Changing Voting System In Canada

The Additional Member System gives voters more choice and better representation than does First Past the Post. Discuss.

It has become widely accepted that Canada uses a first past the post electoral system. However, this system may not be in the best interest of Canada any more. There are many reasons why Canada should change its electoral system to a mixed member proportional one, a variant of proportional representation. With a first past the post system, the elected officials will always be of the majority and this excludes minorities from fair representation. Adopting MMP can create stronger voter turnouts, more personal campaigning, better individual representation, and better party selection. John Hiemstra and Harold Janson, are both in favour of a MMP electoral system. They understand that with the switch, the citizens will get more representation in

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

First-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system in general allows candidates to win who may not have a majority of the vote. It privileges big parties and majorities at the cost of smaller parties and coalitions. It also favours parties with strong regional concentrations over parties whose electoral base is more spread out. This is Canada’s current election system and for the past couple of years. In the years that Harper has been in power, he has won majority of the seats with less than 50 percent of the votes. In fact, in 2011, “Stephen Harper won a majority government with 54.1 percent of the seats and only 39.6 percent of the total vote” (Aucoin 161). Harper was able to form a majority government without a majority of the vote and he had a plurality of votes that was less than 50 percent. Canada has been electing its government in this way and the winning party does not hold the majority of the votes, with a few exceptions. In terms of changing the election system, FPTP system is able to produce a clear majority and the majority that wins is able to produce a clear line of power through a majority government. Also, supporters of FPTP, such as Brian Crowly, say that clear lines of power are

The issue of electoral reform has become more important than ever in Canada in recent years as the general public has come to realize that our current first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system, formally known as single-member plurality (SMP) has produced majority governments of questionable legitimacy. Of the major democracies in the world, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom are the only countries that still have SMP systems in place. Interestingly enough, there has been enormous political tension and division in the last few years in these countries, culminating with the election results in Canada and the USA this year that polarized both countries. In the last year we have seen

On the other hand, the Canadian electoral system has also been accused of being undemocratic and unrepresentative in many aspects. Although the Canadian single member plurality

Another important reason that Canada should select a different election system is that the FPTP system has a large impact on smaller parties. According to Political Scientist Maurice Duverger’s Law, given enough time FPTP systems will eventually become a

First Past the Post is an electoral system where citizens vote for their favored candidate and the candidate with the most votes win. This is the system Canada has used for many years and is currently using at the moment as well. First Past the Post is the most democratic electoral system and is the most well-suited system for Canada. This electoral system is better than the Block Vote system. It is also a better system when being compared to the Alternative Vote system.

Canada’s FPTP electoral system has been and continues to be criticized, however. Primary among the reasons for this is the disproportionality of the federal election outcomes – specifically, the vast discrepancy between the percentage of votes and percentage of seats. This means that a political party can win majority government even if they fail to win a majority of the votes. This FPTP system has also been said to lead to small parties being under-represented in election outcomes, which may misleadingly underestimate the popularity of their views than is actually the case (Donley, 2003). Moreover, because the percentage of seats is not in proportion to the MPs’ share of votes in their ridings, the common sentiment among voters is that their vote is essentially wasted. The issue of disproportionality has been used as a basis to propose electoral reform in Canada. The alternatives to Canada’s current FPTP electoral system include, but are not limited to, proportional representation (PR) and the alternative vote system.

The federal electoral system, also known as the voting system, is a way for citizens to choose their political representatives. Canada’s federal election takes place every four years, with Canada currently consisting of 338 electoral ridings. The party that is elected with the most ridings in the federal election will be in charge of forming the new government, with the leader of that party being declared the new prime minister of

As I have mention earlier that the United Kingdom (Britain) has the same electoral system as America. First pass the post is a known plurality electoral system in which the winning candidate only need most votes to win or if he or she have one extra vote than the other he or she will win. A normal quote for first past the post is “winner takes all”. First past the post is a cheaper way to hold elections as oppose to proportional representation and it is also faster. The speed of the process allows for a government to take over power swiftly or if the incumbent government wins the election it allows swift return for the continuation of government without any disruption to the political life of the nation. First past the post originated out of Europe mostly speaking of Britain, in order to create a stable government and to avoid corruption. Parliament in Britain has a maximum of five years.

Currently, Canada uses First Past The Post as the federal voting system. This system, while having many benefits also has many flaws. While this system has worked for us in the past Ontario is currently experimenting with a new system called Mixed Member Proportional. Canada should switch to Mixed Member Proportional because it better represents what the voters want, it is a mix of the three main systems and it will create better voter turnout.

First Past the Post is the system we currently use in the UK, but whilst some may enjoy this system, there are limitations to this system. Perhaps the strongest criticism of the system is that it does not proportionally reflect the voting of the people. What is meant by this is that a party may receive less proportion of seats in the General Election than

Party list voting systems are the most common form of proportional representation, with over 80 percent of the PR systems in the world using this voting method (Amy 2006). In Party List voting systems, each party puts up a list of candidates for each multi-member electoral district. Voters vote for a party, and the party receives seats in proportion to their overall share of the vote in the electoral district. Winning candidates are taken from the lists in order of their position on the lists.

Britain is considering changing current first past the post voting system (FPTP) to proportional representation (PR). The main reason is that FPTP is “quasi-democratic” voting system under which there is only one majority party ruling the government and it does not represent wishes of all voters as some votes are wasted. Whereas, PR seems to be the best alternative voting system with proportionality of seats in mandatory places, more parties ruling government and etc. Let us look at these two voting systems and analyze whether PR is suitable and alternative change for FPTP and do advantages of PR outweigh disadvantages.