If IRV is the answer, you've lost sight of the question

During the Ontario electoral reform referendum, a number of people--nearly all of them Liberals--kept popping up to say that they didn't like the system the citizens' assembly proposed, but that they really liked a different reform called Instant Runoff Voting (or IRV) instead. And since the rejection of Ontario's proposed MMP reform, these voices have only gotten louder.

What is IRV? Although originally created for single-winner elections like those that elect mayors or presidents, this is the system Australia currently uses to elect its House of Representatives. It is also known as Alternative Vote, or AV. In this system, voters receive a ballot on which they have to rank-order their preferences. If no candidate receives a majority of first choices, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated, and ballots cast for that candidate are redistributed to the continuing candidates according to the voters' indicated preferences. The result is a system which, when it is used to produce legislative bodies, tends to reduce the full spectrum of political choices to two large parties, like you tend to find in Australia (or the U.S.).

But if you think IRV is the answer, you've lost sight of the question.

Let's back up for a moment and remember what the problems are in Canada that electoral reform is supposed to fix. Our current voting system of first-past-the-post is designed for places that have a clear two-party reality--and it reinforces that reality by preventing alternative choices from gaining a toehold. But over the last few decades, Canada has managed to defy those odds and develop various alternatives to the Big Two. This means that what we have right now is a multiparty reality held hostage by a voting system designed for a two-party reality.

Now, if this were a simple matter of unfairness toward small and midsize parties like the Greens and the NDP, the issue might not gain much traction. But the thing is, this disconnect between our political reality and our voting system leads to weird artifacts such as "majority" governments that get as little as 37% of the vote (and therefore only represent 37% of the voters), and which sometimes even achieve this dubious status without winning the most votes. This doesn't happen in a two-party reality, but because we no longer have a two-party reality and haven't for a good long time, the voting system has stopped functioning normally. This affects not just small and midsize parties, but everyone. And if we want to avoid those weird artifacts, we need a new system that is built for our new multiparty reality and truly accounts for the full spectrum of choice available in that reality.

Any system based on proportional representation (i.e., systems that make sure every vote ends up counting toward electing someone) would address these problems. IRV, on the other hand, because it is yet another system that's designed for an essentially two-party reality (although perhaps one with a small handful of tiny parties), would address the problem of...I'm not sure what, honestly. The Conservatives being in power sometimes, maybe? It certainly would solve that little "problem" either federally or in Ontario--because the Liberals are the second choice of a lot of Conservatives as well as a lot of New Democrats in both places, they would be the clear beneficiaries of an IRV system. And as a system that severely punishes any parties but big, established ones, it might even solve the "problem" of the existence of small and midsize parties, too.

But here's the fly in the ointment: while that scenario might be Jason Cherniak's wet dream, it's not exactly one that would accurately represent the choices of most Canadians. There's a word for that: undemocratic. Not to mention the fact that replacing an outdated voting system that's making problems for us with a newfangled voting system that makes those problems even worse is a pretty ridiculous idea.

If you really like the idea of a ranked ballot, though, you're in luck--there's a way of achieving that while still keeping the element of proportional representation that we need to fix the disconnect between our multiparty reality and our two-party voting system. The Single Transferable Vote system, or STV, came within three points of meeting the 60% threshold necessary for adoption in B.C. in 2005. And because it came so close, B.C. is getting a second kick at the STV can in conjunction with the next provincial election in May 2009, with assurances that there will be better financing for education this time around. (If this idea appeals to you, you can get involved with B.C.'s push to change the system over here.)

MMP: Tom Kent, Andrew Coyne, and lawn signs

Tom Kent, the former principal assistant to Lester Pearson, has a great column in the Globe and Mail today about MMP.

Andrew Coyne has published a few good zingers at his blog that he couldn't work into his official columns on MMP. The last paragraph is great, but this line is so wonderful and so true that I wish I'd thought of it myself: [MMP] wouldn't mean the end of majority governments, but the beginning.

If you live in Ontario, but you don't have a "vote for MMP" sign on your lawn or in your window, consider contacting your local riding contact for an official one or even printing out your own.

No appointed MPPs for Ontario under MMP

You know how defenders of the status quo voting system in Ontario have been insisting that at-large or party-list candidates will mean "appointed MPPs?" Well, as of today, all three of the major Ontario parties have stated that they will not appoint list candidates, but elect them through democratic processes. Anyone who is feeling cautious about voting for MMP because they're afraid candidates could be appointed can now rest easy.

This commitment transforms an already pretty darn good MMP model into a great one. Anyone at all should be able to vote for this now.

See also here, here, here, and here. And for a wonderful piece debunking this myth even before this commitment was made by all three parties (on the basis of how things actually tend to work in other jurisdictions with similar systems), everyone and his brother should be sure to read Andrew Coyne's column "MMP would not mean appointed party hacks."

MMP wisdom from real live Ontarians

I'm sitting over here in Edmonton, so it's been hard for me to justify why Ontarians should pay attention to my support of MMP in the October 10th voting reform referendum. But there's been some really great stuff coming out of Ontario, too. Here are just a few of my favourite examples:

Why our current system is bad:
Andrew Coyne
James Bow
Rick Salutin

Why MMP would be a lot better:
Ari Daigen
James Bow
Davey from "Davey's Politics", and again.

Correcting the misinformation supporters of the status quo are spreading about MMP:
Andrew Coyne
John Baglow, and again.

Why the status quo is REALLY scared of MMP

In the last couple of days, various pro-voting-reform forces have issued challenges to the leaders of the two biggest Ontario political parties. Liberals for MMP has demanded that Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal leader and current premier, make clear his position on MMP. At the same time, voteformmp.ca has called upon John Tory, the Conservative leader, to state that he would find a democratic process for electing "at-large" or "list" candidates if MMP were to pass. So far, neither leader has responded.

Common wisdom says that these two leaders are staying silent because they're scared they could lose seats under MMP, and therefore don't want to draw attention to the referendum at all because they're hoping it will fail. I don't buy that. Don't get me wrong--I agree that they're both hoping it will fail, and I agree that it's because they're scared. But they're scared of something much, much bigger than the possibility of losing a couple of seats. What they're really scared of is having to relearn everything they know about how to do their jobs.

See, in Canada we're used to single-party governments. Majority or minority, it doesn't matter--you've still only got one party in the driver's seat, one party that gets to put through their own ideas without any input from anybody else. This is a hugely powerful position to be in, and it promotes a mindless antagonism that you don't see in most other countries' politics. The party in government has to spend all its time trying to make the other guys look so bad that people won't vote for them next time, and the opposition has to spend all its time trying to do the same thing with the governing party so they can actually do more than dream of absolute power. The whole culture is set up this way: entire political careers are built on how best to rant and roar in ways that will make the other guys look bad (even if what they're doing is really not all that different from what your guys are doing), and if one of the other parties has a good idea, you've got to find some way--any way--to twist it enough to make it look like a bad one.

In places that have MMP, though, the norm isn't single-party governments at all. Instead, those places tend to have multi-party majority coalition governments. This means that the party that gets the most seats chooses a coalition partner to form a government with, allowing the two parties together to add up to more than 50% of the seats. After this happens, the parties reconcile their party platforms through compromise and work together as a single government to put their ideas into practice. This isn't some crazy concept that's only used by a few countries, either--this is the way government works in nearly all of the world's parliamentary democracies.

The result of this process is not only a stable governing body that was chosen by a majority of the voters, but a creative governing body that by necessity has to take ideas from a number of different viewpoints instead of refusing to look outside of their narrow box. This produces a radically different political culture from what we have in Canada: for example, if the winning party likes some of the ideas from another party's toolchest, they don't have to pretend they hate them--they can invite that other party to form government with them and put those ideas into practice together. And as far as the opposition parties are concerned, they still spend a lot of time criticizing the governing parties under this system--but suddenly it's actually about the actual places they disagree on policy, rather than just about trying to bolster their own fortunes.

If Ontario were to switch to MMP, the current antagonistic political culture would change. This means that all those political strategists whose careers have been built on things working the way they currently work would have to suddenly learn brand-new skills of negotiation and of compromise. Political leaders would have to start concentrating more on policy rather than simply on good rhetoric and showmanship. As you might expect, this scares the status quo to death. And I'm not just talking about the Liberals and the Tories, either--the NDP is just as much a part of that rigid, antagonistic status quo, and you can bet that they're scared too (they just think that the new system might give them a few extra seats, and that's worth the risk to them). All three of the entrenched parties would be facing a steep learning curve if this referendum were to pass, and they know it. And you better believe it's keeping them up nights.

But while this change would be scary as all get-out to the politicians who would have to relearn their jobs, just think of what a breath of fresh air it would be to the voters. Just think about it.

I have always said that the best and most important reason to switch to proportional systems like MMP is simple logic: a voting system that makes every vote count in a fair and straightforward way simply makes more sense than the one we have right now. All the other stuff like better representation for women and minorities, a possible increase in voter turnout, a decrease in the need for strategic voting, and a shift in our political culture--all those things are just bonuses. But what a bonus that last one would be, eh?

Where's the education campaign?

Depressing Ontario electoral reform referendum thought for the day via Sometimes Fickle:

If you’re an Ontario voter and you’ve actually heard of MMP, then that probably means you’re a geek like me who’s interested in electoral reform. My guess is that the vast majority of Ontario voters don’t know about MMP, or know that they’ll have the chance to answer a referendum question concerning MMP come Oct. 10.

I thought the province would have rolled out its ‘neutral’ information campaign -- an impossibility, no? -- on the referendum by now. I’ve seen between zero and very few television or print ads on the referendum. And none of the ads have actually delved into any MMP details. Is any one else concerned?

Colour me concerned.

There's so much misinformation out there it makes my head spin, you know? And there's no official education campaign out there to counter it. And I can't help but think that if this effort fails to meet the 60% threshold for passage, it'll be because one too many otherwise intelligent individuals felt free to say "the new system would mean [insert misinformation about the newly proposed system here]!" when what they really meant was "my friend Bob, who doesn't know crap, told me that the new system would mean [insert misinformation about the newly proposed system here], and I took it for gospel."

MMP and me

It occurs to me that some of you may not realize that I wasn't born a statistics-spouting, FAQ-writing, electoral reform geek--I was made that way. This post is that story.

When I was a young, politically-oblivious American teenager, I went over to Germany as an exchange student. I learned a lot of German, of course (which was the point), but as it turned out, it was also the beginning of my political education. Over the course of that year, I figured out that Germany had not two viable political parties, but four. I also figured out that some of the parties had to work together in order for anything to get done, because that was the only way they could add up to over fifty percent. And I also learned that this working together thing actually seemed to work for them--it actually produced policies that most of the country agreed with. What a wonderful thing this 'parliamentary democracy' thing was.

I didn't fully understand what their voting process looked like until a little later, when I was living there again immediately following German unification and the government put together a "this is how you vote!" program for the benefit of the rapidly democratizing East Germans. Your ballot has two votes, the program explained. On one side of the ballot, you mark the person you want as your local representative. On the other side, you pick the political party you like best. The East German first-time voters understood it quickly, and so did I--in fact, it intuitively made sense to me. It meant that if I were German and I liked that nice Mr. Schmidt and wanted him to represent me in Parliament, but in my heart of hearts, I really wanted to give my vote to a different party, I could do both. What a truly wonderful thing this 'parliamentary democracy' thing was.

Now, by the mid-80s, I knew I didn't want to live in the U.S. for the rest of my life--and frankly, a lot of that had to do with my early exposure to a political system that was clearly superior to the one I'd grown up with. But by the early 90s, I knew Germany was always going to remain a flirtation for me as well. By then I spoke the language as if it were my own and had loads of wonderful friends, but there were certain bits of me that were just too North American to ever feel truly at home there. So when I ended up in Ottawa during the 1993 federal election, I was ripe for seduction--and boy, oh boy did this country seduce me. I loved its bilingualism, its multiculturalism, the diversity of its political landscape. And that election...oh. Pure heroin to any budding political junkie.

And then came the results. The Liberals ascendant, the Bloc Québécois and Reform as strong regional forces, the NDP holding on for dear life, and most fascinatingly, the ruling Progressive Conservatives reduced to two seats (or less than 1% of the 295 seats). Everyone was shocked, but I was dumbfounded. Even the most pessimistic polls over the last few days of the campaign had seen the Tories in the low twenties or high teens--how the hell could they have suddenly gotten less than 1% of the vote? Didn't Canada have that 'parliamentary democracy' thing--you know, that thing where you vote for your local representative separately and the party vote determines the seat percentages?

It took me weeks--after I'd long since returned to the U.S.--to figure it all out. I learned that while the Progressive Conservative vote had gone down by a lot, they'd actually still gotten a perfectly respectable 16%. Which put them only a couple of percentage points behind the Reform Party...but somehow, Reform had gotten 50 more seats than them. And more confusing still was the Bloc, which had somehow managed to form the Official Opposition with only 14% of the vote. It quickly became clear that this wasn't my nice familiar German parliamentary democracy; this was some bizarro parliamentary democracy in which 16% meant two seats, but 19% meant 52 and 14% meant 54. Um. Okay, then!

Finally, someone was able to explain to me that it was the voting system that had made the difference; that the way it worked in Canada was simply different from how they voted in Germany. But even after I'd had it explained to me, it continued to baffle me. The Canadians had a parliamentary democracy, which as far as I was concerned was the most sensible political system in the world. So why did they want to screw that up with this weird voting system that clearly could produce such skewed results? Why didn't they do it the way the Germans did--it would be so easy and so clear! And then the polls everybody talked about during their campaigns would actually mean something!

Despite the fact that the Canadian voting system freaked me the hell out, the bug I'd caught during that trip stuck with me anyway, and so when it came time to apply for a permanent position a couple years later, I went after one in Edmonton and got it. I came to love this place as my home. But every once in a while my new Canadian friends and I would talk about elections, and I'd explain to them how things worked in Germany. Every time, they would emerge from our discussion asking the same questions I'd been asking for years: why did Canadians use such a screwy system when a far more sensible alternative was available? I did a little reading, and learned that the system I liked was called mixed-member proportional or MMP, while the one I didn't like was called first-past-the-post. And eventually, I learned that there was an organization called Fair Vote Canada that was trying to change things for the better. I joined up, I started blogging, and here I am.

Which brings us to today, just a few weeks before October 10th. October 10th, when the people of Ontario have a chance to change the system from one in which 16% sometimes means two seats and 14% sometimes means 54, to the one that's impressed me since I was fifteen for its simple, clear, and fair results. To say that this is a historic opportunity is a huge understatement. It seems that when people are truly informed about the two choices and what they mean, they tend to prefer MMP--but I unfortunately don't have the ability to inject the hands-on political education I got by living first in Germany and then in Canada into every Ontarian's brain. So I'm asking you to trust me a little on this: MMP really does work. It doesn't produce perpetual unstable minority governments, it doesn't make political parties into super-sized patronage machines, and it's not at all hard to understand.

Yes, it's different from what people are used to, and yes, that's scary. But it's even scarier to the status-quo politicians who have benefited under the current system, and are completely panicked about the prospect of having to learn to do their jobs differently. Don't listen to them. They haven't lived under MMP and really seen how it works, and I have. I know about all of the frightening scenarios that they want you to believe--the ones that could, in some alternate universe, potentially produce some scary result like parties taking control and stacking parliament with people who owe them favours. But the thing is, they're talking about what's theoretically possible, and MMP really doesn't work that way in practice. And even if that alternate universe somehow came to pass, none of those scenarios are scarier than things that have already happened in Canada as a direct result of the system we already have.

It's long past time for a change. Make history, Ontario. Make me proud.

Comparing like with like in Ontario

I'm not going to point to anyone in particular, but I've been noticing one major tendency among informed opponents to Ontario's proposed new Mixed-Member proportional electoral system (as opposed to the ill-informed ones like Ian Urquhart of the Toronto Star, who aren't even basing their arguments on accurate information): they all seem to be using a faulty thought process to reach their conclusions. Specifically, they seem to be looking at the possible negatives of the proposed system (coalition governments might be unstable, closed lists could end up meaning party hacks negotiating their way into the provincial parliament through backroom deals) and comparing those possibilities with the way the current system actually functions in practice. They then conclude that these possible downsides are too great a risk and decide to vote for the status quo.

Why is this thought process faulty? Because it's not comparing like with like. If Ontarians really want to make an informed decision about this, they have to either compare Mixed-Member Proportional's possible negatives with First Past the Post's possible negatives (whether or not it tends to work that way in practice), or compare the way First Past the Post currently works in practice in Ontario with the way Mixed-Member Proportional actually works in practice in jurisdictions like Germany where it is currently in place.

So, for example, one possible downside to the current way of electing MPPs in Ontario would be that the 905 region could produce a new party (let's call it the "905 party") that would exist for the sole purpose of demanding that the region be given a special status, extra government money, and additional clout. Given the way First Past the Post magnifies the vote of minor region-specific parties, this hypothetical 905 party could very easily take Ontario's provincial parliament by storm and seriously disrupt the regional balance of that body, sowing even more resentment among already disparate groups of MPPs and their constituents.

Does the current system actually work that way in practice? Well, no (although a glimpse at the Bloc Québécois' success on the federal level shows that it's not an entirely farfetched scenario). But Mixed-Member Proportional in Germany doesn't actually produce unstable coalition governments and party hacks negotiating their way into parliament through backroom deals, either.

Further information:

• democraticSPACE brings us a very simple and elegant explanation of how the proposed system would work.
• Columnist Andrew Coyne comes out against his own employer and argues cogently in favour of the reform.
• While the Toronto Star itself has been rabidly anti-reform, when they asked their readers what they thought, apparently they couldn't find anyone to agree with them.
• Sinister Greg points to a fascinating debate on the issues on a show called "The Agenda with Steve Paiken" (click on the 16th). It's well done, and includes a segment on "lessons from New Zealand," a country that underwent a switch a decade ago to a system very similar to the one proposed for Ontario.

Old-style politics vs. the citizens of Ontario

The verdict from Andrew Coyne on Ontario electoral reform is identical to mine: the details of the system the citizens' assembly picked aren't the exact same things I would have chosen if I'd designed it myself, but the proposed new system is certainly better than how the province elects its MPPs currently. And anybody taking an honest look at the pros and cons of how the proposed system would work in practice alongside a similarly honest look at the pros and cons of how the current system works in practice should come to the same conclusion.

Just as an aside, it's endlessly fascinating to me that the pundits most consistently in favour of electoral reform initiatives are maverick, non-party-line-toeing conservatives like Coyne and old-style Tories like John Ibbitson. While this may make some lefties uncomfortable, I welcome it. If that finally gets it through people's thick skulls that these reforms are not about promoting particular parties or ideological agendas, but about giving all voters an equal voice in electing their parliaments, then I say bring it on.

Sinister Greg renders me superfluous

Greg has written the best post of his life, completely tearing Ian Urquhart from the Toronto Star to shreds over his latest column on the Ontario Citizens' Assembly for Electoral Reform.

For once I have, quite literally, nothing more to add. Go read Greg.

More good electoral reform news

As reported by Greg Morrow over at democraticSPACE, Ontario's Citizens' Assembly for Electoral Reform has made a decision to pursue a Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) system as the alternative to the current first-past-the-post system. Greg also notes that after studying all of the possible options, there were very few dissenters among the assembly on which system to run with, suggesting that all the evidence pointed to one clear choice for Ontario, despite the fact that the citizens' assembly comes from all walks of life and all across the province. That's encouraging, as it means that there's less likely to be a disgruntled "no" movement among people who wanted a different system. I look forward to hearing more about the details of the system the assembly proposes as they make those decisions.

Electoral reform movement watchers will have noticed that this is a different system than the one endorsed by an equivalent citizens' assembly in British Columbia several years ago. There, the assembly recommended a variant of the Single Transferable Vote system, which they dubbed BC-STV. Does this mean that Ontario is right and B.C. was wrong, or maybe the other way around? Not necessarily. Different electoral systems are appropriate for different jurisdictions, and in designing an effective one, it's important to take into account the specific circumstances and needs of the time and place. It may very well be the case that BC-STV is the best choice for British Columbia, while Ontario-MMP, whatever the details end up being, will be best for Ontario.

If you're curious about the notion of designing an electoral system that suits particular jurisdictions, you might want to have a look at the International IDEA Handbook, written to help different jurisdictions do just that.

Bob Rae and the Ontario byelections

A New Democrat friend of mine who spent some time working on NDP campaigns in Ontario was strongly pulling for Bob Rae to win the Liberals' federal leadership race. His reasoning was that Rae had done such damage to the NDP brand in Ontario that the only way back from that would be for Rae to become cemented in the public consciousness as belonging to another party. I had no opinion on whether or not my friend was right, but his theory amused me, mostly because it ran so counter to the worries I was hearing from other New Democrats about Rae, along the lines of: "if he wins, then we're doomed, doomed!"

Rae didn't win, of course, so it was a moot point. But it was an idea that kept gnawing on my thoughts as I read this Murray Campbell column about how NDP gains in the recent Parkdale-High Park and York South-Weston byelections show that the Ontario provincial Liberals are "lagging." He dubs the Ontario NDP "resurgent" and with the help from some long-clichéd metaphors, says that they're now "out of the penalty box after nearly a decade in the wilderness." So assuming that Campbell is right to make pronouncements about the Ontario NDP's strength based on two byelections, I have to wonder whether my friend may have been right after all. I mean, what would confuse an old-time Ontario Rae-hater more than trying to trot out the old "but Bob Rae ruined our lives!!!" arguments against the NDP...and then remembering?