Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
I've been over this before but First Past the Post allows the electorate to truly destroy political parties allowing for renewal at all levels of government. It is a potent weapon in the hand of voters, and that is why so many politicians are so keen to change it.
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That IMO is a weird view, as the countries with First Past the Post have really stagnant political systems with very few parties to choose from. So the theory doesn't seem to describe reality.
Anyway, here's some simple instructional videos on the proposed ideas.
Single Transferable Vote:
And
Mixed-Member Proportional
It's worth noting that there are numerous variations and combinations of both systems, and the article isn't specific enough on the details to actually get an idea how the new system would work. (Or even if the new system is yet specified at a detailed level.)
As for how it would change Canadian politics, simple Liberal domination is actually a really unlikely result.
At the moment, one of the suckiest things to be is a disgruntled minority within a party in a First Past the Post system. First, your chances of being strongly supported as a candidate by your own party are slim because you represent a minority idea. Second, you are actively discouraged from voicing your minority opinions publicly, as internal party warfare is bad party PR, and you don't want to damage your party. (This is especially true if you're generally winning. That's not a time when you want to rock the boat.) Third, you are even more strongly discouraged to run as a candidate for a similar smaller party, as this would only lead to vote splitting and a candidate from a party you totally oppose winning.
In short, First Past the Post tends to create large parties with big differences inside the party. This is a terrible thing for voters, as they have little to choose from and there's a lot of pressure to vote strategically. (Which really should not be a voter concern.)
On the other hand, in a transferable vote system a party is encouraged to run several different candidates at the same time, as that would be likely to draw the maximum amount of voters for their party in general. This means differing opinions inside a party can actually be a good thing, as long as those ideas are not too far off and the differences are presented in a civil manner. This is good for the voters, as they get more options to vote for AND they get to have influence within their party. If the Liberals would continue to dominate, you could still pick which kind of Liberals you like the most.
HOWEVER. A thing the Liberals probably have not considered.
A transferable vote system also incentivizes creating completely new parties that are similar to the large existing parties, and that's most likely done by their own internal minorities. (Who after all are experienced and enthusiastic about politics but have some gripes.)
In a First Past the Post system this could only have lead to disaster (as they would either be left without votes or split the votes badly), but in the proposed new system creating a new party would be "safe" and possibly even somewhat preferable to an overall Liberal agenda (as again Liberal voters would now have more options, and would thus be more likely to vote).
So really, the most likely result IMO would be the Liberals eventually splitting up, or some new party rising "in between" the existing major parties. That's where most the voters are, after all.
As an almost extreme example, if the US had a transferable vote system, the Republicans would very likely have split apart, with the traditional Republicans forming their own party, where they would not be bullied into adopting ultra-conservative stances they hate. They could still be running their own candidates (which they have trouble doing now), giving the more reasonable Republican voters more reasonable options.
The only thing keeping those ideally very different groups together is the First Past the Post system.