I agree that given enough time to properly educate our voters to the point that they can make an informed decision is vital [as always]

My opinion is that most, not all will choose this welcome change once so informed.

Information vacuums by accident, design or neglect merely leave the door open for peoples worst fears of the unknown to rule the day.

Even with time so short you have done us all a great service sir.

Regards from Kingston,
James

Nominated or Appointed additional representatives; are the voters actually voting for the persons nominated, or are they votes for a political party without knowledge of the “appointed member” that they may end up giving a job to?

A good and honest question. The parties are required not only to publish who is on their list, but also how those individuals ended up on the list (what was the process). That way you’ll never have to vote for a party without knowing who you’re voting to elect. Also, unlike the current system, you know if the party’s candidates were nominated democratically or appointed in back rooms.

So far, I am a “No MMP” guy and I am not complaining about any lack of representation. I have not witnessed any argument or explanation that successfully demonstrates a true need for more representatives. From a practical viewpoint, it seems that we would be wasting more taxpayer money on salaries for members that we do not need.

Here are some of the things wrong with our current system, if you’re interested. It’s interesting to note that no new democracy choses the voting system we use–they all chose some kind of more advanced system like MMP.

And yes, LESS is almost always an improvement when considering government!

Your misinterpretation of my statement regarding the “double whammy” is hilarious! Of course everyone who votes should have their vote counted. I just take exception to increasing the amount of votes per individual. Increasing the categories as well may confuse and may lead to errors. I like one vote for each person. Keep it as simple as possible.

I don’t think you’re giving voters much credit here. Voting once for a party and once for a candidate is a pretty simple concept. If we can’t figure that out, then we probably don’t deserve to be picking governments in the first place.

In terms of simplicity, clarity, and cost, I don’t see much of a contest here.

This is another helpful line of thinking: you should certainly be asking yourself what you value in a voting system, and then deciding which voting system best reflects your values. The Citizens’ Assembly also placed a high value on what they called “simplicity and practicality” when designing this system. The three things they decided were the most important in a voting system were voter choice, fair results, and strong representation. While other things (like cost) are important as well, the question is are they more important, in a democracy, than those three things.

If MMP gets approved I will be very surprised and disappointed.

The more people know about MMP, the more they support it. We know this both because of public opinion polling, and also because the Citizens’ Assembly, which was randomly selected and representative of Ontario, voted 94-8 in favour of it, even knowing all of its faults. Have you visited voteformmp.ca, or read the CA’s report [pdf]?

Carpe Diem

Indeed, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to seize the day and make democracy better.

Mark

I have some serious accounting issues with the proposed MMP system.

Having additional members appointed by political parties that have no mandate (vote) from the taxpayers is the first.

That doesn’t accurately describe MMP. Parties nominate candidates (not appoint them), and they’re only elected if they get votes from citizens.

Paying additional salaries (cost) for more members is the second.

And yet the “No MMP” folks also complain that there are fewer regional representatives….which is it? Do you want more representation, or less?

Doubling the votes of the participating electorate. This means giving a double whammy to usually about only half of the eligible population is the third.

You don’t think the people who bother showing up to vote deserve to have their votes counted, because that’s not fair to the people who stayed home? I can’t agree. And what about those people who stayed home because they were in a “safe” riding and knew their vote wouldn’t count anyway?

Accurate accounting of the double votes is the fourth.

I will not vote an approval of this rendition of new government structure.

I might vote for a system that uses the present number of seats and adjusts the voting power of the representatives by a factor of their party’s percentage of the popular vote.

This would adjust the policy making potential of given political parties to better reflect the “will of the people” as witnessed from the overall percentages of the popular vote.

Of course, MMP does this as well, but in a much simpler way. “Simplicity and Practicality” were two of the things the Citizens’ Assembly deemed important in a voting system, and they designed MMP with that in mind. It’s all well and good for us to come up with our own suggestions of how we would have solved the problem, but the time for that was during their lengthy public consultation process. Now, we have a clear choice to make between two options.

Government reform should never deviate from having the members directly accountable to their voters. Anything less is not democratic.

I agree. Fortunately, under MMP, all representatives remain elected and accountable. See this post.

Carpe Diem,
Mark.

The 60% threshold is province-wide, and refers to 60% of the ballots cast. There’s a second threshold–that MMP must receive 50% of the vote in 60% of the ridings, but that threshold is less important since, if the first is achieved, it’s almost mathematically impossible for the second to not also be true. -CT