From votes to seats to votes: A Perspective on Democracy in Ontario Submission to the Ontario Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform.

Transcription

1 From votes to seats to votes: A Perspective on Democracy in Ontario Submission to the Ontario Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform January 2007 by Mark Henschel Executive Summary The task facing the Assembly is not merely to figure out how to translate our votes into seats but how to do it in such a way that those seats then translate into votes the ones that count, the ones in the Legislature that are an accurate reflection of what we intended when we voted. To accomplish this we need to obtain more accurate and fair representation of the electorate in Queen s Park and we have to open up the party platforms and policies so that voters can express themselves more clearly on the issues at the polls. Electoral reform can make a significant contribution towards achieving this goal. Ontario s vital local interests and concerns derive from a complex combination of a diverse demographic overlaid on a diverse geography, a relationship that is constantly changing. We are, therefore, a dynamic, multi-layered heterogeneity. It is logically impossible to reasonably represent such an entity politically with single-member ridings. Local representation is crucial to address change in each area and within each region the various constituencies must be represented. Adopting an electoral system in which district magnitudes are greater than one and candidates compete on an equal footing for votes, both between parties and intramurally, buys voters a fundamental basic fairness of local representation and also works to give us more say in who from a party actually sits in the House and what aspects of the party s platform we like and don t like. By making both the politicians and the parties more responsible to the electorate in this way we can bring their behaviour more in line with their true role as public servants without compromising their ability to exercise their franchise to govern. The resultant must be a closer mapping of election votes to legislative votes. In such an electoral-political environment the success of the participants (the representatives and parties) in Parliament will be measured by contribution and collaboration as they are in the Assembly and many more intellectual constituencies, including women and other underrepresented people, will find a viable position on this less adversarial playing field. It is my understanding that a thoughtfully-designed implementation of a Single Transferable Vote system would serve

2 It seems to me that there is little point in convening an Assembly to investigate and produce electoral reform unless it first commits to examine and understand the issues and concerns that led to this endeavor. The Select Committee Report and the Election Act 82/06 pretty much put forward consideration of the electoral system as a given, as if it s obvious why we are doing this. That may be, but if the job of the Citizens Assembly is to solve a problem then the first requirement is to identify that problem and make a clear statement of it. This is different and distinct from the mandate. The statement of the problem is what informs the principles and gives us the necessary context for understanding and weighing them. Now having said that, I m going to suggest that we voters shouldn t care what the impetus for creating the Citizens Assembly actually was, but just be thankful we have the opportunity. However, it is important that we ourselves work backwards and reverse engineer a statement of the problem to help frame the deliberations. This should be the true objective of these consultations. So here s my take. Democracy in all its flavours is essentially rule by the many. In its most basic and pure form, direct democracy, everyone would participate directly to raise issues, propose solutions, discuss alternatives and come to a consensual decision. For the rest of us, we do it by proxy. We enter into a contract with a political system; we agree to select representatives to listen to our interests and concerns and they agree to sit at the table and speak for us on our behalf. In a very real way, then, the politicians must work for us. However, the workaday terms of our political contracts often seem to be mostly unwritten and carried forward in our case, since 1792 by assumption. They are, therefore, susceptible to unilateral change without discussion or agreement. I believe the electorate have let things slide and one result of our neglect to administer and maintain our contract in Ontario is that the politicians and parties have taken advantage of the latitude we ve given them and assumed terms in their own self interest. I think the result of Ontario s test of time is that the deal has changed incrementally over time and no longer meets our expectations. But what should we expect? In my view, the essential problem is that our current democratic system does not translate the will of the people into political action with very much fidelity or accuracy. In other words I would expect that a valid, or legitimate, government should vote for legislation as if the electorate itself was voting. In Ontario this is not the case. The task facing the Assembly is not merely to figure out how to translate our votes into seats but how to do it in such a way that those seats then translate into votes the ones that count, the ones in the Legislature that are an accurate reflection of what we intended when we voted. To accomplish this we need to obtain more accurate and fair representation of the electorate in Queen s Park and we have to open up the party platforms and policies so that voters can express themselves more clearly on the issues at the polls. Electoral reform can make a significant contribution towards achieving this goal

3 The collective intent of the voters is progressively lost in the system at a number of levels: Not everyone votes. Not all (or even many) constituencies are represented by those who do vote. Not all (or even many) constituencies are represented by the candidates. Candidates are further handcuffed in their ability to represent constituents any better than their party policies and platform allow. For the most part, voters can only cast a vote for what amounts to an amalgam of candidate and party which entails a de facto vote for the platform. Elected parties treat their wins as a rubber stamp for their platform as a package whereas: not everyone who set the platform within the party totally agrees with it; not all the voters who voted for the party necessarily agree with it; almost none of the rest of the voters support it; and those who didn t vote at all may or may not. Parliamentary discourse frequently fails to progress beyond a courtroom-like adversarial debate of platitudes from the respective party platforms. To investigate what can be done to remedy this situation and to identify the potential role of electoral reform in this effort (all the while assuming that Ontarians actually want to practice democracy rather than just play at it whilst leaving the governance of the province to the grownups) it is instructive to review how we came to be in this predicament. The current system is based on a simple model and could actually work -- in simple situations. In 1792 it was, perhaps, a perfectly reasonable choice to implement and reasonably functional, too, since the electorate was essentially homogenous (white men), the geography was vast and varied but the interest in it was straightforward (exploitation) and the existence of only two parties ensured majority elections in each riding. The division of Parliament into a Government and an Opposition perfectly reflected the political reality. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Assembly. Ontario changed and the system didn t at least not in a commensurate way. Today the women vote together with the men and collectively Ontarians are as diverse a people as any in the world. As well, they are very unevenly sprinkled all across the province. Our local interests and concerns are a complex combination of a diverse demographic overlaid on diverse human and physical geographies. Yet the character of Ontario politics has, conversely, become increasingly uniform and idiosyncratic over the years. Logically, the emergence of additional parties should have triggered a new deal insofar as the basic assumptions of the model had changed. This did not happen. And while it is reasonable that a body dedicated to passing laws would attract more than its fair share of lawyers, it s clear that the unnaturally adversarial nature of parliamentary conduct and debate derives from the courtroom the lawyers simply moulded the Legislature into a familiar and comfortable place for them and made it toxic to everyone else. The result is that the province (us) and Queen s Park have gone separate ways. How can we get all of us back on the same path? And given that the parties are here to stay how can we design an electoral system to make a significant effort towards positive change? - 3 -

4 Let me start by trying to capture the essence of the province. From its roots as a fairly homogenous place, electorally-speaking, it has metamorphosed into a complex province where diversity of geography is overlaid in each region by a diversity of population. And this layered diversity is in a state of constant flux or change. This last characteristic is important as it is the purpose, in large part, of a government to recognize, investigate and address change. I ve come to think of the province (and the country for that matter) as a dynamic, multilayered heterogeneity. It is logically impossible to reasonably and practically represent such a political entity with single-member ridings. Local representation is crucial to address change in each area and within each region the various constituencies need to be represented. This is basic. Please note that while I m obviously arguing for district magnitudes greater than 1, I m not, strictly speaking, advocating Proportional Representation (PR) at least not in the traditional academic sense that the Assembly has been learning. What I m arguing is that having multimember districts is a necessary condition for fair and accurate representation of a dynamic multi-layered heterogeneity for representing the electorate, not the parties. It is, however, not a sufficient condition for fairness. So what else do we need? Another necessary condition for fairness in representation is that every representative should enter the House and participate on an equal footing as measured by the process that got them there and, therefore, reflect their true mandate from the electorate. Mixed or tiered electoral schemes such as Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) inherently produce unequal classes of representatives and, therefore, must be judged irredeemably unfair and non-starters (not to delve into MMP s other crippling flaws). Remember, I m not talking about PR yet I haven t addressed the problems and the roles of the parties. But, OK, now I will. I suppose that political parties have positive features but, frankly, I m only concerned here with the problems they create with respect to the votes-to-seats-to-votes process. For the voter, choosing between party platforms is a lot like trying to select one of the packages of stations that TV cable companies typically offer, none of which ever includes exactly the assortment of stations that you would pick if it were up to you. With cable TV, you can, at great expense to the management, buy as many packages as you need to to get all the stations you want to watch and simply not tune into the ones you cannot abide. However, with party platforms the voter is really and truly stuck with the package: both the good and the bad will be implemented in all likelihood if the party comes into power. And, of course, all parties, win or lose, present the same sort of restricted choices to the voters who suffer from the results. For us to achieve higher fidelity in translating seats into votes one that demonstrates higher correlation to the true intentions of the votes that put representatives into those seats in the first place there needs to be a mechanism for the electorate to better convey their intent at the ballot box a more refined way of voting, of voting on the platforms instead of just for them (or the parties that support them). And, happily, we can do this (to a certain extent) without resorting to broader political remediation through electoral reform

5 In a multi-member riding where a party has a chance to win more than one seat, that party necessarily opens up its platform for examination, dissection and tweaking simply by running more than one candidate. When candidates from the same party compete on an equal footing for seats in the same riding, the voters are granted a powerful handle on the internal workings of the party, from candidate selection the electorate tells the party which of the candidates it likes and which it doesn t to platform composition again, via selecting candidates according to their particular interpretation of their party s platform not all candidates will support all aspects of the platform equally (just like voters) and to get elected they ll say so. The key is that when candidates from the same party are indistinguishable all white male lawyers, for instance they will tend to split the vote and they will all do less well. To win seats in a multi-member riding, a party must present a broader selection of candidates. And when these candidates each try to distinguish themselves from each other, they will present their particular take on the party platform and then those aspects of a party s platform necessarily come up for selection too. To have any more say in the selection of candidates and character of the platform one would have to join a party and, of course, some (though not many) people do. However, the nice thing about opening these party functions and issues to the general electorate during an election is that everyone can have a say for all parties, not just the one you happen to be a member of. That is worth a lot to each voter and to the electorate. So, adopting a system where district magnitudes are greater than one and candidates compete on an equal footing for votes between parties and intramurally, buys us an essential basic fairness of local representation and works to give voters more say in who from a party actually gets to represent them in Queen s Park and which aspects of the party s platform they like and don t like. The resultant must be a closer mapping of election votes to legislative votes which is the goal. So where does that leave the parties? Conventional thinking would have us believe that opening their workings to the electorate will be divisive and serve to weaken parties. However, it is clear that a party that is able to fine tune its candidate offerings and platform to more accurately reflect what the electorate wants at the polls will win more seats. And where it fails to do one or the other, the alternative parties particularly the specialty parties will be there to pick up the slack of representation. What does happen, however, is that these decisions are forced out of the back room and into the public forum where they belong. Ironically, it turns out that by considering the elections as essentially candidate-centric competitions, one of the side effects would be to produce more effective parties working in a more effective parliament. In addition, when the electorate can express its intent more openly and clearly to the Queen s Park, this enhanced mandate will reduce the problems of accountability we now face. There are two aspects that I haven t discussed in detail yet better representation of diverse constituencies and increased voter participation not because I think they re unimportant but because I believe that achieving these will be the inevitable consequence of meeting the above criteria. Both of these depend on what we want and value as a culture as well as on the facility and opportunities that are availed by the system. They also depend on our perception of these things

6 It seems evident to me that if we produce a candidate-centric electoral system that downplays the traditional role of parties (even slightly) and emphasizes the intent to represent the electorate, this will encourage a broader range of good candidates to come forward. Having a parliament that embraces a diversity of voices will make the legislature work less like a courtroom and become much more comfortable to those candidates who are not lawyers. These are the thin edges of the wedges. I should say something, here, about the representation of women and minorities that I hope will help the Assembly navigate through what seems to be a traditionally difficult issue. While I understand and empathize with the inclinations of voters to want representatives that look like them, I think it s much more important for voters to find in the slate of candidates, people who think like them that candidates should primarily represent intellectual constituencies. And the record shows that, generally, women tend to vote, not for women, but for the candidate they feel will do the best job. They vote intellectually. This is good and correct. The thing of it is, expanding the choice of candidates beyond the current white male lawyer herd on the basis of intellectual constituencies will get us more of the best candidates and this will include, amongst the scientists and philosophers and farmers and salespeople, more women and more people who look like us. And insofar as women constitute an intellectual constituency, they will find fair representation alongside of the rest of the constituencies. You cannot ask for better than that. But you can and, as people demanding fair and equal representation, should ask for more than MMP can deliver. With MMP you must depend of the kindness of strangers (party list zipperers, for instance) to win a second-class seat in opposition whereas with STV, everyone earns seats at the big table on their own merits. Now, of course, there are other barriers that exist, barriers beyond the ability of electoral reform to address, and I encourage everybody to help tear these down too. As far as voter participation goes, I believe that when potential voters understand that their votes will count in a material way and they can see the results working for them, they will increasingly flock to the polls in droves. And in doing so, they will improve representation. However, the observations the Assembly has heard on education and particularly early education to enhance a culture of civic participation cannot be overstated. Democracy is not a spectator sport it is participatory. Electoral change will help open the door; it s up to us to walk through it. Thanks for listening. Mark Henschel - 6 -

7 Side Notes to the Assembly 1. I hope the Assembly will take the time to periodically look in the mirror and use the knowledge it gains from its democratic experience in accomplishing its task to inform its deliberations and decisions. 2. Remember that you are really only the second such group in the world to consider this topic in this way and that most of the expert advice, educational material and precedents you will see will necessarily come from sources with very different axes to grind. Make your judgments on first principles and you will be on the right track. Sharpen your own axe. 3. Include statements of your arguments and intent in your final report so that it is clear how and why you ve come to your decision. A clear explanation and statement of the intent is vital to the success of the referendum. 4. I would encourage you all to work in your spare time by enjoying the following: Mr. Smith goes to Washington the movie with James Stewart and Jean Arthur Dave the movie with Kevin Kline The American President the movie with Michael Douglas and Annette Bening Executive Orders the book by Tom Clancy Starship Troopers the book by Robert Heinlein (but definitely not the movie) Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman - 7 -