msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) (01/04/89)
> > > In Canada and the US we have governments/leaders that the majority of > > > the people voted against. > We might consider "Australian rules" voting ... Australian rules is a fine idea for any election where there is a direct popular vote; it allows a single vote to serve both as a "primary" and as the actual election. In other words, it avoids the problem where two candidates with similar, popular platforms "split the vote" and a third candidate with a less preferred platform is elected. However, that problem is not the reason that Canada elected a government which had a minority of the popular vote. The actual popular vote was, in round numbers, 45% PC, 35% Lib, 20% NDP, 0% others. If there had been a single national vote and Australian rules were used in it, any of the parties might conceivably have won. But there wasn't a single national vote; we have a Parliamentary system, and the voting was by districts. A majority of districts voted PC -- or to be still more exact, the PCs received a plurality in a majority of districts. This is why they got a minority of the popular vote but have formed a majority government. If you think that this is a problem, then the way to fix it is by proportional representation: the PCs get 45% of their slate of candidates elected, and similarly for the others, but a district doesn't necessarily get represented by someone whom its residents voted for. In the US, the Electoral College can lead to a similar phenomenon and has done so more than once. If you think that this is a problem, then the way to fix it is to elect the President by direct popular vote. Discussion as to whether these are in fact problems to be fixed belongs in talk.politics.theory, not comp.society.futures, and I have directed followups there. Mark Brader "... one of the main causes of the fall of SoftQuad Inc., Toronto the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they utzoo!sq!msb had no way to indicate successful termination msb@sq.com of their C programs." -- Robert Firth