Back in the 1970s, we elected two aldermen (now called councillors) in each Toronto ward. The person with the most votes was known as the senior alderman and was given more perks and opportunities. The toughest part of campaigning for an aldermanic post at that time was convincing your supporters to not vote for a second choice. They thought if they did not vote twice, they might be doing something wrong.
It is the same problem you run into with preferential voting. The voters are told to list their preference for first, second or third choice. They end up voting for people that they do not even know. You do not want your voters to do that if you are serious about winning. And, if they insist on making a second choice, you want their second choice vote to be for losers, not front-runners. You hardly need to spend 50 years in Canadian politics to learn to manipulate preferential voting.
But here are those brain-dead, so-called Liberals at Queen’s Park promoting preferential voting for Ontario municipalities. The City of Toronto has thankfully rejected this form of voting after some reconsideration. At least other cities are being allowed it only as an option.
But there are those who think preferential voting is a great idea. They suggest that preferential voting will increase voter engagement. How it will do this is never mentioned. Frankly the concern is that it will confuse more voters than it will intrigue.
And anyone who thinks the need for second and third choice selections will reduce negative campaigning is day dreaming. The funniest claim of all is saying that it will give the voters a greater say. In what?
Preferential voting is supposedly designed to make sure that the person elected has broad and even majority support. Doing that in a field open to as many candidates as want to run is an almost impossible challenge. That is why primaries and run-off election systems were developed. If you really want to have someone whom the majority of voters can approve, the only workable system is to have a second vote for the top candidates.
As the voters in France say about their run-off system, you vote with your heart in the first go-around and you vote with your brain in the second. For volatile voters such as the French, the system seems to work.
In Ontario, we just need smart voters who can do the math on who is helped by preferential voting.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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