When people care, they vote. The fact is, large chunks of the population are ignorant about basic facts. I like to think those people don’t vote.

Thanks.

The Liberal Democrats asked for PR but the Conservatives insisted on AV.

Canadian polls have consistently shown that the overwhelming majority of Canadians want PR. It’s only when asked to pick a particular system that you can’t a super-majority to agree. And that’s been because the media campaign against it – usually saying that there are better PR systems that we should be adopting. This is the same technique that has proved effective in denying Americans universal health care.

The experience of regimes that used AV is consistent. It rarely produces a different winner than FPTP. 19 times out of 20 the first round leader wins under AV. With “strategic voting” under FPTP, the actual winner would be same even more often.

As for easy to explain, it’s easy to explain that the sun revolves around the earth. You can look up and see the sun moving across the sky. That doesn’t mean it’s correct.

However the semi-proportional SNTV system is even easier to explain than AV and does work better that AV. In a multi-member district, each voter casts a ballot for the candidate of their choice. The top vote getters are elected. The end result is that most voters get their first choice of representative. This is not a scary reform unless you are afraid of all change.

With AV on the other hand, fewer voters overall get their first choice than under FPTP and AV can’t even guarantee to elect the most broadly popular candidate.

Now how about addressing the fact that AV and FPTP are inherently racist because they both preferentially give the largest groups excessive representation at the expense of minorities?

The Liberal Democrats asked for PR but the Conservatives insisted on AV.

Canadian polls have consistently shown that the overwhelming majority of Canadians want PR. It’s only when asked to pick a particular system that you can’t a super-majority to agree. And that’s been because the media campaign against it – usually saying that there are better PR systems that we should be adopting. This is the same technique that has proved effective in denying Americans universal health care.

The experience of regimes that used AV is consistent. It rarely produces a different winner than FPTP. 19 times out of 20 the first round leader wins under AV. With “strategic voting” under FPTP, the actual winner would be same even more often.

As for easy to explain, it’s easy to explain that the sun revolves around the earth. You can look up and see the sun moving across the sky. That doesn’t mean it’s correct.

However the semi-proportional SNTV system is even easier to explain than AV and does work better that AV. In a multi-member district, each voter casts a ballot for the candidate of their choice. The top vote getters are elected. The end result is that most voters get their first choice of representative. This is not a scary reform unless you are afraid of all change.

With AV on the other hand, fewer voters overall get their first choice than under FPTP and AV can’t even guarantee to elect the most broadly popular candidate.

Now how about addressing the fact that AV and FPTP are inherently racist because they both preferentially give the largest groups excessive representation at the expense of minorities?

The Executive Committee used to be elected by the council until McGuinty decided to give that power to the Mayor to strengthen the position. Of course we can all see how well that worked out.

In essence, proportionality in the election of a representative assembly is about how many people are represented by the candidate or party of their choice across the entire electorate. Proportionality in a single-seat election is the same except you need to view the electing population across multiple elections.

Some people then counter that decisions are made at a single time. That is entirely true but it’s the impact of decisions made over time that really determine the district’s character.

That’s why some people also look beyond representation to sharing of power. An example of this is Switzerland, which elects its government proportionally. The 7 member executive is comprised of 2 members from each of the three largest parties and one member from the fourth party.

Governments are always coalitions of all parties. The president is the person who has served on the executive longest without holding the position. The president has no special power other than to chair the meeting.

Many people within FVC believe a better way to select the mayor would be to have Council elect the executive committee using STV and have them elect a chair. This would, as it does in Switzerland, force the factions to work together and come to agreements over how to proceed on issues.

There are more options than just AV to consider. Pushing for one without proper study of the issues is not a wise course.

In the few U.S. cities that use AV, there are no real spending limits so cooperative campaigns would simply dilute the message. Instead moneyed interest just spend whatever it takes to control the message for their preferred candidate.

Toronto doesn’t have formal political parties to define issues and it does have strong election finance controls. This makes it prime territory for moneyed interests to outspend.

Of course this won’t happen in every ward. After all, most councillors have a lock on their seat. However when a ward becomes open or a councillor is ripe for unseating, watch the money flow into the race. Because we don’t have formal political parties, cooperative campaigns can be far more effective at controlling the message than they are in Australia.

We already see this happening under FPTP to some extent. However moneyed interests can’t spend above the limit and they can’t run cooperative campaigns. Dave admits, even brags about, how AV promotes cooperative campaigns. I agree with him on this. I just don’t think it’s a good thing.

The current issue being discussed is whether or not to consider ranked voting for Mayoral Elections. I don’t see how the comparison with proportional systems is relevant for a single seat election.

As for ‘moneyed interests’ manipulating IRV elections – can you provide any examples of where this has occurred?