Letter: Many options for democratic renewal

Re: Letters “Grits, Tories would never back voting change,” published Aug 26 and “Scottish voting model would mean fairer elections,” published Sept 2.

There is a compromise alternative to “First Past the Post” and full “Proportion Representation” called “Preferential Ballot” or “Instant Runoff Elections.”

Runoff elections and/or preferential ballots are used by many organizations, including most political parties to elect leaders and other important positions. With a preferential ballot, you mark your first, second, or more choices as you wish. If no candidate gets 50 per cent of the first choices, the candidate with the least votes is dropped and the second or next choice is tallied.

This is repeated until one candidate reaches 50 per cent. This means that the winning person has some support from at least half of those who voted.

The advantages of this system are many:

- Each riding has its own representative.
- No extra members required as in mixed member proportional systems.
- Voters can select who they want most for their first choice then they may vote strategically on subsequent choices.
- Avoids the problem of vote splitting, especially between candidates that share important policies.
- Every vote will have more chance of affecting the outcome, encouraging higher voter participation.
- The number of members from each party will better reflect the percentage of votes each party gets.
- We will not have majority parliaments with parties that only received about 40% of the total vote.

This is a small change from our present general election system, and is familiar to many people. Preferential ballots do not achieve full proportional representation. They will mostly influence ridings where there is a close second. Some public explanation will be required.

The Preferential Ballot (or Instant Runoff Election) or a similar more complex system called the Single Transferable Vote (preferred for multiple ridings) are used in many countries such as Australia, Iceland, India, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, United Kingdom and the United States. They are used at all levels of government.

Canada desperately needs democratic renewal. This system which allows voters to choose who they truly want without fear on electing someone they do not want because of splitting the vote may be a good first step.

Fred Twilley
Sudbury