PEI Plebiscite on Democratic Renewal
Between October 29 and November 7, Prince Edward Island held a plebiscite (ie a non-binding referendum) on electoral reform. Voters were asked to rank the following voting systems:
- First Past the Post (the system we use now, where the candidate that gets the most votes in a riding wins that riding)
- Mixed Member Proportional (where there are some riding seats elected under FPTP, and some "top-up" seats for better proportionality)
- Dual-Member Proportional (which is similar to Mixed Member Proportional with no explicit list, with an added constraint that every riding has two MLAs: one elected under FPTP and a second chosen as a top-up)
- Preferential Voting (aka Alternative Vote or Instant Runoff Voting, where voters rank candidates in a riding and unpopular candidates are dropped until some candidate gets over 50% of the vote)
- First Past the Post with Leaders (where party leaders automatically win seats if their parties receive at least 10% of the vote, but regular ridings are elected under FPTP).
The plebiscite allowed 16 and 17 year olds to vote, had a long voting period, and allowed telephone and Internet voting in addition to voting at polling stations.
The plebiscite seemed to be a response to the disastrous 2005 plebiscite on Mixed Member Proportional vs First Past the Post in PEI. As with two of the other three referenda that decade (Ontario in 2007 and BC in 2009) proportional representation got clobbered. There were complaints that the electorate was undereducated and that there were not enough polling stations. Several of the design considerations in this plebiscite tried to compensate for this.
Here were the results of (first-rank) choices in the 2016 plebiscite:
- First Past the Post (FPTP): 11567 votes (31.22%)
- Mixed Member Proportional (MMPR): 10757 votes (29.04%)
- Dual Member Proportional (DMP): 7951 votes (21.46%)
- Preferential Voting (PV): 3944 votes (10.64%)
- FPTP + Leaders (FPTP+L): 2821 votes (7.61%)
It took four rounds of elimination before any electoral system gained over 50% of the vote. The end result was:
- Mixed-Member Proportional: 19418 votes (52.42%)
- First Past the Post: 15869 votes (42.84%)
Keen readers will note that the percentages do not add to 100%. This is because 1753 (4.73%) were exhausted, meaning that the preferred selections were dropped from contention and the voters in question did not rank any further options (ie: they did not include either FPTP or MMPR in their rankings, since those were the final systems in contention).
These numbers are taken from the official report on the plebicite.
Voter turnout was 36.46% . Voter turnout for the 2005 plebiscite had been 33%. Provincial elections on the island have voter turnouts that hover around 80%.
Everyone Wins
The funny thing about this plebiscite is that almost everybody can claim victory in one way or another:
Mixed Member Proportional advocates claim victory because at the end of the preferential balloting their option "won".
Preferential Voting advocates claim victory because their preferred system was used to determine the winner, and if not for a ranked ballot DMP and MMPR would have split the vote.
First Past the Post advocates claim victory because FPTP received a plurality of votes, which according to their voting system means they won.
Dual Member Proportional advocates do not have much to celebrate, but at least their preferred option did not split the vote, and they got some kind of proportional representation system elected instead of none.
Internet voting advocates won because 81% of voters cast their ballots online.
Advocates for lowering the voting age won because 16 and 17 year olds got to vote.
People who stayed home and did not vote claim victory because their non-votes mattered more than people who turned out to vote. Who knew that there was an implicit None of the Above option in this plebiscite? Nonetheless, as I write below, the LACK of voter turnout is exactly the reasoning used to argue that this plebiscite is invalid. Too bad that reasoning does not apply to regular elections.
People who oppose plebiscites/referenda for electoral reform can claim victory because the voter turnout was low.
People who endorse plebiscites/referenda for electoral reform (or to stop electoral reform) can claim victory because this campaign had an extensive education campaign and kowtowed to nearly every criticism of the 2005 plebiscite.
Electoral Reform Loses
For two days after the plebiscite results were announced, all the proportional representation activists were thrilled. They had spent the entire summer arguing against referenda, and then crowed that a proportional system had won.
Mind you, they had not exactly spent much time talking about the PEI plebiscite before the results were announced. I vaguely knew it was happening, but I did not follow it closely and I did not blog about it. I received exactly zero mentions of it from either Fair Vote Canada or LeadNow. It was only after MMPR appeared to win that anybody cared.
Then Premier Wade MacLauchlan decided that the plebiscite didn't count because voter turnout was too low : "It is doubtful whether these results can be said to constitute a clear expression of the will of Prince Edward Islanders."
All of a sudden the proportional representation advocates are not so happy any more.
Meanwhile on the federal front, the NDP is caving into Conservative demands for a referendum on electoral reform, possibly motivated by the "success" of the PEI process. This means that federal electoral reform is also dead. There is no way a referendum on electoral reform would pass federally because voter awareness of electoral reform is dismally low. Even if voters somehow did approve proportional representation, the results won't count, just as they did not count for the British Columbia referendum of 2005 or the PEI plebiscite of 2016.
Here is what I know: if the PEI results had been reversed and FPTP had won with 52% support with the same voter turnout, Premier MacLauchlan would be singing a different tune. He would not be calling the results into question.
If the PEI voter turnout had somehow been in the 70-80% range there would have been some other excuse to call the results into question (probably on the basis that FPTP received a plurality of votes).
The game is rigged. There will not be meaningful electoral reform in PEI, or anywhere else in Canada. Here are my predictions, and the confidence I have in them:
- Mixed-member proportional representation will not be used in PEI for either of the next two elections (85%)
- First Past the Post will be used for the next two provincial PEI elections (75%)
- First Past the Post will be used for the next federal election (60%)
- There will NOT be a proportional representation system used for either of next two federal elections (90%). (This includes MMPR, STV, List PR, DMP, and other systems that explicitly or implicitly try to match votes to seats. It does not include FPTP, parallel voting, or preferential/alternative/instant-runoff vote.)
If I was a betting person I would be willing to bet money on these predictions. Given my history of political predictions this would be a terrible idea. Nonetheless, if I am still around I will donate $50 to Fair Vote Canada for each prediction I get wrong (or Equal Voice Canada if FVC disbands).
The game is rigged. I am fed up.