One of the many problems that is plaguing modern governments is vote splitting. Granted many countries do not have this problem, those rare nations with a Two Party system and the more common One Party system, but the rest of the nations have many more parties in the system. In Canada, we have four large national parties, more than one regional party and dozens of micro parties and because of these multiple choices a single party can win a majority of our seats with a minority of the popular vote. Part of this problem might have to do with the British Parliamentary system, but it is mostly a problem that can be solved with a different election system.
Part of the problem with our system is that the leader of the party is responsible for national vote and in their local constituency, that means he needs to win his riding, the area that he represents, and the national vote. I propose:
1) the leader of a national party does not have a seat to defend in an election. The leader of a national party receives a free seat if the national party receives at least 5% of the national vote.
The then problem is how fill out the ranks of each national party and the micro parties. There are currently 308 electoral districts, ridings, in Canada. I propose:
2) each voter is presented with one of two ballots.
A) the first ballot is simple and contains the list of national leaders and their party affiliations plus no one so that ballots can be counted as a protest vote.
B) the second ballot contains a list of every citizen running in that riding and their party affiliations and whether they are running as a independent candidate.
C) votes are counted from both ballots so that
i) participants are ranked according to votes cast for them
ii) votes for a party and votes for party candidates go also to a national total for the party.
iii) if an independent candidate is ranked first in the riding, they join the government as an independent member of parliament.
iv) for this purpose, regional parties are treated as a national party
My father would say that that seems to be complicated and does not change much, but from his perspective he would only have to decide if he wants a local to represent him or a national party to get his vote. Everything else would happen behind the scenes.
3) a calculation of how the nation voted along regional and national lines. A breakdown of the voters preference then be used to determine the remainder of elected representatives in proportion to the popular vote.
As an example how the 2011 Canadian election would have turned out in this system:
Regional parties and independent candidates: BlocQuébecois 6% : 18 seats
Conservative Party 39.6% : 122 seats + leader
Liberal Party 18.9% : 58 seats + leader
New Democratic Party 30.6% : 94 seats + leader
Green Party 3.9% : 12 seats
Total seats : 307
2008 election 303 seats:
Regional parties and independent candidates: 2 independents
Regional BlocQuébecois 10% : 30 seats
Conservative Party 37.6% : 114 seats + leader
Liberal Party 26.2% : 79 seats + leader
New Democratic Party 18.2% : 55 seats + leader
Green Party 6.8% : 21 seats + leader
Total seats : 305
4) besides the leader, all candidates would be drawn from the most popular ranked participants from the ridings.
5) voting is mandatory, real penalties graduating for number of elections missed something like $50, $100, $500, $1000, $5000 unless a valid excuse can be made.
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