Recall the UCP and other activist responses

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Do you honestly believe that’s the only option?

I'm asking, what are the solutions? What comes to mind for me is either gerrymandering the urban communities into single ridings or significantly reducing the riding size from around 50,000 to 20,000 so that there are more urban based ridings but now we'd have like 200 MLAs which doesn't seem reasonable.

[Fuzz]

Keep everything the same, but make the city ridings SuperRidings that are worth double everything. Your MLA gets two votes. It counts as two MLA's for legislature representation.


Rural Alberta will love this one simple solution.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Keep everything the same, but make the city ridings SuperRidings that are worth double everything. Your MLA gets two votes. It counts as two MLA's for legislature representation.


Rural Alberta will love this one simple solution.

Should be based on economic capacity. The higher the capacity the more important a region is to the province and the more influence they get. The same should apply to voting. Voting influence should be based on taxes paid.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Should be based on economic capacity. The higher the capacity the more important a region is to the province and the more influence they get. The same should apply to voting. Voting influence should be based on taxes paid.

I assume this is sarcasm.

[btimbit]

Only white landowners should vote, the US had it right in the early days

[puffnstuff]

What if some folks got 3/5ths of a vote...

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

What if some folks got 3/5ths of a vote...

Just keep them away from me. Seperate but equal!

[Captain Otto]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Should be based on economic capacity. The higher the capacity the more important a region is to the province and the more influence they get. The same should apply to voting. Voting influence should be based on taxes paid.

Ah yes. A true democracy. Where your vote is weighted based on the amount of money you make.

I mean the rich are famous for looking out for those that need it the most.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

I assume this is sarcasm.

You would hope so, but this is how the perpetually aggrieved think. If you are lucky enough to live on land that happens to have resources, you win the lottery and take all. Everyone else shoulda been born somewhere with more resources. That's their fault, and they should be punished thoroughly for it.


These are the ones who's report cards would always say "does not get along well with others".

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Voting influence should be based on taxes paid.

You can't actually be serious.

The entire rise of populism in the world is directly linked to the average person feeling like they can't get ahead. And you want to further restrict that feeling by taking away the one thing they can control, which is their vote? History is pretty clear with what happens to the elites in society when the downtrodden have had enough.

And guess what? They're 100% right.

Simple economics lesson for you, because it's important to clearly understand what is happening in the world.

Profits from industry are divided into two accounts: 1. Capital, and 2. Labor.

The amount directed to each has varied over time, and tends to be correlated strongly to how much unionization there is in the private sector of an economy.

As it currently stands, the vast majority of profits from industry are now directed to the Capital account in the form of dividend increases and share buybacks. Guess what? Unionization is also at a very low point.

This has the result of supressing overall wages, and wage growth, for the labor account.

This also has the result of concentrating wealth at the highest levels (Musk, et al).

So, no. We shouldn't limit peoples ability to vote based on how much they earn. We should limit the amount of money that goes to the capital account of an economy, in favor of directing it to the labor account, so that these people start to feel like their 9-5 is more worthwhile than burning the whole thing to the ground.

[Geraldsh]

That system is already in place; how much dinner did you get for your $1,000.00 donation?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I'm asking, what are the solutions? What comes to mind for me is either gerrymandering the urban communities into single ridings or significantly reducing the riding size from around 50,000 to 20,000 so that there are more urban based ridings but now we'd have like 200 MLAs which doesn't seem reasonable.

Riding boundaries should be realigned frequently, at least once every election cycle, and based on the number of eligible voters, not constituents. Set a desired number of voters per representative and draw the map based on that. Assume that you want 25k voters per riding, you could take all of the addresses in the voter database and heck you could have AI generate the ridings based on each riding getting the 25k voters who. You would end up with some ridings representing a mix of urban and rural voters and there’s really nothing wrong with that.

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Should be based on economic capacity. The higher the capacity the more important a region is to the province and the more influence they get. The same should apply to voting. Voting influence should be based on taxes paid.

That’s ridiculous. The owners of the companies and in many cases their employees don’t even live in the riding. It should be based on the number of eligible voters.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

You can't actually be serious.

The entire rise of populism in the world is directly linked to the average person feeling like they can't get ahead. And you want to further restrict that feeling by taking away the one thing they can control, which is their vote? History is pretty clear with what happens to the elites in society when the downtrodden have had enough.

And guess what? They're 100% right.

Simple economics lesson for you, because it's important to clearly understand what is happening in the world.

Profits from industry are divided into two accounts: 1. Capital, and 2. Labor.

The amount directed to each has varied over time, and tends to be correlated strongly to how much unionization there is in the private sector of an economy.

As it currently stands, the vast majority of profits from industry are now directed to the Capital account in the form of dividend increases and share buybacks. Guess what? Unionization is also at a very low point.

This has the result of supressing overall wages, and wage growth, for the labor account.

This also has the result of concentrating wealth at the highest levels (Musk, et al).

So, no. We shouldn't limit peoples ability to vote based on how much they earn. We should limit the amount of money that goes to the capital account of an economy, in favor of directing it to the labor account, so that these people start to feel like their 9-5 is more worthwhile than burning the whole thing to the ground.

So what you’re saying is the people who calgarygeologist wants to give more power and influence already have it their way?

[IliketoPuck]

Certainly appears to be the case, doesn't it?

[#-3]

Funny enough the Income, Wealth and Economic prosperity of ridings doesn't show much correlation to party affiliation, even population wise, we would have ended up with pretty much the same seat count in proportional representation.

But yes, the suggestion that voting privileges be linked to economic capacity is directly backpedaling on at least 250 years of western tradition, and clearly out of step with anything you could consider Democratic, or Canadian, or Modern, or Fair.

[Knut]

Finally got a Recall Myles McDougall door knocker today. Unlikely to get much traction in our neighbourhood. It’s pretty blue.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Riding boundaries should be realigned frequently, at least once every election cycle, and based on the number of eligible voters, not constituents. Set a desired number of voters per representative and draw the map based on that. Assume that you want 25k voters per riding, you could take all of the addresses in the voter database and heck you could have AI generate the ridings based on each riding getting the 25k voters who. You would end up with some ridings representing a mix of urban and rural voters and there’s really nothing wrong with that.



That’s ridiculous. The owners of the companies and in many cases their employees don’t even live in the riding. It should be based on the number of eligible voters.

Why based on eligible voters? Areas with high immigration or large sub 18 populations have greater needs then areas without those non-voting populations. So giving more influence to those regions makes sense.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GGG

Why based on eligible voters? Areas with high immigration or large sub 18 populations have greater needs then areas without those non-voting populations. So giving more influence to those regions makes sense.

Should we give people with twice the number of kids as someone else living in their riding twice the number of votes as that person?

[Geraldsh]

You get to vote as soon as you learn how to make an X, no less informed than some adults.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by GGG

Why based on eligible voters? Areas with high immigration or large sub 18 populations have greater needs then areas without those non-voting populations. So giving more influence to those regions makes sense.

No.

Those regions will end up with more influence when those kids age into voting. And then the lines should be updated again to balance out the ridings, which probably creates another riding in the area with lots of people (and that is how those regions end up with more influence, through having more eligible voters). Maintaining the electoral districts on a regular basis is critical and it should be more frequent when the population is booming at a faster pace.

Alberta (and Canada) needs to get rid of these systems that allow one persons vote to be worth more than another. Currently that is demonstrated with rural ridings that have far less eligible voters than city ridings with far more voters.

If riding X has 27,000 eligible voters and riding Y has 53,000 voters then that means a vote in riding X has almost double the influence of a vote in Y. This is fundamentally undemocratic as every vote should be equal in impact. It is an even more serious problem when combined with a "first past the post" system where that riding with 53K voters still only elects 1 MLA and all of the extra votes are wasted. And then when one party gets enough MLAs to form government, that's it, they get 100% of the power even if they only had 36% of the vote.

We need to move to a Mixed Member Proportional Representation system. Reduce the number of ridings, but still have elected officials that are regional and then have the rest of the government be allocated based on the popular vote.

Honestly, if we could have one referendum in Alberta, I wish it would be for electoral reform to implement a MMPR system.