Politics – Naive Concepts

A consequence of the current democratic system is that it is within the realm of possibility for a nations political leader to be a TV personality with no experience or aptitude to govern. The parliamentary system is ideally situated to prevent this by introducing Rolling Parliamentary Elections. The concept of Rolling Parliamentary Elections is for local elections to be spread evenly over a four year term. A newly elected MP serves a full four year term regardless of a change in administration (see Rolling Parliamentary Elections below).

A strength of the parliamentary system is that the public elect local representatives (Members of Parliament, MPs) from flesh and blood candidates, and that it is the MPs who support a Prime Minister from their number to form a government. The significance of this is that in all cases a voter has direct knowledge of the candidates being elected. The public do not directly elect the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, as a general election elects all MPs on the same date, political parties at great expense focus campaigns on their leaders and policies (it is not practical to use national media to promote local elections). This distorts the democratic system by causing the public to vote for (or against) a leader or party to form the next government (the local candidates are merely proxies for the leaders). As a direct result parliamentary democracy has now become vulnerable to mass media, social media, targeted advertising and fake news aimed at undermining a party leader or political party..

Comments on current General Elections

Currently the Canadian Parliament holds general elections after completing a term of about four years unless the administration is defeated by a vote of no confidence. Following a vote of no confidence parliament has the option of forming a new administration under a new Prime Minister otherwise a general election is held. The democratic benefit of this is that every electoral district has the opportunity to elect (or reelect) their Member of Parliament (MP) every four or less years. Unfortunately the four year cycle affects government policy. Politicians have demonstrated that staying in power has a higher priority than national interests and, as a consequence, governments tend to be more fiscally responsible at the beginning of a term (Ontario Premier Doug Ford in 2019) but spend wildly prior to an election (lowering taxes etc..) in order to buy votes (Ontario may experience this in 2023). General elections are expensive for political parties so they are naturally very receptive to donations, but the public perception of this is that large donations most likely have strings attached (SNC Lavalin, Liberals and Trudeau in 2019). If a donation has an affect on government policy it makes a mockery of the democratic concept of one vote per person and in this case the the “donation” should be considered a bribe.

Rolling Parliamentary Elections

The concept of rolling parliamentary elections is for local elections to be spread evenly over a four year term. A newly elected MP serves a full four year term regardless of a change in administration. General elections are never held but there are always a number of districts (about 2 elections per week) campaigning for an upcoming election. This eliminates the cyclical nature of Parliament as a popular government may remain in power indefinitely, and there is continuous feedback to parliament of public sentiment due to the ongoing election campaigns. If political sentiment is changing there could be a gradual change to the balance of political power and lead to the government being defeated. If the government is defeated the same procedure available today can be used to form a new government (majority party or coalition). If this procedure fails MPs must elect a new Prime Minister from their number using a SECRET ranked ballot system. The ballot must be secret and not subject to party discipline as preferences may well be across party lines.

The advantages of this proposal for rolling elections are legion:
- The current administration remains in office until it loses the confidence of the lower house. It logically follows that government policy will not be influenced by a general election cycle (buying votes with taxpayers’ money prior to an election). Policy is able to take into account both short and long term requirements.
- Political parties will no longer need to raise funds for general elections. This should reduce or eliminate the influence of corporate and private finance on government policy.
- There is continual feedback from the population concerning shifting political views. At any time, there will be multiple bye-election campaigns in progress. The results of these elections can be analyzed, and the government may choose to modify policy accordingly.
- Continuity. Currently all MPs are essentially fired prior to a general election. If there is a radical shift in party popularity the new parliament may well be composed of a high proportion of inexperienced MPs. This proposal ensures that parliament will have MPs with a range of experience of up to at least four years even in the unlikely case of no incumbents ever being returned to office.
- A bye election is held to elect a local representative (MP) and it will be rare for a specific result to cause the overthrow of the party or government in power. Consequently the electorate will be more likely to focus on their choice of representative (strategic voting will no longer be necessary).
- The negative impact of mass and social media will be reduced. It is not practical to use national mass media to attack or support all individual candidates. Political parties have overcome this for general elections by convincing the public that the importance of the local vote is to elect the next government and, as a result, the population is bombarded with national advertising supporting or attacking parties and their leaders. National advertising for (or against) a party or leader would not be appropriate for local bye-elections, and would have to be sustained continuously to influence all bye-elections. Continuously sustained party political national advertising would be very expensive and most likely tire the public, but it would provide time to query the facts and news presented (true, false, alternate…). Funding for bye-elections should be limited to prevent national mass media advertising directed at local campaigns.
- The political shift in parliament will be gradual and a change of government anticipated. Assuming the government in power has an absolute majority and is losing popularity, there will become a point at which it has an even (or similar) number of seats with the second most popular party. When the two major parties have the same (or similar) number of seats the other parties and independent MPs will determine who governs, and during this time MPs may resort to minority government, forming a coalition or holding a secret ballot.

The disadvantages are hardly worth mentioning for they are few and are of less weight than the advantages listed above:

Traditionally, governments have placed maintaining political power as a higher priority than national interests. The danger is that this proposal would favour short over long term policy (mindful of the upcoming local elections) but the state of the nation and its economy would most likely prevent this.

The Ranked Ballot system is designed to improve on the first past the post system where a voter is only given a single vote when choosing from multiple candidates. A dilemma faced by a voter with a single vote is how to use the vote when statistically his/her preferred candidate has almost no chance of winning. A common solution a voter employs is to abandon the preferred candidate and to cast the single vote for a major party candidate, and this is known as strategic voting. Strategic voting is biased against independent and minor party candidates and as a result the statistics are biased in favor of the major parties. Ranked ballots can be utilized whenever it is necessary to elect an individual from a list of candidates but it does not imply any particular political system. To his credit Prime Minister Trudeau advocated for ranked ballots but unfortunately also stated his opposition to proportional representation. Ranked ballot systems should be considered separately from proportional representation. If a ranked ballot system is introduced first meaningful statistics (by excluding strategic votes) could affect the requirement for the latter.

This proposal differs slightly from the standard Ranked Ballot system in how the votes are counted and is designed to enable voters to choose their ranked candidates without losing the strength of their strategic votes (see above) .

The standard voting system counts the top ranked candidate of each voter then eliminates the candidate with the minimum votes on each pass (the last pass is when a candidate reaches a majority 50% +1). A simple example of where this fails is to consider 3 parties split A 36%, B 34% and C 30% on the first vote count pass. Party C is eliminated on the first pass from all the voters. If it had not been eliminated it would have only taken 21% of the voters to choose Party C as a second choice for the party to win on a second pass.

To avoid the sub-optimal results produced by the standard ranked ballot system in cases like the one described above, I propose voters being given the ability to rank up to 3 candidates (the first choice is required) or one less than the number of candidates if there are less than 4. The proposal is for the count to include the previous ranks with the next rank in the next pass (the last pass is when a candidate reaches a majority 50% +1). This means each voter can get 2 votes (different candidates) in the second pass and 3 votes in the third and last pass. If nobody reaches 50% +1 on the last pass (the one including all the votes) the candidate who has the most votes wins.

A voter is likely confronted with the following types of choice –

A respected independent candidate that has similar political leanings. This candidate will be totally free from party pressure to represent the riding and could be the first choice

The preferred political party candidate. This will be the second ranked choice if there is a preferred independent candidate otherwise it will be the first ranked. As this is the highest ranked political party vote it should be used to contribute to the collection of party statistics.

A lower ranked political party candidate. This will be the last ranked choice. This is a strategic choice the voter makes in case one of his/her higher ranked choice(s) doesn’t win. In some cases the higher ranked choices have little prospect of winning the election and could be considered “throw away” votes. Unfortunately the current first past the post system encourages the use of strategic voting which biases the statistics in favor of the major parties which, at the next election, further encourages strategic voting (self perpetuating).

Although it may seem like voters’ first choices should be given more weight, there is an important reason why all votes must be counted equally. If a voter that did not choose a major party as a first choice was asked which of his/her choices should be eliminated if there was one less that could be chosen, it is most likely to be the first (but honestly preferred) because there was little likelihood of that candidate winning (throw away vote). The same argument can be made for the second choice to be eliminated if it was not for a major party. This would suggest the third choice (strategic) should be given equal weight to the others and also demonstrates the underlying problem with the current first past the post system.

If all votes are given equal weights it makes no sense for all voters to rank all candidates. All candidates would receive 100% on the last pass if all votes were to be counted. Voters should only be allowed to rank three candidates, or – when there are less than four candidates – 1 less than the total number of candidates. More choices would most likely invite a thoughtless exercise as voters fill in the rest of the blanks.