The 2011 Canadian Federal election – initial thoughts

(Please see this post for an update – the May 2 election redone using AV.)

I will write a more detailed post at some point in the future once final statistics are available. What follows are simply a few quick observations, mostly aimed at UK readers pondering how to vote in the AV referendum.

Canada’s Conservative party emerged with a strong majority mandate following yesterday’s vote, winning 167 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons – 54% of the seats. They won this with only 39.6% of the popular vote.

The New Democratic Party finished second with 102 seats, 33% of the seats in the House of Commons. They received 30.6% of the vote.

The Liberals finished third, winning 11% of the seats (34) but receiving 18.9% of the vote. The Bloc Quebecois won 4 seats (1.2%) with 6% of the vote and the Green Party picked up its first ever seat in the House of Commons, 0.3% of the seats, but received 3.9% of the vote.

Would this outcome have been different under AV? While I don’t have complete riding by riding final breakdowns yet, I would have to say no. AV tends to produce results similar to what would occur under FPTP. If anything, it might have produced an even stronger Conservative majority. However, in some ridings there was a very definitive spoiler effect in play, which undermined parties other than the Conservatives, and in those instances, the outcome might have been different.

It is important for voters to understand that AV is not proportional. It simply ensures that any MP elected will have majority support in his or her constituency.

However, there was a lot of strategic voting taking place, again, in this election. If voters had the option of AV over FPTP, how they voted may well have been quite different. There would have been more freedom to support parties they want to support rather than vote for parties they don’t particularly like in the hopes of blocking a party they dislike even more. Would that have affected the outcome? Possibly somewhat, but without a more proportional voting system, a Conservative majority was probably inevitable.

Once I have a chance to more closely examine riding by riding results, I will probably write up another post.

 

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An interesting observation

I’m not the sort of blogger who pays much attention to my blog statistics. I write about things that interest me the most, and if some of my posts eventually find readers, that’s great. But it’s not my goal to have the most popular blog, or to try to attract a huge readership.

I have noticed a significant increase in activity on this blog over the course of the past couple of weeks. That in itself didn’t surprise me – the timing coincides with the build-up of two electoral campaigns: Canada’s general election, and the AV referendum in the UK. That increase in traffic prompted me to look more closely, for the first time ever, at the keyword search activity that was bringing people to this blog. Based on that, I even started tailoring certain posts to specifically address some of the queries that were coming up over and over again. I was mostly able to do this for the AV referendum, however.It was a lot easier to write up a post explaining something about AV than it was to address what Canadians were searching for.

What most Canadians are searching for is a site or chart summarizing and comparing the platforms of the main parties contesting this election. I don’t engage in partisan politics on this blog, and because of my job, I have to be particularly careful when blogging about parties in Canada. The best I could do for those looking for these platform comparisons was to point them to another site – in this case, the Globe and Mail, which eventually did produce a comparison of the parties main positions.

This election was supposed to be a very dull one that no one really wanted, and that would inevitably result in pretty much the same outcome as what we went in with. It has become anything but that. There has been an unexpected surge in the polls by the party that perennially finishes fourth in terms of seats, and this has caught pollsters and seat predictors off-guard, as they are uncertain how to interpret what the opinion polls seem to be telling them.

Yet, every day for the past week, the number of people coming to this little blog looking for something that will allow them to compare where the parties stand on key issues (without having to muddle through overly partisan and often quite tedious party manifestos) has only increased. This indicates to me that there are a lot of people out there who simply don’t know who to vote for. Today, voting day, has been no exception. If anything, the need for information is higher. I’ve had double the number of average page views thus far, and polls haven’t closed anywhere in the country yet.

So who are these people? Are they the ones who answer “undecided” when pollsters call? Or are they formerly decided voters wondering if they should reconsider their vote? All I know is that there seem to be an awful lot of them. I only hope that the Globe and Mail’s chart was of some use and I’m sorry that I couldn’t do more to help.

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How are votes counted under AV?

Quite a few people seem to be looking for a clear explanation of how AV voting will work in the UK if the referendum comes to pass on May 5.

I’ve posted this before, but here is a quick video that provides a very simple explanation, delivered in an amusing way:

For those who want more detail, read on. Please note, this is quite simplified and is meant only to provide an  overview of how AV works. For a more official explanation, please consult the Electoral Commission website.

How to vote

Voters will be handed a ballot very similar to the ones currently used in general elections, with the names of all the candidates standing for election in that constituency listed.

What will be different is that voters will have the option of ranking the candidates, if they so choose. By that I mean, if you want to vote for one party and one party only, you can vote exactly as you do under FPTP by putting a “1″ next to your preferred candidate’s name.

However, under AV, you also have the option of ranking candidates based on your political preferences. For example, if your first choice is the Green party candidate, you would put a “1″ next to their name. If you recognize, however, that there is a good chance that the Greens won’t win that seat, you can then indicate which candidate would be your next preferred choice and mark a “2″ next to their name. You can continue this way, ranking all the candidates on the ballot from your most preferred to your least, or you can choose to rank only a few. For example, if there were eight candidates on the ballot paper, you might opt to rank them: Green 1, Labour 2, Liberal Democrat 3, UKIP 4, Conservatives 5, but then decide that you don’t know enough about the remaining parties to rank them, or simply dislike the remaining ones, and so opt to not rank them.

How the votes are counted

The ballots are counted exactly the same way they are under FPTP on the first count. The difference is that to win the seat, a candidate has to get a majority of the votes cast, rather than simply more votes than the second place candidate. For example, if there are 11,000 valid votes cast in a constituency, to win on the first count, a candidate would have to receive 5501 votes (50% + 1). If a candidate succeeds in getting a majority of the votes cast in that constituency on the first count, then that candidate is declared the winner.

If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast on the first count, the candidate who finished last is eliminated and this is where the preferences come into play. The ballots cast for that candidate which have a 2nd preference indicated will then be transferred to the vote piles of those second preference candidates and all the votes for the remaining candidates will be recounted a second time. Again, to win, a candidate will have to receive a majority of the ballots still in play. This number might be different than the number required in the first round since not all voters may have indicated a second preference. For example, of the 11,000 votes cast, the last place candidate received 124 votes, but of those 124 votes, 34 had no preferences indicated. Those 34 ballots are retired, so now there are 10,966 votes in play, and a candidate will need 5,484 votes to win. If no candidate again achieves this 50% + 1 mark, this process is repeated. The new last place candidate is eliminated, and their votes redistributed. This process continues until a candidate wins 50% +1 of the votes in play.

For example, suppose we have the following candidates with the following vote totals on the first count:

Smith – 40
Duncan – 35
Grossman – 15
Porter – 6
McNeil – 4
Total ballots: 100

No candidate has a majority (in this case, 51 votes), so McNeil is eliminated. Of McNeil’s 4 votes, 3 have second preferences and they are Grossman 2, Porter 1. The fourth ballot had only a vote for McNeil and nothing else, so it is not transferred.

Smith – 40
Duncan – 35
Grossman – 17
Porter – 7
Total ballots: 99 (because 1 vote had no second preferences indicated and so does not transfer beyond McNeil). Ballots needed for majority: 50.

Porter is then eliminated, and those seven votes redistributed based on preferences: Smith 5, Duncan 2.

Smith – 45
Duncan – 37
Grossman – 17
Total ballots: 99

We still don’t have a candidate with a majority, so Grossman is eliminated and the votes transferred: Smith 15, Duncan 2. The new count is:
Smith 60
Duncan 39

Smith is elected.

In this example, the result didn’t change from the initial first count – Smith was ahead after the first count and remained ahead and won. Going by Australia’s experience with AV, in a majority of instances, this is what will happen under AV – whoever is first on the first count will most likely remain there, especially if they were already very close to the 50% mark. In some instances, however, the final result will be different and the candidate who finished second on the first count will end up winning. It is possible, but extremely unlikely, that a candidate who is third on the first count might win the seat. Since 1981, in 1500 elections using this same form of AV in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland, this has happened only once.

Ballots that rank only one candidates will be counted only for that candidate each time there is a new round of counting, until that candidate is eliminated (or wins). Once that candidate is eliminated at any stage, the vote will remain in that pile and will not transfer to another candidate.

This is why some argue that some voters have more votes than other voters. This isn’t strictly true – everyone has one ballot and the option to rank candidates or not. If you vote for only one candidate, and that candidate finishes third out of 9 candidates, your vote will still be counted for that candidate each time there is a new count following the elimination of a lower-finishing candidate, until a candidate achieves a majority of the remaining votes. Of course, if you vote for only one candidate and that candidate is eliminated on the first count, your ballot is no longer in play. Similarly, if you did rank other candidates, but they all get eliminated before your first choice, and it’s your first choice that is now being eliminated, none of your other preferences will come into play since those other candidates have already been eliminated. For example, let’s say you vote this way:

UKIP 1
Greens 2
Monster Raving Loony Party 3
Respect 4
You don’t rank the other candidates: Lib Dem, Labour, Conservative.

After the first count, the UKIP candidate is 4th behind Labour, the Lib Dem, and the Conservative. Monster Raving Loony Party is the first to be eliminated. Your vote stays in the UKIP pile. Respect is then eliminated. Then the Green candidate. Then the UKIP candidate is eliminated. Because you ranked only the Greens, MRLP and Respect candidates, and they’ve already been eliminated, none of your transfers will be used.

Some argue that this gives people who vote for smaller parties an advantage, since their vote gets counted several time (potentially). However, when you think about it, it isn’t actually an advantage to have all your preferences come into play. If you rank several candidates, and all or most of those preferences are used, it means that your first-choice party is eliminated, and your second-choice party, and your third-choice party, and your fourth-choice party. However, if a voter has only one preference come into play, that means their party is either the party that wins or the party that comes second. In the first case, they obviously do better by far than the person who had their vote transferred many times. In the second case, it is not clear: if you vote Labour and Labour come second to the Conservatives, then you might well have preferred the Liberal Democrats or the Greens, however, they were behind Labour and so already eliminated, and right until the final round your vote was counting for your favourite party rather than for lower and lower choices. So is it really an unfair advantage to have your vote transfer several times? Not when you really think about it. (Source)

I know some will pick holes in this description of voting under AV – my goal here was simply to provide what I hope is a fairly clear explanation of how the voting process will take place, without going into loads of technical details.

It is important to understand that in most cases, the outcome in a given constituency will be the same under AV as it would be under FPTP – the candidate that is first after the first round of counting, but shy of the required 50% + 1 vote, will most likely end up getting that required majority. In some cases, the candidate who was second on the first count might end up moving ahead and winning. It is extremely unlikely that a candidate who finishes third or lower will ever win a seat. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. What AV does is put an end to candidates winning seats with the support of less than 50% of the votes cast (some MPs are elected with as little as 30% of the votes cast in their constituency). If the fact that some people are elected with minority support doesn’t bother you, you may as well vote No in the referendum. But if you believe that an MP needs the consent of those they represent, and that they should have the support of a majority of those they represent, than you should vote Yes to AV.

In the end, we need to remember that elections are not about winners and losers, elections are about consent to be governed. This is the point of the Alternative Vote. If a candidate does not have the consent of the majority of voters to represent their constituency, they have no right to represent them.

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Fisking David Cameron

Fisking: A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form.

The following is my attempt at fisking this essay by Prime Minister David Cameron on why people should vote No to AV. I don’t know how witty it might be, but it’s bound to be somewhat sarcastic and factual. Note: the PM’s text has not been altered, but for considerations of length, I have altered the formatting, merging of some his “paragraphs” together to address a common point.

In four days, Britain votes in a referendum that is critical to our democracy and our future. Normally, when we vote, those votes have a use-by-date. We elect Councillors, Mayors, MPs and governments for four or five years. But the referendum on AV is about voting in a change that is permanent.

(Unless, of course, further reform takes place in the future. Nothing is ever truly permanent in politics.)

Unless enough people turn out to vote on Thursday, Britain is in real danger of exchanging an electoral system that works for one we would come to regret profoundly.

(Problem number one with Cameron’s arguments – he believes the current electoral system actually works. But even if AV is adopted and after a few elections, proves to be a dud, there’s nothing stopping the country from moving back to FPTP, or trying an even better system.)

To me there are four important reasons to save the First-Past-the-Post system we use today.

The first is its simplicity. It’s so simple it can be summed up in one sentence: the candidate who gets the most votes wins.

(True – the candidate with the most votes does win – even if far more people voted against them.)

Just compare that to AV: a confusing mess of preferences, probabilities and permutations.

(Here he assumes that voting under FPTP is very simple for everyone. For a lot of voters, voting under FPTP involve preferences, probabilities and permutations and other varied contortions as they try to decide if they should vote for the candidate they really like, or the candidate they feel might actually have a shot at winning so that their vote “counts”, or for another candidate they don’t like that much but who might have a shot at winning and beating another candidate they really dislike. Yes, FPTP is very simple and straightforward.)

Leaving aside the clear danger that this complexity could encourage negative campaigning – as in Australia, where voters are greeted at polling stations by party apparatchiks with ‘How to Vote’ cards, telling people the exact order in which to rank each candidate – it would also throw up some patently unfair results.

(Because negative campaigning doesn’t exist at all under FPTP? Cameron obviously hasn’t seen any of the ads being run by Conservatives here in Canada during our current election campaign. As for the matter of “party apparatchiks” greeting voters at polling stations with cards telling them how to vote – a) people don’t have to follow those instructions, they are free to vote any way they damn well please, and b) isn’t political campaigning on election day banned in the UK? It is in Canada. As for patently unfair results, is it fair when a party wins a majority despite coming in second in terms of the popular vote? Is it fair when a party receives 35% of the vote and 55% of the seats in one election, while in the next election, a different party wins 36% of the vote but only 47% of the seats? Is it fair that a party see its share of the popular vote increase, but it actually loses seats from one election to the next? Is it far that a party win over a million votes, but fail to elect a single candidate?)

Under AV, the person who comes third in people’s first preferences can end up coming first in the race.

(Barely true. In 30 years of AV in elections in the Australian states of NSW and Queensland, this has happened ONCE. In most instances, whoever is ahead on first preferences will win. Sometimes, the second place candidate will win. Almost never will anyone below second win.)

It makes winners of losers and losers of winners. The result could be a Parliament full of second-choices who no one really wanted but didn’t really object to either.

(The problem here is that under FPTP, with most MPs winning their seat with less than 50% of the votes cast in their constituency, often much less than 50%, it looks as if Parliament is full of MPs whom most of their own constituents didn’t want. Again, the reality of AV is that in the majority of cases where preferences will come into play, the candidate that was ahead on first count will end up the winner. AV will not produce grossly different results than would FPTP, but it will ensure that every MP in the House of Commons is preferred by a majority of voters, even if he or she wasn’t everyone’s first choice.)

The second major strength of First-Past-the-Post is its effectiveness.

Throughout history, it has risen to the demands of the time, often with a brutal decisiveness. That’s what happened when it brought in the Thatcher government in 1979. The British people recognised it was time for change – and the electoral system didn’t let them down. On other occasions, when the public has felt that none of the major parties have all of the answers, it has led to a hung Parliament – as it did last year.

(And AV would in most instances have returned the same result, and perhaps even more so.)

Under AV, such decisiveness is much less likely. It will make hung Parliaments more commonplace and make it more difficult to kick out tired governments.

(Not true. It is the reality of more people voting for parties other than the two biggest that leads to hung parliaments. Canada uses FPTP but has had 3 consecutive hung parliaments in a row, with a 4th likely on 2 May.)

Indeed, if it had been in place at the election last year, Gordon Brown could still be Prime Minister today.

(Dubious. AV simulations show that Labour would have won more seats than it did and the Conservatives fewer, but Labour would still have finished second and it still would have been a hung parliament. It might have allowed the Lib Dems to form a coalition with Labour, but they were adamant that Brown step down as Labour leader – which he agreed to do.)

I can’t imagine anything much worse than a voting system that leaves half-dead governments living on life support.

(And this never happens under FPTP?)

The third reason to save First-Past-the-Post is its efficiency.

Everyone knows this country needs to cut spending and get back to living within its means. At this time, we need to protect those things that provide our country with real value for money.

Our current voting system does that – it’s cheap to administer and comes with little bureaucracy.

(Personally, an electoral system’s relative “cheapness” really doesn’t figure on my list of desired features.)

There is a real danger that AV could come with additional costs, from public information campaigns explaining the complexities of AV to the extra expense of counting votes at election time.

(Again – there NO evidence anywhere that vote counting machines will be needed, and the Yes side recently pledged that no vote counting machines would be brought in.)

At this time I think our money is better spent on public services than on our political system.

(Personally, I think a better democracy is worth any cost. It shouldn’t ever be an either-or proposition.)

The fourth reason to save First-Past-the-Post is to do with our history.

Each democracy in the world has its own story, shaped by its own chain of events. The American system, with its strong checks and balances, was born of revolution – designed to avoid the possibility of over-mighty government. In Europe, both after the Second World War and the fall of Communism, many countries adopted other more plural voting systems, again constructed to avoid the experience of being dominated by over-mighty governments.

Britain’s democracy has its own story. Two centuries ago, voting was limited to a privileged few. Generations of campaigners fought and died to change that. Their struggle gave us the principle that sits at the heart of our democracy today: we are all equal, therefore we all have an equal say at the polls. One person, one vote.

(Except that some voters are more equal than others. In 2005 it took a mere 26,906 votes to elect a Labour MP, but 44,373 to elect a Tory MP and a massive 96,539 votes to elect a Lib Dem MP. Almost four times more votes were required to elect a Lib Dem MP, compared to a Labour MP. That didn’t improve in 2010: it took 33,000 votes to elect a Labour MP and 35,000 votes to elect a Conservative MP, but no fewer than 119,000 votes to elect a Liberal Democrat MP.)

So First-Past-the-Post isn’t just one way of counting votes; it is an expression of our fairness as a country. It is enshrined in our constitution and integral to our history – and AV flies in the face of all that because it destroys one person, one vote. If you vote for a mainstream candidate who comes top in the first round, your other preferences will never be counted. But if you vote for a fringe candidate who gets knocked out early, your other votes will be counted. That means the second, third, even fourth votes of someone who supports the Monster Raving Looney Party can count as much as the first vote of someone who supports a mainstream party. That is unfair and undemocratic.

(Everyone gets one ballot under AV. Everyone has the choice of ranking as few or as many candidates as they want. The main point that Cameron misses here is that it’s not an advantage to have all of your preferences counted. To quote a maths professor:  “Consider first what it means if you get five bites of the cherry. It means that your first-choice party is eliminated, and your second-choice party, and your third-choice party, and your fourth-choice party. Compare that with the poor old voter who gets just one bite of the cherry. Their party is either the party that wins or the party that comes second. In the first case, they obviously do better by far. In the second case, it is not clear: if you vote Labour and Labour come second to the Conservatives, then you might well have preferred the Liberal Democrats or the Greens. But (i) they were behind Labour and (ii) right until the final round your vote was counting for your favourite party rather than for lower and lower choices. GETTING MORE BITES OF THE CHERRY IS A DISADVANTAGE STUPID!”)

Don’t take all this from me. You can judge the relative merits of First-Past-the-Post and AV by how popular they are overseas.

Our current system is one of Britain’s most successful exports – used by almost half the electors on the planet, embraced and understood by 2.4 billion people from India to America.

(All the countries that use FPTP only do so as a result of historical pressure (such as the UK). Every single new democracy since 1945 has rejected AV. Three of them did start off with FPTP but quickly changed it for better systems. Only three countries use AV in national elections though plenty (such as the USA and the UK) use it for non national elections and most of the countries that don’t use AV or FPTP use something far more proportional. And just because FPTP is used in other countries doesn’t mean that there isn’t a desire to change the system in those countries, or at least a recognition that it’s not working well. Candidates to India’s Lok Sabha (the lower house) can win seats with as little as 10% of the votes cast. There is growing recognition in Canada that FPTP is clearly broken. The US really does have a two-party system – not really comparable to how party politics are evolving in the UK.)

So in the next few days ask yourself a few questions: do you want to switch to a voting system that is hopelessly unclear, unfair and indecisive? Do you want elections that are – as Churchill put it – “determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates”?

(If we’re going to quote Churchill, let’s remember that he had this to say about FPTP: “The present system has clearly broken down. The results produced are not fair to any party, nor to any section of the community. In many cases they do not secure majority representation, nor do they secure an intelligent representation of minorities. All they secure is fluke representation, freak representation, capricious representation.”)

And do you want to rip up a valuable part of our constitution and centuries of British history for a system that is unpopular the world over? If the answer is no, make sure you get out to the polling station on 5th May – and vote no to AV.

(How does Cameron know AV is unpopular the world over? You can’t equate quality with quantity. Billions of people eat at McDonald’s yet I don’t see anyone arguing that means it’s the best restaurant out there.)

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Is FPTP unconstitutional?

I confess that the following story, which began in 2004, flew completely under my radar – much to my chagrin. I only learned about this yesterday, but now that I am aware of it, I do plan to follow this case very closely.

A legal challenge has been launched by a group in the province of Quebec to have the province’s electoral system, FPTP, declared unconstitutional. In 2004, the Association for the Advancement of Democratic Rights deposed a motion in the Quebec Superior Court that sought to have the offending articles in Quebec’s Electoral Act that are responsible for bringing forth what they call  “a discriminatory voting method” to be declared null and void. The group is asking the Courts to determine whether the voting system in use in Quebec (and across Canada) respects the equality guarantees inherent in the voting rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The group won the first stage – their case was ruled to be admissible, but they lost the second stage, the Court did not rule in our favor in the first instance. They launched an appeal, and the first hearing took place on 8 February 2011.

In looking into this matter, I discovered much had been happening in the province of Quebec that, as far as I can tell, has gone largely unreported in the rest of Canada.

Quebec’s Election Act stipulates that after every other election, the Directeur général des élections du Québec (DGEQ), who is responsible for overseeing and administrating the Act and elections, will authorize a review of the province’s electoral boundaries. I used to live in the province of Quebec, and it was oft stated that the region of Montreal was under-represented in the National Assembly, and the more rural parts of the province over-represented. This reality favoured one party, the pro-independence Parti québécois (PQ) rather than the Liberal party. It was common knowledge that the Liberals had to have a significant lead in the polls over the PQ in order to win a majority government, whereas the PQ needs a much narrower lead to win a majority (and at least once actually finished second in votes to the Liberals and still won a majority, as occurred in 1998).

The review of Quebec’s electoral boundaries began in 2007 by the Commission de la représentation électorale (CRE). A preliminary proposal to delimit the 125 electoral divisions was presented to the public; public hearings were held all across Québec and a third general election, in 2008, was exceptionally held on the basis of the electoral map of 2001.

In the fall of 2010, the delimitation proposal of the CRE was submitted for the consideration to a Committee of the the province’s National Assembly (provincial legislature). At that briefing, two Liberal Ministers accused the DGEQ of betraying the regions and to have performed his work in a manner beneath the dignity of the institution he represented. This prompted Marcel Blanchet, the Director General of Elections, to tender his resignation. On October 28, 2010, Premier Jean Charest announced that he was scrapping the electoral map drawn up by the independent CRE and effectively suspending the electoral laws in Quebec.

On November 23 2010, the Quebec assembly passed Bill no. 132, entitled An Act to suspend the electoral division delimitation process. Its object is to suspend, until June 30, 2011, the electoral map revision process.

Due to the passage of Bill No.132, the process to revise Quebec’s electoral map has been interrupted. As a result, the Commission cannot proceed to what was supposed to be the next step, namely the tabling of its second report describing the revised delimitation proposal.

Presently, 27 of the 125 ridings do not conform to the Quebec Electoral Law’s stipulation that the number of electors per riding can be no more or no less than a 25% deviation from the average number of electors per riding province-wide. The proposed map would have rectified this anomaly. However, in doing so, the number of seats in rural Quebec would have been reduced in favour of increasing the number of seats primarily in and around the City of Montreal. This was politically problematic for Quebec’s political parties. The rural parts of the province are overwhelmingly francophone and white, while Montreal is much more ethnically and linguistically diverse.

The group that is challenging Quebec’s electoral system before the courts argued that FPTP discriminates against the anglophone and allophone (who don’t have French or English as their first language) population. For example, in Quebec, ridings where anglophones and allophones make up more than 20% of the electorate have on average 7% less voting power than the provincial average. As well, because of the wasted vote phenomenon playing out in these ridings, the participation rates in these voting districts is 13% lower than the provincial average. While the lower court which first heard the case dismissed this on the grounds that discrimination on a linguistic basis is not protected by Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, during the appeal, the group is now arguing that FPTP discriminates against women since they are in general under represented in countries that use this voting system. Section 15 of the Charter does guarantee gender equality.

I am not entirely clear on what is currently happening in Quebec. There is surprisingly little that comes up online when I try to search for more information. I assume that the National Assembly is trying to come up with some alternative to the electoral map review suspended with the passage of Bill 132. One person who is involved with the court challenge has been blogging about this matter here, and in this post, he makes references to some amendments passed by the Assembly in March:

This week the PQ recommended that there be two different provincial quotients, one for rural ridings and one for urban ridings, which means that the inequality of the vote would become institutionalized. Furthermore, this move would be in the national interest. Remember this is the party that claims to be socially democratic. I guess some social democrats are more equal than others depending where you live.

Not to be outdone, the Quebec Liberals then proposed that they would add three additional electoral districts to the map. Too bad it would take at least 26 additional seats to lower the provincial average for the number of electors per riding so that all of the ridings would conform to Quebec’s own electoral law.

As I stated, this issue doesn’t seem to be getting any coverage in the rest of Canada, and I am having a very difficult time finding any media coverage from Quebec. I have found one story about the court challenge on the Radio-Canada site (in French). There is also this press release from the Quebec Liberal Party (also in French) outlining the party’s proposals mentioned in the above quote.

The group’s appeal hearing appears to have gone very well, based on this blog post. The judges are expected to issue a judgement in 60-90 days, which should be sometime in May. Regardless of the outcome, this case will be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. If the group wins, the Quebec government will appeal. If the group loses, they will most likely appeal. Ultimately, if FPTP is found to be discriminatory and in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this will have an impact across the country, since every jurisdiction in Canada uses FPTP.

I really wish this case was getting more media attention.

 

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Most common AV-related questions

(Updated: 4 May 2011)

(Do you have a specific question regarding how to vote under AV or how the vote is counted? Click here.)

The aim of this post is to offer short, to the point answers to the most common issues readers from the UK seem to be looking into, based on the keyword search activity that is bringing people to this blog. If there is something missing here that you would like to see addressed, please comment or use the contact form to let me know.

Personal disclaimer: I try to provide the most unbiased, non-partisan information that I can. I am Canadian, living in Canada, and so have no personal stake in the outcome of the AV referendum. I do admit that, as somewhat of a politics geek, I would like to see AV adopted because it would be interesting and it might spur a similar debate here in Canada. I am partial to electoral reform in general, but not necessarily AV in particular.

Do Australians want to get rid of AV?

Short answer: No.

More detailed answer: There is one thing readers need to understand about AV in Australia as it is used at the national level to elect members to the House of Representatives. Australia uses Full Preferential voting, which is like the Alternative Vote proposed in the UK, but differs in one very important way – voters have to rank every single candidate on their ballot (although they can leave one candidate unranked – that candidate will be considered their last choice). If a voter leaves 2 or more candidates unranked, their ballot is considered spoiled and not counted. This is what some polls are finding some Australians are objecting to. They don’t want to move to FPTP, they simply want what is being offered in the UK – Optional Preferential, where the voter can rank as many or as few candidates as they want. If they want to vote for only one candidate, they can, if they want to rank only 2-3 candidates, they can, etc. For a fuller discussion of this, please read Australian Elections expert Antony Green’s post on the subject.

When did Australia adopt AV?

Only answer: Before the 1919 federal election.

Do I have to rank every candidate?

Short answer: No.

More detailed answer: The AV option being proposed for the UK does not require voters to rank every candidate on the ballot. If you want to vote for only one person, you can do that – in other words, vote exactly as you would under the current system. You can rank as many or as few candidates as you want. If there are 8 names on the ballot, and you’re only comfortable ranking three of them, you can do that. If you want to rank all 8, you can do that too.

Why should I rank more than 2 candidates?

Short answer: To provide a clearer picture of how much support parties actually have.

More detailed answer: You don’t have to rank more than 2 candidates. You don’t have to rank any candidates. However, there are some advantages to indicating preferences for more than one or two or even three parties. Under FPTP, it is very difficult to truly assess how much voter support smaller parties actually have, because many people who like smaller parties such as the Greens, or even larger ones such as UKIP, don’t vote for those parties because they know they have no chance of winning the seat. Similarly, the support for larger parties might not be very accurately reflected under FPTP because a lot of voters try to vote strategically – for example, Conservative supporters in constituencies where the Conservative party has little chance of winning might instead vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate hoping that may prevent Labour from winning. So their vote isn’t really indicative of support for the Lib Dems as a party, but of anti-Labour sentiment. AV allows voters to vote freely for the parties they actually like and support, but also rank other parties based on who they would be OK with as an MP, assuming their first (or even second) choice might not win. It will allow parties to get a much clearer assessment of their actual support among voters, and how supporters of other parties feel about their parties. For example, the Conservatives might discover that they are very popular among Green party supporters (probably not very likely, but I’m simply trying to use this as an example). This might prompt the party to work harder to attract more support from Green voters by adopting better environmental policies.

With the option to rank as many parties as you want, it might even encourage you to take a closer look at some of the manifestos of the smaller parties. You might even discover that you prefer what they offer more than what the party you traditionally have voted for is putting forward. The more information you have about the various parties contesting each election, the more informed your vote will be. This can only be a positive.

Will AV cost £250 million? What are the costs of AV?

Short answer: No, AV will not cost £250-million.

More detailed answer: I have addressed the No2AV’s £250-million costs claims in this post. Most of their figures seem to be, at best, guesses, and the main cost item they are claiming, £130-mn for electronic voting machines, is at best specious and at worst, a complete fabrication. There will be some costs associated with AV, certainly, most notably voter education campaigns before the next election if the referendum is successful. It might also cost a bit more for elections (since it may take a bit longer to count the vote in some constituencies). Some numbers have been arrived at by looking at how much elections cost in Australia per capita and tripling that since the UK has 3 times the population. Personally, I don’t think that is a realistic assessment. In a good number of ridings (about a third in the 2010 election), if a candidate wins 50%+1 on the first count, the count won’t cost any more than it currently does. It won’t take that much longer to do counts in constituencies where vote transfers will come into play – many will probably only require one additional count as the lead candidate will be very close to the 50% mark after the first count.

Update: The No side admits it used made-up figures.

Does AV cause hung parliaments?

Short answer: No more so than does FPTP.

More detailed answer: It isn’t the voting system that leads to hung parliaments, it is the reality that fewer and fewer people are voting for the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives. FPTP was meant to work in a two-party system. In a multi-party system such as has evolved in the UK (and countries such as Canada), FPTP starts to break down. Canada uses FPTP but had three hung parliaments in a row (2004, 2006 and 2008) because we have four strong parties that win seats in the House of Commons and a fifth party, the Greens, which garners close to a million votes (and finally won their first seat in the May 2 2011 election). These results would probably be quite similar under AV (but perhaps with a different party ending up with the most seats). Australia has had fewer hung parliaments using AV than either the UK or Canada has under FPTP, but this is because Australia really does have a much stronger two-party system than the UK and Canada. They don’t have a strong third party such as the Liberal Democrats. Both FPTP and AV would likely produce the same number of hung parliaments in the UK because more and more voters continue to prefer parties other than Labour and the Conservatives.

How does AV lead to coalition governments?

Short answer: It doesn’t.

More detailed answer: An election conducted under AV might result in a hung parliament – just like under FPTP. Coalition government can result from a hung parliament, but doesn’t have to. Canada had 3 hung parliaments in a row (2004, 2006, 2008) and in each one resulted in minority government, where the party that wins the most seats, but not a majority, governs on its own and hopes other parties will support it on confidence votes like the budget. After the May 2010 election in the UK, David Cameron decided to try to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. That was his decision. One would assume that had the election occurred under AV and resulted in a similar result, he would have made the same offer. AV only elects the parliament – it is parliament that decides on the government.

Who would have won the last election under AV?

Short answer: No one – it would still have resulted in a hung parliament.

More detailed answer: While it isn’t possible to know for certain how past elections might have turned out using AV (or any other electoral system), most studies have determined that the past few elections would have resulted in the same outcome, but perhaps with stronger majorities in some cases. I believe only one election, 1992, might have had a different outcome under AV – a hung parliament rather than a small Conservative majority. There are some claims that had the May 2010 election been conducted under AV, Labour may have won more seats (but still fewer than the Conservatives), but enough to perhaps have made a Labour-Lib Dem coalition possible. This is why some on the No side say that under AV, Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister. This might be true, but if we remember the party negotiations that took place last May, the Lib Dems were most adamant that Gordon Brown not stay on as PM, and he agreed to that. But that aside, the May 2010 election under AV would still have resulted in a hung parliament.

Does Canada use AV?

Short answer: No.

More detailed answer: I blogged about this in detail here. Three Canadian provinces briefly used AV, with the last one returning to FPTP in 1959. Currently, FPTP is used for federal elections and for provincial elections, and probably for most municipal elections (I don’t follow municipal politics outside of my own city, and so may not be aware of any non-FPTP municipal jurisdictions in other provinces). I would add, however, that the decisions to stop using AV in the three provinces in question were purely self-serving ones. AV was dropped because the incumbent party wanted to ensure its own electoral success, and it felt FPTP would better serve that purpose. There was no public consultation re: switching back to FPTP – the governments of the day made the decision unilaterally to stop using AV.

Does AV help minor parties?

Short answer: It depends

More detailed answer: This one is more difficult. Some argue that it becomes more difficult for smaller parties to win seats under AV since their appeal is more limited and it would be very difficult for them to garner enough vote transfers to reach the 50%+1. It is easier for smaller, marginal parties to win seats under FPTP, particularly if voter turnout is lower and if there are many candidates contesting the seat, resulting in vote splitting between the major parties which can allow a minor party to sneak in and win. However, most studies indicate that the Greens would still have won the one seat they won last May under AV. Another point in favour of AV: it will at least help give a more accurate picture of the support for minor parties. In theory, people will be less concerned about voting for a minor party for fear of wasting their vote. For example, we don’t know exactly how many people who voted Lib Dem in May 2010 were actually Green Party supporters hoping to block a win by a Tory candidate, for example, or to avoid “wasting” their vote.

Most people are concerned about the possibility of extremist parties such as the BNP winning seats under AV. I addressed this issue in this post. Of course it is possible for the BNP to win seats under AV, but it would be more difficult, much more difficult, because of their limited appeal (and the fact that most voters find their ideals repellent). Also, under AV, the other parties could work together more easily to shut out the BNP by encouraging their supporters to rank another party’s candidate as their 2nd choice in a riding where the BNP was looking strong.

How would AV deal with hung parliaments?

Short answer: AV doesn’t deal with hung parliaments, parliament does.

More detailed answer: I am not entirely certain what people are trying to find out with this, but it does appear frequently in my keyword search activity. AV, like FPTP is a voting system that will return a parliament. If that newly-elected parliament has one party winning a majority of the seats in the House of Commons, than that party forms the government. If the parliament returned has no party winning an outright majority of seats, than it is up to the MPs elected to determine what party or group of parties will be able to command the confidence of the House. The voting system simply elects people – what happens after that is up to the people elected. AV isn’t that different from FPTP, and the outcomes returned will be very similar. The only real difference under AV is that every MP elected will have the support of a majority of voters in their constituency – no more MPs elected by only a minority of voters.

Under AV, can a candidate in third place after the first count win the seat?

Short answer: It’s not impossible, but it’s extremely rare.

More detailed answer: According to Antony Green, “of the 1,500 electorates contested under AV in NSW and Queensland since 1981, I found one case of a third placed winner. It was the NSW Electorate of Murrumbidgee in 1984″.

 

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AV in Canada

(You may also be interested in this post for a summary of the most common questions being asked about AV, or this post, which looks at how elections in Western Canada actually worked using AV and the problem of “plumping”.)

This blog has been getting quite a few hits from people searching for information about when the Alternative Vote was used in Canada.

The Alternative Vote (AV) has never been used nationally for federal elections in Canada. As far as I can tell, it was only used in three western provinces, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba, but no province currently uses anything other than FPTP.

AV in British Columbia

AV was used briefly for provincial elections in 1952 and 1953. Ironically, the story involves a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives plotting to eliminate a third, upstart party.

The 1945 and 1949 general elections in British Columbia were won by a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives. However, by the early 1950s, this coalition was starting to disintegrate, and a new party appeared, the leftist CCF (forerunner of the New Democratic Party). Viewing the CCF as a threat, while the coalition government was still in place, it introduced the Alternative Vote. This was done for purely political reasons. The Liberals and Conservatives believed that AV would hurt smaller parties (which it does tend to do), and using AV would, they thought, eliminate the CCF as a serious threat in the 1952 election.

However, the plan backfired because many voters listed another party, the Social Credit (Socred) party as their second choice, and the Socreds actually ended up forming the government (as a minority).

In 1953, due to the difficulties of governing with a minority, Socred Premier WAC Bennett deliberately forced an election over an education issue. The Socreds were re-elected with a majority government. Bennett immediately reinstated the First Past the Post system, which remains in use today.

AV in Alberta

For the 1921 general election the Liberal government instituted a “block voting” system for the large cities. MLAs from Calgary and Edmonton were elected across the city, rather than in single-seat ridings. Each city elected five MLAs, the winners chosen by plurality (the candidates with the most votes win).

In 1926, the United Farmers of Alberta government maintained at-large voting in Calgary and Edmonton but replaced plurality voting with proportional voting. Voters ranked the candidates in order of preference. The winners were those with the highest preferences. (single-transferable vote or STV.)

For the rest of the ridings in the province, the Alternative Vote was adopted. A single candidate was elected by a preferential ballot, the winner being the one who received 50 per cent plus one vote of the first or subsequent preferences. This system stayed in place until 1959, when the Social Credit government unilaterally abolished the province’s mixed system of proportional and majority voting, returning the entire province to single-member districts with plurality voting (FPTP).

AV in Manitoba

In 1920, the provincial government introduced preferential ballots (STV) in the city of Winnipeg.  Seats were allotted to each party per 9% of the vote received.

A second electoral reform bill was passed in 1924 and the alternative vote was used in 1927 for all of the ridings in Manitoba outside of Winnipeg (which retained STV). This delivered 30 years of stable governments, including cooperative coalitions during the war.  Because of the less adversarial nature of the alternative vote, cooperation in the legislature was common and helped Manitoba through the great depression.

The 1953 general election was the first election held after the breakup of a ten-year coalition government led by the Liberal-Progressives and Progressive Conservatives. The coalition, which began in 1940, was ended in 1950 when the Progressive Conservatives crossed to the opposition side. It was also the last provincial election in Manitoba to feature multi-member constituencies and election by the single transferable ballot in Winnipeg.

Prior to the 1958 election, following a couple of disappointing by-election results in 1955, the government replaced the alternative vote with FPTP so as to reduce competition in the next election. The province has not revisited the issue of electoral reform since.

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A few thoughts on the monarchy

With all the focus on the AV referendum in the UK and the general election here in Canada, I’ve not had a chance to write anything about another event that’s in the news quite a bit. Of course I am referring to the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29.

I freely admit that I am a monarchist. I recognize that there is nothing rational in being a monarchist, but as Alex Massie points out “[M]onarchy may not satisfy a keen rationalist but abandoning something that works simply because it doesn’t “make sense” doesn’t make much sense either.”

I don’t really intend to write about the wedding itself. I am more interested in a couple of other issues surrounding the monarchy these days. First up are the proposals to change royal succession rules, as recently put forward by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. The current rule, set out in the 1701 Act of Settlement, specifies that a royal couple’s eldest male child automatically becomes monarch — unless, as was the case when Queen Elizabeth II succeeded her father, King George VI, there is no male heir in the family — which many see as rather discriminatory and out of touch with a society that values gender equality, among other things. What some may not know is that the UK alone cannot change these rules. Any change would have to be agreed to by all the countries which recognize the Queen as monarch, including, of course, Canada.

Because Canada adopted the Statute of Westminster in 1931, these constitutional laws as they apply to Canada now lie within the full control of the Canadian parliament. Canada agreed not to change its rules of succession without the unanimous consent of, and a parallel change of succession in, the other realms, unless explicitly leaving the shared monarchy relationship; a situation that applies symmetrically in all the other realms and has been likened to a treaty amongst these countries. Thus, Canada’s line of succession remains identical to that of the United Kingdom. However, there is no provision in Canadian law requiring that the king or queen of Canada must be the same person as the king or queen of the United Kingdom; if the UK were to breach the convention set out in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster and unilaterally change the line of succession to the British throne, the alteration would have no effect on the reigning sovereign of Canada or his or her heirs and successors. As such, the rules for succession are not fixed, but may be changed by a constitutional amendment.

Canada’s Prime Minister, when asked about the matter, dismissed it as being a non-issue for most Canadians:

“The successor to the throne [Prince Charles] is a man,” said Mr. Harper. “The next successor to the throne [Prince William] is a man. I don’t think Canadians want to open a debate on the monarchy or constitutional matters at this time. That’s our position, and I just don’t see that as a priority for Canadians right now at all.”

I don’t think many Canadians would have a problem with changing the rule to allow the female offspring of royal couples to succeed to the throne, even if they have younger male siblings. This would bring the monarchy in line with Canada’s own commitment to gender equality. Rather, I think the larger issue that might arise is the question of whether Canada should retain the monarchy full stop.

Recent polls in Canada show that many Canadians favour moving to an elected head of state once Queen Elizabeth II passes away. The Queen still remains quite popular and respected in Canada, but Canadians are decidedly less enthusiastic about Prince Charles. That same poll, however, shows that Prince William is almost as popular as the Queen. The unpopularity of Charles and the popularity of his eldest son isn’t unique to Canada, and this reality might actually lead to a bigger issue than that of male vs. female heirs ascending to the thrown, namely, a crisis of succession.

Recently, the Globe and Mail printed a lengthy article suggesting that the Palace itself acknowledges that there is a crisis of succession:

On the day William and Kate announced their engagement last year, 64 per cent of Britons told pollsters they wanted William to succeed Elizabeth, skipping a generation; fewer than 20 per cent said they wanted Charles to be the next king. Those numbers have narrowed only slightly, with 59 per cent telling The Daily Telegraph’s pollsters last week they wanted the monarchy to “skip a generation.” The wedding could well make this view even more popular.

Such a move wouldn’t be simple. It too would require the cooperation and agreement of all of the Commonwealth Realms, including Canada.

To shuffle Charles out of the deck would be a difficult operation: It is a decision that could be made only by the parliaments of the countries where he would be king. And if they were willing to change the monarchy from one of hereditary succession to one of parliamentarily chosen succession, how far would that be from an elected head of state?

The House of Windsor is gambling that parliaments will see it this way, and will endure Charles if the more stable and appealing William seems hard on his heels.

Friday’s wedding is a crucial volley in this campaign, but it does not obscure the fact that Charles could alienate large parts of the realm. Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has already said she would support having her country become a republic after the Queen’s death.

An embarrassing or unlikeable monarch could quickly disillusion Canadians as well, and if public opinion could be transformed in monarchy-loving Canada, then anything, anywhere in the Commonwealth, might be possible (although such structural change would be dauntingly complex).

How much will Canadians endure Charles now that the more appealing promise of William has been so tantalizingly dangled? We may start to learn the answer this summer, when it will be William’s turn to visit Canada, this time with his photogenic bride.

If he sets foot on the shores of Newfoundland and attracts an audience not in the dozens but in the thousands, will that be read as a vote against his father? Or it could be a vote, as his grandmother may well hope, for a historic bait and switch: an era during which a prince is in our hearts and a king, otherwise ignored, is on our money.

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Some useful links for Canadian Voters

Here are some links that might help you make up your mind how to vote in the May 2 2011 election. I will update this post if/when I come across more useful links.

Party Platform Comparison

So far, only the Globe and Mail has provided readers with a comparison of the party platforms on major issues. The CBC has provided a party-by-party breakdown for the questions it used in its Vote Compass test, which might also be of some interest to voters.

Fact Checkers

Wondering if the claims made by parties and the counter-claims made by their opponents are true or mostly bull? Check out the CBC’s Reality Check, and Maclean’s Bull Meter.

Seat Projections

Never an exact science, but some sites do try to put polls into perspective and translate them into possible seats. One of the best is ThreeHundredEight.com. You can also try DemocraticSpace.

Vote Pairing

I’m not exactly endorsing this practice, but for the interested: “Vote swapping takes aim at hotly contested ridings. For this election, Pair Vote matches voters in close races (swing riding) with each other, or with one who is in a riding where winner is already known, to maximize voting impact. Both voters ensure a vote for their party of choice, plus one or two votes has a real chance of electing someone. That’s the best vote swapping can do within our broken voting system.”

If there is something you think is missing from this list, please use the Contact form to let me know!

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The 1985 Liberal-NDP Accord

(Note: if you’re looking for information about what types of government might emerge following a hung (minority) parliament election result, you may be interested in this post, this post and this post. Also, there was no Liberal-NDP coalition in 1985 – it was a Liberal minority government with supply-confidence support from the NDP, as will be explained below.)

Canadian Prime Minister, Conservative Stephen Harper, has repeatedly stated that only the party that wins the most seats has the right to form a government (in the event of a hung parliament), and that a coalition government which does not include the party that won the most seats (for example, that might include the 2nd and 3rd place parties), would not be legitimate. He has even stated that if his party were to  finish second in a general election, but the party that does win the most seats is defeated on a confidence vote soon after the election, he would refuse a request by the Governor General to try to form a government because that too would be somehow illegitimate and contrary to the wishes of voters.

This is simply not how our system works. Canadians do not elect governments, they elect a parliament. The government is formed by any party or group of parties which can command the confidence of the House. It doesn’t matter if these parties finished first in terms of number of seats or second and third – what matters is that they can demonstrate that they have the confidence of the House to govern. There has already been one very good example of a second-place party forming the government following an election, in the province of Ontario in 1985.*

The 2 May 1985 general election in Ontario resulted in a hung parliament, with the incumbent Progressive Conservatives winning 52 seats, the Liberals 48 and the NDP 21 (total seats 125, 63 seats needed for a majority in the Legislature at that time). A minority PC government was formed, but the Liberals and NDP were already in discussion to bring down the government. After several weeks of negotiations, the two parties reached an agreement known as “The Accord“. The two party leaders, David Peterson for the Liberals and Bob Rae for the NDP, signed a deal that would see a number of NDP priorities put into law in exchange for an NDP motion of non-confidence in Miller’s government, and the NDP’s support of the Liberals. The NDP agreed to support a Liberal minority government for two years, and the Liberals agreed to not call an election during that same time.

As per this agreement, the NDP introduced a motion of no confidence in the Miller government, which carried (18 June 1985). As a result of the Liberal-NDP accord, Lieutenant-Governor John Black Aird asked Peterson to form a government. Miller formally resigned as Premier on June 26, 1985 and a minority Liberal government supported by the NDP governed the province for two years, as agreed to by the parties. It is very important to understand that this arrangement was not a coalition government. A coalition government requires that all parties forming the coalition be represented in government, i.e., hold various cabinet positions. In this instance, the NDP was not part of the government; they did not have any of their MPPs appointed to cabinet. It was a Liberal minority government with the NDP providing confidence and supply support for a two-year period.

It should also be noted that in many European countries which use some form of proportional representation to elect their legislative bodies, coalition governments are often formed that do not include the party that might have won the most seats over all (but not a majority). The current government of Israel is a coalition government that does not include the party which finished “first” in terms of number of seats.

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*I am referring to a party which finishes second in terms of number of seats won. There have been instances of parties finishing second in terms of number of votes, but still winning the most seats – yet another distortion of First-Past-the-Post.

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