FPTP vs MMP

[Evan Leibovitch]

All things considered, I (and most people I know personally) will be
voting against MMP.

Jamon Camisso wrote:
> The more apodeictic and reductive the claims I hear, the more I'm 
> inclined to vote for it, as typically nothing is so black and white as 
> the issue is being made out to be.
>   
I agree. While MMP is not without its benefits, to me they simply do not
outweigh the drawbacks. This is less a matter of reducing everything so
much as mesauring the balance.

Both systems have the capacity to give power to parties out of
proportion to the popular vote -- one is weighted towards smaller
parties, one towards larger ones. To me, the MMP approach is by far the
worse of the two types of inequity.

> The argument about fringe parties holding the balance of power is 
> entirely fallacious as well. Doesn't anyone recall the previous votes 
> on the Federal Governenment's budgets? Recall how 3-4 independent MPs 
> held the balance of power there.

Generally, these are instances in which local constituents convince
their elected member to consider their own wishes and interests above
those of blind party loyalty (most of the independents were previously
party members). These are not machines, after all, and are free to break
partisan discipline if they are aware of their personal political
consequences.

And such rare occurrences are the exception that proves the rule. Those
MPs had that unreasonable level of power because of a minority
government situation. MMP would institutionalize the practice rather
than keep it as a rarity.

Under MMP, there's a whole new category of representative with no local
constituent allegiance, and no public accountability. The MMP system
allows individuals who may be hated by the public but adored by their
party to achieve MPP and even Cabinet status, which I do not consider to
be a Good Thing. It's bad enough the Senate gets picked this way.

Also consider what MMP does to the concept of a "free vote", such as
what Tory is proposing for the faith-schools funding issue. Freed of
party discipline, to whom are these new MPPs accountable to when they
vote? Or do they still vote the party line, thus negating the value of
having free votes at all?

> The "bottom line" is that when we vote on Wed., I'd hazard a guess that 
> 90+% of us will do just that--vote and go home--having abdicateted any 
> further political responsibility for another 4 years to a 3rd party.
>   
And your point is...? Anyone can get involved if the will exists. IMO
the promises that MMP will energize the electorate at large are pure BS
wishful thinking. The only ones energized will be single-issue groups
such as anti-abortion or pro-marijuana activists (both of whom have
their own parties), and that is not the kind of presence that will make
the province governed better. (Arguably the vastly out-of-proportion
power of small but rabid anti-Palestinean political parties in Israel
such as Shas -- a gift of its MMP style system -- has been a severe
impediment to peace in the region.)

Now... having said that, there _are_ some steps that can assist smaller
parties, for instance granting official party status based on number of
votes rather than number of MPPs. But MMP is not the right answer.

- Evan

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