[Salt Water Cowboy #10]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

Its a major flaw to our electoral system that doesn't work when there's more than two candidates. FPTP systems work great if its A vs. B... one of them has to get over 50% of the vote to win.

When there's A, B, C, D, E & F running... none of them have to get 50%, just more of the share than the other 5. When its pretty obvious that one party will have more than any of the others, people either stay home because 1. they are confident in their fellow "Party A" voters, or 2. They know that "Party B, C, D, E or F" have no hope. so they don't waste their time.

FPTP is used because its simple. Any idiot can comprehend that if A gets more votes than B, C or D... A wins. Majority systems (like the one the PCs use for their leadership) is a little more complicated, and what's worse... requires people to vote twice. Pure PR systems are the most complicated because they get tricky with percentage to seat ratios and get murky when it comes to direct constituent-MLA relations.

A MMP system is ideal because people still get their FPTP, but all the votes are tallied, and a percentage of seats are awarded by popular vote. Say Alberta had 42 seats for PR (and 45 for FPTP), a party would need over 2.4% of the popular vote for a seat. In that system, both the Greens and Alliance would be represented with at least 2 seats each.

We were refering to less than 50% voter turn out. not having to have 50% total votes...