I hope everyone had a fantastic long weekend - I know I did.
Some quick hits.
(1) According to Stephane Dion, Victoria can be a sewage leader. Yay, for Victoria!
With all due respect to the Times Colonist, I'm not sure how you go from "Victoria can be a sewage leader" to Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion wanting 1/3 of candidates to be women all in the same article, with the Kelowna Accord in the middle.
Why was sewage the headline?
(2) I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the Ontario electoral reform proposal as I haven't read the recommendations put out by the Ontario Citizens' Assembly yet. On the surface, I never could understand how striving for 40% of the vote should result in a 70% majority - it just never sit right.
(3) Speaking of requiring electoral reform.
2 comments:
Generally you need more like 50% of the vote to get 70% of the seats, but the idea is not hard to understand. Say you have a riding with three parties, and the parties get the following share of the vote:
Party A: 40%
Party B: 35%
Party C: 25%
Party A wins the seat. The key is that FPTP does not care about the rest of the votes -- it does not remember them across ridings. So now say that EVERY riding had the above vote breakdown. Then party A would win 100% of the seats with 40% of the vote!
(Incidentally, things like this happen quite frequently in New Brunswick and PEI, although the vote breakdown is more like 60%/40%.)
Thanks, Paul.
I should have clarified my point somewhat.
I understand it mathematically - I just don't understand how someone would consider it democratic and defend it as the best system of politics.
It's decisive, and for the most part "clean", but not democratic.
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