a ballot. Your sample ballot was an excellent design. But it had only five regional candidates for each party. I don’t think OCA members bought it. With an average of 15 MPPs per region, major parties will want to nominate 15 or so list candidates each. Your sample ballot needs at least 50 names on it.

In North Rhine – Westphalia, the only German province with fewer than 35% list MPPs, they have 128 local MPPs and at least 53 list seats. The SPD list had 129 names, since most (125) were dual candidates. The CDU list had 126 names.

Can you make the ballot simple enough?

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 02:40:00 +0000

Nick, no party is ever going to break 80% in any region, so the point is moot. Moreover, candidates who lost at the riding level probably lost for a reason. If I vote against a candidate in my riding, it’s not just so that person can be elected to the legislature on the list!

By: Nick J Boragina

Nick J Boragina — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:06:14 +0000

Cfsr has ideas similar to my own. PR can be used for many reasons, one is to create minorty governments, this I oppose, but the other is to ensure the opposition gets fair representation. With a system where defeated candidates get the extra seats, you put a limit on any particular parties. lets take Toronto for example, with 20 ridings, and 5 list seats. any party can only take a maximum of 20 of these 25 seats, even if they somehow manage to take more then 80% of the vote, meaning the opposition will always have some representation in each region.

By: Devin

Devin — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 03:06:42 +0000

Second.

By: Cfsr

Cfsr — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 01:50:15 +0000

I would prefer that neither parties nor voters have a direct say in the list.

Giving it to voters biases the result to larger communities and high profile candidates.

Giving it to parties biases the result to insiders who can’t be bothered to run at the riding level.

I would prefer to see the list drawn from defeated candidates who sought election at the riding level.

My preference would be to rank the party list by the popular vote that each defeated candidate for that party received in their riding.

That would make working hard to finsih second or third as important as winning a local race-in terms of election-and that would improve the quality of local races across any province.

And it would mean that all MPPs had taken part in a riding level election as a prerequisite to sitting at Queen’s Park.