I Oppose Mixed Member Proportional Voting
| 9/21/2007 | Posted by Patti under Ontario Election |
On October 10th Ontarians will be asked not only to elect their government for the next four years but to vote on whether to change our current first past the post system of elections to one called mixed member proportional. We will have two votes that day, one for each.
I’ve spent some time reading a range of websites on the subject of the referendum. One of the frustrations I’ve had with the first past the post system has been that my one vote determines both local candidate and premier. In many cases the local is preferred but the leader isn’t or vice versa. Election day means determining which is my stronger preference.
In theory, the mixed member proportional (MMP), which Ontario is voting on, would provide me with separate votes for local candidate and the premier. So, why am I going to vote against the referendum?
In order to provide me with two votes, the province under MMP would elect 90 MPPs directly and then appoint about 34 others from party lists to reflect the popular vote each party receives. In other words roughly one third of the provincial legislature would be political appointees.
The theory is that political parties would have to select their lists through an open and ‘democratic’ process and that the electorate would penalize parties who didn’t do so through their votes. Nice theory but we know that the process can be manipulated while appearing to be transparent. So, in my opinion, a political appointee is an appointee no matter how you try to dress it.
Some try to argue that this will make the legislature more democratic. I have a problem with the logic that defines democracy as roughly one third appointed. Other arguments put forward claims that women and visible minorities will find greater representation, maybe in fringe parties who can lay claim to seats through appointments. In the mainstream parties, women still need to break through the old boys club.
Ah yeah, the fringe parties. In my opinion, if a party can’t convince the majority of voters in a local riding to send them to the legislature, why should they get handed a seat in the legislature because they manage to garner pockets of support around the province?
So, to get rid of one frustration, I would have to trade it for several others. No thanks.
Is there going to be re-districting as well? There is almost no information given about this. Usually this is taken as an opportunity to centralize power to the urban centers–specifically Toronto.
There will need to be a redistribution of ridings to accommodate moving from the current 107 ridings to 90 for which we’ll be directly electing MPPs if the MMP system gets the nod.
No matter the system in use I think that centralized power tends to be in the urban centres as they have the largest concentrations of population. That tends to add to the rural sense of abandonment by most governments.
I’m doing a last minute look around for this MMP stuff. Frankly, your thoughts are similar to my concerns. While I have seen word of some (not many, mind you) countries that use MMP, most notably New Zealand, I have yet to find data on countries who voted and then rejected MMP or who were of that system and went on to something else (better).
Because in my fantasies I’m all for anarchy I really don’t have faith in any party anyhow. Thanks for your article.