Toronto UnConference • January 24th • Hart House

Canada uses a broken voting system called “First-Past-the-Post”. It’s a terrible system because it pushes out new voices, forces voters to choose ‘strategically’, encourages negative campaigns and often delivers us the exact opposite result of what we actually voted for.

Seven months ago, Toronto City Council voted in favour of a proposal to abandon First Past the Post for local municipal elections. This was a historic moment for our movement, and a huge step towards bringing proportional representation to Canada and our provinces.

After four failed referenda (Ontario, PEI, and two in BC), it's nice to finally see a positive campaign WIN for the movement. So we're thrilled to announce that a sister campaign has now been launched in Barrie, Ontario called "123 Barrie"!

Welcome to1_chart.png VoteCheck! We'll be publishing election analysis for municipal, provincial and federal elections in Canada to show voters how First Past The Post doesn't give us the governments we actually voted for. Our first installment is about this week's provincial election in Quebec. The headlines all say the same thing: "Liberal Majority". But the actual numbers tell a different story. The truth is, the majority of Quebec voters did not prefer the Liberal Party.

The RaBIT campaign for municipal voting reform launched in Toronto in 2010. Recently, new campaigns have popped up in Barrie, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Screen_Shot_2014-06-17_at_9.31.05_PM.pngAnd as of this month, we can add London to the growing list!

In this wonderful blog post, Spencer A Sandor explains some of the motivations behind the new campaign.

As the World Cup plays out in Brazil, we thought it would be interesting to look at the voting systems used in each country. Out of 32 countries, only five are using Canada's broken "First-Past-the-Post system. Most of the countries are using some form of proportional representation. And many others are using majority systems or semi-proportional hybrids. It's a reminder for all of us that there are many options out there worth looking at.

In today's Globe and Mail, there's a great piece by Elizabeth Renzetti about youth engagement in the upcoming Scottish independence referendum.

The voting age has been set at 16, and the results have been extraordinary.

This is exciting: Two weeks ago, Kingston City Council adopted a motion by Mary Rita Holland and Jim Neill, expressing support for municipal ranked ballots, extending voting rights to non-citizens AND lowering the voting age to 16 - all amazing ideas. Here's the full text:

Another provincial election, another distorted result!! Check out the second installment of Lego My Vote!

This week, Canada's four major national parties launched their campaigns for the 2015 federal election.

I was curious to find out which party did the best job, at their campaign launch, of highlighting the need for democratic renewal and explaining how they would help Canadians rebuild trust with our political system.

I assumed that, at minimum, Mulcair would probably mention his policy to abolish the Senate and Elizabeth May would probably highlight the need for proportional representation. I also thought that Trudeau would likely mention his commitment to getting rid of First-Past-the-Post or perhaps one of the other democratic reforms he's proposed. Admittedly, my expectations for Harper were low (simply because incumbents rarely talk about the need for democratic reform).

East coast democracy activist Mark Coffin has put together a clever series of articles explaining four different voting systems.

It's worth a read!

Confused about voting reform? We don't blame you. There's a whole bunch of options, terms and acronyms being thrown around.

Last week we posted Mark Coffin's explanation of voting reform options for Canada.

One of the most common arguments against voting reform, is the suggestion that ranked ballots or proportional representation are some kind of radical obscure phenomena.

The truth is, our system is obscure. It's rarely used, because it simply doesn't work!

Municipal elections in Ontario are about to get more fair and friendly. The provincial government is introducing legislation that will allow any municipality (there are 444 of them!) to use ranked ballots and runoff voting.

Ranked ballots give more power to voters by eliminating strategic voting, encouraging positive campaigns and ensuring that unpopular incumbents can’t win their seats due to vote-splitting. In Toronto, for example, an incumbent councillor “won” his seat in 2014 even though 75 per cent of his constituents voted against him. Another councillor “won” with only 17 per cent of the vote! Runoff voting puts an end to these kinds of distorted results.

Dear Canadians,

What the hell has happened to us? Canada is supposed to be a compassionate, caring and friendly nation - but this election campaign has been nothing short of mean, nasty and divisive. But we can’t blame Stephen Harper or Justin Trudeau - this problem of negative elections precedes them and their parties.

We've just posted the fifth edition of Lego My Vote!

"Electoral systems must be judged by how well they mirror voter choice. Proportional Representation ensures that everyone's values and views are reflected in Parliament."

~Guy Giorno, former chief of staff to Stephen Harper

Three years ago, Toronto City Council asked the provincial government to allow them to use ranked ballots for local elections. A few months later, eight thousand people signed a petition asking the province to respect the request.

In 2014 the Ontario government promised that, if re-elected, they would allow all 444 municipalities to use ranked ballots.

After a year of public consultations, it seems the government is finally ready to move forward on their promise. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has just announced that they'll be making a major announcement about municipal democratic reform. Here are the details:

Explaining voting systems can be difficult. Plurality, majority, proportional, vote-splitting, false majorities, etc. Without visual props, an audience will get confused and/or bored quite quickly.

Here a Unlock Democracy, our favorite two props are LEGO bricks and the Democracy Quilt!

We've been using our hand-made quilt for four years, leading interactive demonstrations in Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Guelph, London, and even on live TV! We were also invited to demonstrate our quilt at a FairVote conference in Washington DC.