Single Member Plurality System

Canada’s friendly neighbor to the South, the US, has an electoral system that is composed of 3 separate elections, one of them deciding the head of state. The president elected by the people and he or she is the determining person of the country’s political system. In the US runs like a majority system” In Canada, however, elections are held slightly differently. Citizens vote for a Member of Parliament in a 308-seat house and candidates win not by a majority, unlike in the US, but by a plurality. This means that a candidate can actually win by simply having more votes than the other candidates. This method of representative democracy, in general, does not cause too much controversy in a global scope but has

In Canada Federal and Provincial First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) elections are based on single member districts or ridings. Each riding chooses one candidate to elect into parliament. In order to win a candidate must obtain the highest number of votes but not necessarily the majority of votes. The party that wins the most ridings is named the official government of Canada with the second place party becoming the official opposition.

Federally, there is a commission put together each decade to reassess electoral boundaries; sometimes boundaries are redrawn, sometimes in the event of a population boom in an area – a move from rural to urban. Normally, “the number of voters per constituency should not… vary more than + or – 25% from the average,” (SFU.ca). The number of electoral district equals the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of that province; in New Brunswick, there are currently 55 seats in the Legislative Assembly. This means that, unlike some electoral systems, there is only one candidate running in each riding. For a potential Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) to win their seat, they must get a higher percentage of the vote – just one percent higher. Because one only needs one percent more than their contestants, rather than majority of the vote, SMP is sometimes referred to as “first past the post.” Finally, the party and leader can form the government if they have more seats than the other parties; this does not really take into account the popular vote. If the leading party won more than half of the seats it is referred to as a majority government; however, if less than half the seats were won it is called a minority government and, if the opposition and other parties so choose, they can vote to dissolve government, thus calling an election.

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

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

There is a fundamental problem with the democratic process in Canada. This problem is rooted within our electoral system. However, there is a promising solution to this issue. Canada should adopt the mixed-member proportional representation electoral system (MMP) at the federal level if we wish to see the progression of modern democracy. The failure to do so will result in a stagnant political system that is caught in the past and unable to rise to the contemporary challenges that representative democracies face. If Canada chooses to embrace the MMP electoral system it will reap the benefits of greater proportionality, prevent the centralization of power that is occurring in Parliament and among political parties through an increased

The Four Political Parties of Canada       In a country as vast and as culturally diverse as Canada, many different political opinions can be found stretched across the country. From the affluent neighbourhoods of West Vancouver to the small fishing towns located on the east coast of Newfoundland, political opinions and affiliations range from the left wing to the right wing. To represent these varying political views, Canada has four official national political parties to choose from: the Liberals (who are currently in power), the Progressive Conservatives, the New Democrats, and the Reform Party. What is particularly interesting is that none of the latter three parties compose Her Majesty's Official Opposition in the House

Today, Ontario and Quebec have maintained their 24 member senatorial status. The four Western provinces have 6 members each. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick both have 10 seats. Prince Edward Island was given 4 out of the original 24 Maritime senators. Together, Newfoundland and Labrador have a total of 6 members. Finally, Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories stand in the equation with 1 senator apiece. Along with the Senate`s original intentions, the principle of equality between the provinces is evidently lost. The Senate primarily fails because it was formerly created to balance out the representation by population which lies in the House of Commons however currently only seems to reinforce it. In fact, Canada’s central provinces, Ontario and Quebec, account for 60 percent of the seats in the House of Commons and almost half of the seats in the Senate at 46 percent.5 The inadequacy of regional representation is emphasized as the Canada West Foundation clearly states: “Canada is the only democratic federal system in the world in which the regions with the largest populations dominate both houses of the national legislature.“6 With an unelected Senate that no longer fulfills its role of equal regional representation and a House of Commons grounded on the representation of provinces proportional to their population, the legitimacy of Parliament has become a

One can come to a conclusion that plurality systems have a major flaw and that is inequality. Adopting a MMP would be a huge step forward in Canadian democracy. With a MMP system in place, more women would be elected to the legislature because it creates fairness. With more women in the legislature, it can make a substantial difference in the types of laws that may be proposed and passed. Another advantage MMP brings to Canada is instead of electing one member of the legislature in each small district, Canada would use larger districts to elect several members. To add to this advantage, the candidates that win the seats in these multi-member districts are determined by the proportion of votes each party receives. With Canada’s current electoral system, one citizen’s vote counts for less than another citizen’s vote. By changing to a MMP system, Canada can give more equality and fairness back to the citizens.

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 electoral system in Canada is also known as a “first past the post” system. “First past the post” means the candidate with the highest number of votes wins the congressional seat, whereas the other candidates with a lower number of votes don’t get any representation. There are many cons to this system that will be highlighted throughout this essay. I will argue that the electoral system requires reform due to the discrepancies between the percentage of popular votes and the number of seats won. Canada’s electoral system has many problems and is not seen as fully democratic since it has provided poor representation for both candidates that win and lose. Candidates can win seats with less than 50% of votes, meaning that even if the majority of the nation, or province did not vote for the candidate they still win the election as they consume the highest number of votes among the parties. FPTP allows two people in different ridings to get the same number of votes with the outcome of one winner since the distribution of votes and seats are unequal. The system can also encourage strategic voting such as not voting for whom you think is the best fit but voting for the candidate that seems most likely to win in order to beat candidate you dislike. FPTP leads to an imbalance of power and has the potential for corruption.

The Single Transferable Vote system is a system that was invented by a mathematician whose processes are lengthy and confusing to the people who actually use it to implement change: voters. The currently used Single Member Plurality system is widely understood and the best system for Manitoban voters. While some may argue that the Single Transferrable Vote system is a superior method of electing members of government in Manitoba, due to the unfamiliarity with candidates, lack of voter involvement, and confusing nature of the system, the current Single Member Plurality system is more effective and reflective of the actual views of the electors.

Canada is one of the largest and most culturally diverse countries in the world. These characteristics make the democratic governing of the country a difficult task. A democratic model is needed that respects the fundamental rights and freedoms of various diverse cultures, and unites these cultures over a huge land mass as Canadians. To do this the Canadian government is one which is pluralist. Pluralism is the ideology that groups, (in Canada's case political parties), should rule in government. These parties help protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of everyone living in Canada, regardless of their ethnicity, or religious beliefs. The role political parties play in Canada is vital for

The first past the post system runs on the idea that whichever party has the most votes wins. In Canada, the government has split geographical regions into constituencies which are called ridings.Each riding has a representative from each party that has chosen to have an individual represent them. When the election date comes, voters will go to the polling station and cast their vote for whichever individual they want to represent them. Whichever representative that

As one of Europe’s oldest democratic countries, the United Kingdom consequently has one of the oldest voting systems, a plurality system often called First-Past-The-Post. The system relies on a basic principle; voters can vote for only one candidate and the candidate who receives the most votes wins the seat. (UK Parliament Website, 2014) As the quotation from David Cameron shows, the system is often hailed as one of the simplest voting systems possible, and is mainly used in the U.K for national elections.