Now the Toronto Star is also trumpeting ranked ballots for municipal elections in Ontario. When Premier Wynne pulled the idea out of her hat the other day, the first reaction was to note that the ranked ballot, as she envisages the system, allows losers to decide the election results. And losers tend to elect mediocre politicians.
The Toronto Star believes that ranked balloting would keep us from electing people such as Doug or Rob Ford. This is based on the assumption that politicians such as the Fords would be nobodies’ second choice. That is not a safe assumption.
The problem with ranked ballots is that the ultimate choice is made from the second, third or even fourth choice of the losers. It is choosing from the bottom instead of from the top.
What the editorial writer envisages is election campaigns that are more like love-ins as all the candidates will want to win secondary support. It will tend to hide information from the voters rather than be open and honest.
The only honest and democratic method is run-off elections. When nobody has the confidence of more than 50 per cent of the voters, the voters need the opportunity to rethink their vote. You would still eliminate those candidates with the least votes. The citizens should then be entitled to an opportunity to reconsider and vote again.
This has been most often rejected in the past because of the time and cost involved for the process. It is becoming less of a problem as we head towards using the Internet to elect. The improved security of Internet voting, the low cost and the speed of releasing results can make run-off elections practical.
But until the politicians smarten up in this regard, we will still have politicians such as Premier Wynne and Toronto Star editorial writers blowing smoke, thinking they have the answers to these questions.
One can only hope that Municipal Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin knows how to do his job. Before proposing any new electoral law for Ontario municipalities, he needs to hear from election experts and citizens on how they see the future of municipal voting. He might get some surprise answers.
-30-
Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]