Green and growing

My story about being a Green politician in Canada, and why it was the best thing I ever did.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Simple MMP - A new voting system for Canada

I have been working for several months now on a new electoral system for Canada. There are lots of alternatives out there, but none of them delivered what I wanted.

I was looking for:
- maximum proportionality
- no constitutional issues
- easy to use
- transparent
- minimal use of unelected lists
- simplicity at the ballot box

In the end, I devised Simple MMP.  You can read all about it here

The short overview of the Simple MMP goes like this:
1. Cut the number of ridings in half by combining adjacent ridings.
2. Run an election the same we run an election now - one vote for one candidate
3. This will elect half of the Members of Parliament
4. In each province, add up the total popular vote for each party, and then assign top-up seats to achieve maximum proportionality
5. Top-up MPs are selected from the runners up for each party based on the highest percentage vote
6. In some provinces where a party's support is over 50%, we may have to go to a list to get one or two top-up MPs

That's it. Simple. Effective. Transparent. Accountable. Proportional.

There's more detail on the web site, including a new measure of proportionality called the democratic deficit, and comparison of simulations of various voting systems.

Have a look at it and let me know what you think.

Jim


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