This is a 2012 proposal by MP and former Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion.
He advocates for a system in which there are 3 to 5 multiseat districts. The voters rank the parties and then votes for one candidate for each party. If the party doesn't have enough votes for a seat, the votes gets transfered over to the next choice. The parties are award seats based on their percentage of the vote. The candidates with the most votes gets priority when filling the party's seats.
I think this is a step up, but I'm not too fond of this measure. First of all, I think it is overly complicated for regular voters who are only used to plurality and I don't think that it would get passed a referendum. MMP failed a referendum in Ontario and IRV failed a referendum in the UK. I doubt this would do much better.
Second problem is that vote splitting still plays a big role who gets elected. Excess votes appear to be wasted and there is still vote splitting within the party list.
Let's say you have a 5 seat riding in which Conservatives have 29% of the vote, Liberals have 27%, NDP has 24%, and BC has 20%. The conservatives will get an extra seat when conservatives have a 9 % surplus while the left has a 11% surplus.
Also, plurality still determines who gets the party seats. Why not allow party members to donate a portion of his/her vote to another party member?
Right now, I think the simpliest solution is to just replace pluraltiy with approval voting. Approval voting is very easy to understand.
If you need to have mult-seat PR system, you can do it through asset voting. Allow voters to vote for any single candidate and that candidate may transfer a portion of his vote to any other candidate. Top 5 candidates with the most votes win a seat. It has proportionality and is very simple. You could force candidates to publish his transfer list ahead of time.
He advocates for a system in which there are 3 to 5 multiseat districts. The voters rank the parties and then votes for one candidate for each party. If the party doesn't have enough votes for a seat, the votes gets transfered over to the next choice. The parties are award seats based on their percentage of the vote. The candidates with the most votes gets priority when filling the party's seats.
I think this is a step up, but I'm not too fond of this measure. First of all, I think it is overly complicated for regular voters who are only used to plurality and I don't think that it would get passed a referendum. MMP failed a referendum in Ontario and IRV failed a referendum in the UK. I doubt this would do much better.
Second problem is that vote splitting still plays a big role who gets elected. Excess votes appear to be wasted and there is still vote splitting within the party list.
Let's say you have a 5 seat riding in which Conservatives have 29% of the vote, Liberals have 27%, NDP has 24%, and BC has 20%. The conservatives will get an extra seat when conservatives have a 9 % surplus while the left has a 11% surplus.
Also, plurality still determines who gets the party seats. Why not allow party members to donate a portion of his/her vote to another party member?
Right now, I think the simpliest solution is to just replace pluraltiy with approval voting. Approval voting is very easy to understand.
If you need to have mult-seat PR system, you can do it through asset voting. Allow voters to vote for any single candidate and that candidate may transfer a portion of his vote to any other candidate. Top 5 candidates with the most votes win a seat. It has proportionality and is very simple. You could force candidates to publish his transfer list ahead of time.