VoteCheck: The Quebec Election

Welcome to VoteCheck! We'll be publishing election analysis for municipal, provincial and federal elections in Canada to show voters how First Past The Post doesn't give us the governments we actually voted for. Our first installment is about this week's provincial election in Quebec. The headlines all say the same thing: "Liberal Majority". But the actual numbers tell a different story. The truth is, the majority of Quebec voters did not prefer the Liberal Party.

The Liberal party only got 4 out of every 10 votes - hardly a majority. But because of the quirks of our sub-standard voting system, they somehow ended up with over half of the seats, a huge 15% gift that they didn't earn.

And of course if the Liberal party got an artificial boost, that means those extra seats had to taken from someone else. Indeed, all the other parties in this election had their seat count artificially reduced! The most noticeable distortion was for Quebec Solidaire. With 7.6% of the vote, they deserved to win ten seats. Instead, they won only three.

These distortions reveal the inadequacies of our voting system. Sadly, distorted election results and fake majorities are quite common in Canada. But we can get rid of these problems with proportional representation. Watch our video, share it with your friends, and join our movement.

Voters deserve better than this.

[NOTE: If you live in Quebec, check out Mouvement démocratie nouvelle, a provincial campaign for proportional representation. Great article here]

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commented 2020-04-23 08:52:07 -0400 · Flag

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commented 2015-06-17 08:20:53 -0400 · Flag

\There is almost universal agreement among the basic values or goals of voting reform

http://nb.referata.com/wiki/voting_system_values summarizes “the list of requirements issued by the British government to the Jenkins commission. It was first proposed in the Canadian context by Nick Loenen, and then adopted, with minor modifications, by Fair Voting B.C. and Fair Vote Canada. A similar, but slightly longer, list was used by the New Zealand Royal Commission and was in 2005 adapted by the Law Commission of Canada. Any rigorous literature search will reveal broad agreement about these values. Politicians and electoral reformers on the left and the right, and from all political parties large and small, accept them. At Fair Vote Canada’s founding meeting, they were adopted by a roomful of members, with consensus being reached after including the words “and responsive”, having articulately questioned whether “stability” alone is the actual goal.” That list is the first four of the following, to which one can rationally add fixed election dates (5), simplicity and accountability goals (6) and not voting for parties but persons (7)

1) broad proportionality,

1a) instant adjustment to ensure proportionality so every vote counts exactly the same without districts having to change

2) extended voter choice,

2a) a fair chance for community-based independents – including municipal politicians – without strong (or any) party ties

3) stable and responsive government,

3a) aligning municipal divisions more closely to the ecosystems they manage and to stable federal/provincial districts

4) maintaining a link between representatives and geographic constituencies.

4a)guaranteed fixed and stable divisions of political responsibility for ecosystems protected and used in common

5) a relatively predictable election schedule so that small parties or those choosing leaders are not unduly disadvantaged

5a) fixed election dates guaranteed by statute that can only be over-ridden by a specific protocol that delays the writ drop This constraint is likewise more easily satisfied by a system in which seat shifts are generally proportional to the popular vote rather than being wildly volatile with small shifts in that vote in specific districts. The motivation to disrupt and dissolve legislatures is almost nil since no party is likely to gain a large number of seats by doing so at a particular time, and cannot benefit from vote-splitting among its rivals.

6) simplicity insofar as an ordinary member of the public can learn and practice the counting system with no expertise

6a) zero tolerance for any system that does not guarantee a paper trail, paper recounts, or relies on electronic storage

6b)backwards compatibility of the ballot so that those familiar withi FPTP voting systems can participate without spoilage

7) the public themselves, not the political parties, makes the final choice regarding who is to be trusted with real power

7a) every individual who acquires a vote in the legislature must have been selected by a process open to public input

commented 2014-04-10 15:23:03 -0400 · Flag

Four out of every ten votes does not adequately represent the voting public. I think that all of the discarded votes after the official counting was done, would paint a more accurate picture of what the voting public wanted. Every vote needs to have a voice.