I don't understaaaaand

[kejlina]

Can one of my more politically-minded friends explain to me how the Bloc Québécois got 50 seats with 1,379,565 votes but the NDP gets only 37 seats with 2,517,075 votes?

Daphne and I were puzzling this one out last night and I don't actually have an answer for her. (Okay, I admit that I slept through high-school law class).

Comments

We need proportional representation

[argilo]

It's because of our crazy voting system, called first-past-the-post. In this system, the candidate in each riding that wins the most votes goes to Ottawa. The trouble is that if a party has say 20% support that's distributed across the country (like the NDP) they can't win very many seats because in most ridings they'll come in second or third place. But if a party has a similar amount of support but concentrated in one area (like the Bloc) they can come in first in a lot of ridings in that area. The green party was completely shut out even though they got 6.8% of the vote

[argilo]

If you want to learn more about proportional representation, another site to check out is: http://www.fairvote.ca/

[culpster]

Also, in practical terms, the Bloc only fielded candidates in 75 ridings, the NDP in 308. So it's a straight up math thing as well :)

I'm for PR but I don't for a moment believe that we'll be any less fucked when/if it finally comes in. The Ontario referendum failed (in part) because explaining the policy was deemed illegal 'advocacy' so no one knew wtf was going on.

[bareftinthesnow]

You have high school law classes? That seems like a good idea.

[lacyjae]

I asked Dean, and he said that whole "representation by population" thing. If there are a bunch of HUGE ridings for the Bloc, and a couple huge ones and lots of small ones for the NDP, there end up being more people in the places where the Bloc won than where NDP won.

Or something.

[lacyjae]

Ridings do vary in population, although most (80%) have a population between 73,000 and 126,000. But that's not the main reason the Bloc got so many seats, and the NDP got so few. The main reason is that the Bloc's vote is concentrated in only 75 ridings, while the NDP's is spread out over the full 308. When your vote is spread out like that, it's hard to win individual seats, since the only way to win a seat is to get more votes there than everybody else in that riding. Even if you came in second place in all 308 ridings, you'd get zero seats.

To do well in this system, you either have to be a very popular party (Liberal, Conservative) or a regional party (Bloc, Reform). Smaller nation-wide parties get screwed, winning far less seats than their percentage of the vote (NDP) or none at all (Green).

[argilo]

Oops, I forgot to log in.