Proportional Representation Essay

Following the climactic events of the French Indian War and the Lexington and Concord skirmishes, tensions bubbled between the colonies and the mother country, Britain. This friction stemmed from debate over whether the parliament had the right to legislate over the colonies. Britain felt they should have full jurisdiction over the colonies, while the colonies wanted true representation from within the colonial legislatures. The French and Indian war garnered a large amount of debt and in attempt to repossess some of the money lost, the British Parliament imposed taxes upon colonists. Britain originally  implemented the Stamp Act of 1765, but appealed the law after the obstinate reactions of colonists. However, they then issued the Declaratory Act of 1766 which only reiterated the

Proportionality is a key factor in assessing the fairness of a voting system, if a parties number of votes is not equal or close to their number of seats in parliament then the voters’ are being misrepresented. AMS is a PR system, which results in a party’s

voted against a policy which is found to be the best for the general, must have

The Canadian electoral system is criticized for using the single member plurality (SMP) system more commonly known as first past the post, we adopted system from the British because at the time there were only two political parties in Canada. The current problem now is that many people feel that the system is unfair given that a party is able to gain a majority government even if they received less than fifty percent of the vote. As long as they have the majority of the popular vote, that party wins. However, the first past the post system has been able to establish a clear line of accountability between the elected representative and the voters. Yet, the public still feels that a proportional representation system would be

Proportional representation is almost always acknowledged as the fairest electoral system. With this in mind, many still reject a mixed member proportional system. Critics argue that the current method has produced a stable and effective government, while MMP would create an ineffective government. Wiseman feels that since Canada has been consistently stable, our electoral system does not need to be changed. Hiemstra and Jansen disagree with the plurality system that is currently in place for it does not produce fair

All three of the documents A, B, and C have quality that’s appreciable for vocables as evidence. The ones that produce the quality that is needed as a reliable source would be document A and document C combined. It’s because both answer questions that are practical. Document A, has very crucial data about affirmative ways for the representative government they possess in that era . Document C, lists the negatives to the representative government they’d possessed. But it didn’t possess enough of the constructive quality that contributes to the representative government laws that cease to exist today.

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

Our Founding Fathers’ idea of an Electoral College is not the same as our current Electoral College as amendments have changed their structure and function. Despite the changes and adaptations to our country’s changes, the Electoral College is still the method that selects presidents and vice presidents. Exploration of the structure and function of the Electoral College will provide an opportunity to understand its formation and operation while the debate between the Electoral College and popular vote usage and its effects on election results will provide an understanding of issues and misalignment with the popular vote while the understanding of how an individual’s vote is valued by the Electoral College will provide a clear demonstration that the vote informs the Electoral College for their duties.

The Electoral College has been around since the Constitution was first written and has been controversial ever since it was started. The process of electing a president includes the Electoral College, which has a rich and interesting history; there are many arguments for and against the College, but the way the Electoral College works now is not representative of the country’s opinion as a whole.

Basically, voters select one candidate from their riding, just like in an SMP system, but they also place a vote for which party they would like to form the government. This second vote determines the amount of seats that each party gains proportional to the amount of votes they collected in the countries. The representatives from each party are then made up of the elected representatives from each riding (if that party was able to elect any) and other members selected by the leader1. An STV system, which is what the Citizen’s Assembly recommended to the people of BC, can be found in Ireland, Malta, and in some levels of government in Australia. Voters rank candidates according to their priorities, choosing as many as they wish. For example, a certain voter could select a Conservative as his or her first choice, a Liberal as the second, a New Democrat as third, and then cast no votes for the Green Party. When each a candidate reaches a certain quota of first place votes, they are elected, and the extra first place votes that they did not need are distributed to the other parties according to their overall ranking. If a second candidate is then elected, his or her extra votes are then distributed to the remaining parties, and so on . This system is rather complicated, especially when compared to our current system, but computerized voting systems have generally alleviated any problems.

Canadian electoral system is largely based on the single member plurality (SMP) system which was inherited from its former British colonial masters. The system dates back to several years before the formation of the Canadian confederation. Some of the common features of the Canadian electoral system include election candidates to represent designated geographical areas popularly known as” ridings”, counting and tallying of the votes casted on the basis of the districts as opposed to the parties of the candidates (Dyck, 622). Finally, a candidate only needs a simple majority over the other candidates in order to be considered a winner, even if the winner has a small percentage of votes. This system has however been heavily criticized for its winner takes all way of judging victory. Critics argue that if the winner takes over the whole system, it may result into unfair representation of the various social groups, but it may also bring into power unstable minority participation in government. For example, a candidate can win even with barely 25% of all the votes casted, while the small parties may end up with no seats in the parliament.

The system that the Law Commission ultimately recommended was the mixed-member proportional electoral system. In the MMP system a portion of representatives, usually between 50 and 60 percent, are elected from single-member districts, similar to FPTP, with the remainder of seats being elected from party lists, based on the party’s share of the popular vote (Law Commission 22). Each voter gets to cast two votes, one for the party that they support and another for the representative member that they prefer. Party lists can be either closed, where voters are not able to influence the order of candidates, or open, where voters have the ability to influence the ranking of candidates. A threshold for representation is usually set in order to prevent fringe and extremist parties from gaining seats in government. This system is used in Germany, New Zealand, Venezuela and Lesotho (Joseph 113).

Winner-take-all systems tend to be significantly simpler and more stable. However, the representatives in this system tend to be more polarized than the average voter in the districts they represent. Additionally, winner-take-all systems tend to keep a very small number of parties in play, limiting the voters’ perceived reasonable choices. As pointed out earlier, the majority vote does not even need to be a majority of the total. A candidate only needs more votes than any of the other candidates to win, which may not be representative of the electorate. In a system with two major parties, one of the worst-case scenarios could be an election where the winner only has about 45 percent of the total votes. This would mean that around 55 percent of the district’s population is not being properly represented. Minor parties are often looked at as hopeless non-options, since they appear to be lacking the support necessary to win. Voters do not want to waste their votes, so they will try to make what they believe to be the best decision between two highly polarized parties. It is like trying to draw a rainbow in black and white—possible, difficult, yet not likely to produce an accurate depiction. While this makes the system significantly simpler for voters, it also makes the system more easily corruptible, and almost certain to produce a less accurate representation of public interests. Part of the appeal for the argument of keeping this system is that doing so

The second consequence of electoral systems is referred to as local representation. LP is extremely poor in STV yet is excellent in SMP. This is the case because the current system elects one MLA per riding and has much smaller constituencies, making contact between the voter and their MLA more feasible and likely easier to get in contact with. Once constituencies grow and become large in size, like it has a tendency to do in STV, there becomes a need for multi-member parties required for one riding. Local representation under STV becomes an issue for voters when constituents are too geographically large as contact with representatives become few and far between. Large constituents with multiple members representing them, seem to be the answer to the problem at hand, however there is no guarantee that there will be enough candidate interest to support these constituents under STV. For example, if many of the towns in Northern Manitoba were grouped into one constituent, due to the sheer amount of travel that would be required by candidates, it would be very difficult to find enough candidates willing to sign up, and even more difficult for voters to engage face-to-face

The Additional Member system is able to combine both First Past The Post and Proportional representation. A proportion of sets is awarded through FPTP, while the rest are awarded on a regional list system. The electorate is able to vote for a constituency candidate, and a party as well. Therefore some of the elected representatives have a constituency to look after, whilst other do not. The rest are allocated on a proportional basis. AMS is used in the UK for the elections for the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the London Assembly. The main advantages to this system is that there is a fair degree of proportionality to the votes cast and that voters can vote for both candidates and parties.