Understand MMP in 2 Minutes

A basic intro to how an MMP or a Mixed member proportional election would work.

Ontario Election and Referendum

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• MMP
• Mixed
• member
• proportional
• representation
• referendum
• ontario
• liberal
• NDP
• Referendum
• Election
• reform

[democracyATwork]

Your better cretaing smaller regionsal electorates with each electorate electing the same number of candidates using a system of Single Transferable Voting Proportional Representation (Either Meek or Wright method of counting the vote) The number of candidates elected in each electorate should be odd in number 3,5 7 or 9 etc, The key is that each electorate must be equal in the number of canidates and the percentage quita required to elect a candidate. One vote one value. - Change that counts

[democracyATwork]

The MMP system does not work. It creates a divided mandate of unequal representation within a single chamber. If there is a need for divided mandates (Local versus national representation then this is best achieved in a bicameral parliament with the house of review elected on the basis of a proportional ballot system. Split hybrid respresentational models sound good on paper but in reality they distort the representational outcome creating unequal virtual electorates,

[Eternal0Force]

@Eternal0Force

So while I would love a proportionate representation system here, we don’t have it at the moment and the current stalemate in our parliament lower house is from the 2 major parties getting around 72 seats each and there being 1 green and 1 national and 4 independents, 3 or which are acting as a group and hope to get reform passed and other changes “in the national interest” as they out it, and they seem honest 

[Eternal0Force]

@Eternal0Force

When we vote in the senate on the white paper, we can put a number 1 in the box above the line which contains parties and groups of independents, or we can number every box under the line in order of a preference (my white paper a week ago had approx 47 names on it so it would take a while).

[Eternal0Force]

@Eternal0Force

When they count the vote, the two highest scoring candidates are separated and all preferences from the other candidates are divided up between them based on the preferences.

As for the Senate:

That is sort of proportional on a per state basis, but not a fair divide as small states have 12 senators, while states 3x bigger have the same 12.

[Eternal0Force]

@Eternal0Force

When we vote for the federal election (every 3 years) as we just did a week ago we get handed 2 pieces of paper, one green (House of Representatives, aka lower house) and one white (Senate, I’ll mention that below), on this green paper it has all candidates listed for the local seat I belong to and has a box next to each name and party (if in one), I have to number all the boxes in order of my choice.

[Eternal0Force]

@Eternal0Force

For the Lower house of parliament (like the congress in the USA):

Candidates run for local seats across the country, 150 of them total at the moment, about 100k voters in each, it’s mandatory voting here for all elections other than city/council level.

A candidate can either be in a party or be an independent

[Eternal0Force]

@pontecanis

Actually our system (Australia) works like this (sorry for long multi part rant, but it may be interesting to someone, would be to me 

[pontecanis]

Actually, how it works is what you see in Australia right now...splinter parties divide the vote so badly that no decisive result occurs, thus resulting in government by backroom deals and manipulation if not outright blackmail...MMPR is the best guarantee of bad government you can find...see Italy and Israel for further evidence. MMP is a system devised to give manipulating connivers a backdoor route to power they are unable to get via legitimate means...it produces better NOTHING!

[cyclingzealot]

No, what you did is to keep First past the post, an electoral system which waste about half the votes (49% in 2003 provincial, 50,7% in 2008 federal). Ontario voters had an opportunity to reclaim what they think they have (representation for all, decision by majority) and instead said they preferred to remain dis-empowered.