Thursday, January 26, 2006

Proportional representation, anyone?


In the riding next door, 63% of the voters chose Lib, NDP, or Green.
63% of the total votes were "wasted" under the 'first past the post' system.
Think any of these libs, greens, or dippers are happy about being represented by a conservative?
One argument against "prop rep" is that it might allow a "fringe" candidate to get elected.
Under first past the post, 63% of this riding got fringed.

2 comments:

Chris said...

That happened everywhere except in Alberta. It looked to me on the breifest of observations that the Conservatives won something like 60% of their seats with a split vote. So it's a double penalty. The Tories won with 36% of the vote, and most of that went in ridings where thye didn't have anythingclose to 50%

MMP anyone?

Alison said...

Chris : It gets worse.
Did you see that CBC survey of a thousand-plus Tory voters after the election? Asked whether they voted for the Tories or against the Libs, 41% of them said they strategically voted Tory to punish the libs.
So supposing this survey is at all representative of the population at large, what's 59% of 36%? Coz that's the percentage who actually voted for the Tories.

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