There are a lot of misconceptions regarding the proposed MMP system in Ontario. Under the proposed system the Legislature will have 129 seats. 90 seats will be filled as they are now by 90 separate riding votes. The remaining 39 will be awarded to political parties based on their portion of the total vote. Each voter will have two votes - one for a candidate in their riding and the other for one of the parties. You can split your vote by supporting a NDP candidate and the Liberal party. The parties will present list of potential representatives before the election which will be used to fill the party seats.
The critics of this system suggest that party hacks will be awarded seats and the voters will have no say. This is not how it has worked in New Zealand, Germany and other countries that have adopted these reforms. Parties will be careful who they put on the lists because because the media, interest groups and the general public will scrutinize these lists carefully. A contentious names will likely harm the party vote. In fact all seats in the Israeli parliament are filled from lists. There are no directly elected representatives.
1 comment:
Great post. Very good to see some reality filtering through the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) being spread by the NO folks.
It doesn't appear to bother them that there is no evidence to back up their assertions about candidate selection and what a list MPP would do in a day.
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