[fvc-wat-disc] Fwd: Feb 17-18 CA meeting

[Derek Kraan]

Good news from the Ontario Citizens' Assembly!

The forwarded email is full of acronyms, so I'll define a few of them below:

CA - (Ontario) Citizens' Assembly
SA - Students' Assembly
MMP - Mixed Member Proportional
STV - Single Transferable Vote
AV - Alternate Vote
TRS - I don't know what this one means - if someone figures it out, could
they let me know?

I didn't know what Parallel voting systems were until I researched it after
receiving this email. So maybe a few of you are also puzzled by it. It turns
out that parallel voting systems are similar in nature to the mixed member
voting systems. The difference is that the party vote is not linked to the
local vote. So if a party gets 5% of the party vote, they will get 5% of the
top-up seats, making it a semi-proportional system. In a Mixed Member
Proportional system, getting 5% of the party vote means that you will get 5%
of the total seats in the legislature.

Derek Kraan
Co-Chair, Waterloo Region Chapter
Fair Vote Canada

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Fair Vote Canada <larry.gordon at fairvotecanada.org>
Date: 18 feb 2007 17:03
Subject: Feb 17-18 CA meeting
To: fvo at fairvote.ca

 Here is a quick summary of this weekend's CA meeting.

They had a report on the public consultation phase. The highlights video is
still in production, so we didn't see that.

They received just under 1,000 written submissions, but 600 came in the last
two weeks before the deadline. A committee of several CA members had been
reading them all as they came in, but were completely overwhelmed at the
end. Two CA staff did read them all and categorize/summarize them.

In the report from that committee, the two presenters each mentioned several
submissions that they found particularly helpful. One woman commended Wayne
Smith's submission, particularly his "amazing election simulator" (which at
one point, she mis-pronounced as "stimulator", which brought down the
house). The other committee member singled out Tom Kent's presentation. And
a number of others were mentioned.

The CA also had a presentation by the Student Assembly, which was amazing.
Five SA members did the presentation. They were all articulate, very
passionate and excellent communicators. They called on the CA to consider
their recommendation for MMP and to ensure a referendum. Taylor Gunn, one of
the SA organizers was there, and he is going to pass along info on our
student/youth campaign. In fact, one or more of the SA students will try to
attend our meeting next weekend in Toronto on the student/youth campaign.

The CA spent most of the weekend determining how to move through the
deliberation period. The first exericse was identifying their three top
objectives, which were:

- each geographic  area of the province should have at least one
representation

- the number of seats a party wins should more closely reflect its votes
share

- voters should be able to indicate both their preferred party and candidate

After extended discussion, they cast votes on a preferential ballot on which
system to work on first. Here are the results:

First Choices with Second Choices in Brackets:

MMP - 78 (14)
STV - 8 (28)
Parallel - 6 (34)
List PR - 3 (11)
AV - 2 (9)
TRS - 0 (0)

The rather suprising thing was the significant number of people who ranked
parallel systems as their second choice.

Their intention is to do their first alternative model at the next weekend,
then decide if they will do a second alternative (which seems almost
certain) and, if so, which system. They will vote again at that point.

Several CA members asked if they could do three models. While George didn't
say "that's impossible", that's impossible given time constraints.

A few CA members were also asking if they could just recommend changes to
FPTP, e.g., adding more seats. They were told that they could, but it would
not trigger a referendum and only be advice to the govt, since the mandate
referred only to a proposal for a new voting system.

Very interesting weekend. The next session, when they have to make decisions
on specific features for the first time, will be challenging for them and
interesting.

Larry






Fair Vote Canada
26 Maryland Blvd.
Toronto, ON  M4C 5C9

www.fairvote.ca
info at fairvotecanada.org
Ph: 416-410-4034
Fax: 416-686-4929
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