24 July 15
My hometown newspaper ran an article concerning so-called ranked balloting. It purports to be a fairer way of electing representatives, and the advocates want the method demonstrated in Ontario municipal elections. Ontario has been here before, and it is the same group that went down in flames four years ago that are trying again. The defeat four years ago was about as decisive as you can get, and the method lost on the merits, i.e. on the intellectual argument. I know this because I started the anti-MPRR ball rolling, at the request of my wife.
Below are remarks directed at the latest effort by meddlesome do-gooders who won't take "get lost" for an answer.
It was only a couple of elections ago that Ontario
pronounced upon mixed member proportional representation, a scheme similar to
ranked balloting. MMPR went down to decisive defeat, 60 % against, 40 % in favor: a shocking loss since nearly the entire political establishment
favored it at the time. Now we are seeing the same idea being presented
through the back door.
The advocates for replacing our current method of plurality
election lack the decency of waiting a generation for trying again, or at least
coming up with better arguments. What is the point of holding elections
when people don’t respect the results?
Plurality election, in which he who has the most votes wins,
has been employed in the English-speaking world since the first call of
Parliament in the 13th century. It has been with us so long
that the method doesn’t have a name; being the only kind in its genus it has
never needed one. It is accepted. “First-past-the-post” is a pejoriative, term of ridicule.
Plurality election is the proper term.
Ranked balloting, MMPR, and the like are solutions to a
non-problem. Nobody doubts that the winner by plurality is the
winner. So, what is this question about results being
not-democratic? Everybody accepts the outcome of plurality election, and you can't get more legitimate than that.
Not getting too far into the metaphysical weeds, if
plurality election is undemocratic, then “ranked balloting”, MMPR, and the like
are means of burying the fallacy they purport to eliminate. If plurality election is undemocratic, the results of ranked balloting are
still undemocratic. The winner of a ranked ballot was nobody’s first
choice! All we get with ranked balloting is the result of plurality
election put through a mathematical formula. (Let me have control of the formula, and I'll shut up about it!)
Gauzy new means of elections carry exactly the same alleged
problem they are advocated to solve; they just bury the problem
differently. Therefore, it is better to stick with the simple, the tried
and the true.
And while we are at it let’s start calling our current means
of election “plurality election”, rather than “first-past-the-post” election,
the latter being a partisan term.
-30-
As an afterthought: a democracy has no means of defending itself from a fanatical minority, who can keep renewing the struggle. Eventually, democracy tires of resistance and surrenders to fanaticism. Then, there is no going back. I am worried about resistance to MPRR wearing out. MPRR and the like are bad ideas.
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