[OT] Voting systems [was Wrong ad on www.linux.org]

[Colin McGregor]

I must admit that the first past the post system in Canada suits me just
fine, as it:

- allows for regional differences
- holds individuals directly responsible for past actions in Parliament
- prevents the constant weird minor party colalitions that seem a constant
pain for places like Israel.
- Is simple to understand.
- Has a long history of working pretty well.

What does bother me about the current system is ridding size.  Why is it
that you can have a ridding like say Nunivut with a population of 26,745
(for details see: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/riding/308/) and a ridding
like Etobicoke-Lakeshore with a population of 113,914 (for details see:
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/riding/130/). In other words the folks in
Nunivut get over FOUR times the representation per person that does someone
in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, which in my mind is very unfair.

The only legal issue I am aware of that could hurt balancing out ridding
sizes is that P.E.I. when they joined Canada  insisted as part of their
agreement that P.E.I. would be represented by at least 3 MPs in Ottawa.
P.E.I.'s population is 135,294, which when divided by three gives us a
ridding size of 45,098. Canada's population 30,007,094 divided by 45,098
would give us 665 ridings. 665 ridings strikes me as a bit much, maybe the
solution there is to "grandfather" P.E.I. at three ridings and make every
other ridding in the nation larger...

Now net effect of changing the ridding sizes so they were even (or at least
even for everywhere except P.E.I.) would be that Canada's cities would not
get ignored the way they have so often in the past, which in my books would
be a great thing...

Colin McGregor

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Brockway" <robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org>
To: "TLUG mailing list" <tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 6:17 PM
Subject: [TLUG]: [OT] Voting systems [was Wrong ad on www.linux.org]


> On Thu, 1 Jul 2004, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>
> > better.  The green party even sounded fairly reasonable, but almost no
> > one seems to vote for them.
>
> The "first past the post voting system" currently in use in Canadian
> federal elections is a problem IMHO.  The fact that it discourages voting
> for minority parties "that won't get in anyway" is well known.  A system
> of preferential voting can help here since people can vote for a minority
> party as first preference without fear that their vote will be "wasted."
>
> Proportional representation allows more representation for minority views
> but it can be taken too far as well (see the Knesset for an example of
> this).
>
> Wikipedia has several great sections comparing various real-world voting
> systems currently in use.
>
> Rob
> --
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