A Response to Eric Grenier’s “Ontario’s election done differently”,
The Writ, Published June 29, 2022
https://www.thewrit.ca/p/ontarios-election-done-differently
We need to thank Eric Grenier for finding this example of a functioning alternative electoral process for us. His application of Baden-Wurttemberg’s electoral procedures to Ontario’s most recent electoral processes outcome is enlightening.
There are details which may change our view of the effectiveness of B-W’s electoral processes as applied to Ontario’s case. The total populations of the two jurisdictions are not especially close, 10.8 million for Baden-Wurttemberg, 14.7 million for Ontario, so then also not hugely different. Land area and therefore population density are quite different 35,752 sq km for Baden-Wurttemberg and 1,076,395 sq km for Ontario. Population densities are then 108.08 persons per sq km for Baden-Wurttemberg, 13.66 persons per sq km for Ontario. These differences have an impact especially during writ periods, when parties are working to get to as many electors’ doors, inboxes, mailboxes, phones etc. as possible.
The number of elected representatives for each legislature is 154 for Baden-Wurttemberg and 124 for Ontario. Thus, while we do not know the number of electors in each jurisdiction, we do know the number of persons per elected representative for each, 70,800 for Baden-Wurttemberg, 118,550 for Ontario. Again, degrees of density of population makes a difference in the amount of access electors have with their representatives, and representatives with their electors. Of course the same issue applies for would be representatives as they run for office.
The population and land area characteristics are not easily compared between Baden-Wurttemberg and Ontario. The vast majority of Ontario electors live in urban settings, some quite large. Others live in rural settings, some quite remote. Differences in the amount of impact of geography on electors in various constituencies could then be significant. Is there enough research into these differences to enable a clear judgement?
The number of seated political parties for Baden-Wurttemberg is five – Greens, CDU, SPD, FDP, AfD – and for Ontario is four – PC, Liberal, NDP, Green - plus an independent member. Thus, perhaps the political gamut running from left through centre to right might be covered roughly equally in comparing the two jurisdictions. It might be difficult to know whether policies expressed in similar terms mean similar things to electors in their respective jurisdictions, much more difficult to know how equally that policy coverage is when electors of one jurisdiction see the policies presented in the other jurisdiction. In other words, it is difficult to know how the political philosophies presented in choices to electors compare between the jurisdictions. On the other hand, perhaps such a comparison is of limited value for the purposes of this discussion so it can be disregarded.
Moving beyond our fun with numbers, what does that mean for improving the effectiveness of representation of any one elector’s interests in the legislature?
To appreciate effectiveness of policy development and implementation through program development, we might wish to understand the needs presented by the electors, perhaps by understanding the electors.
Abstractions: demographic or other characteristics identifying groups of individual electors
Does each jurisdiction have communities of common interest? Are those common interests self-defined? Does a community of interest with a large population across constituencies find representation in the legislative body even where that community of interest is not large enough within any single constituency to enable it to elect representatives to advocate for that interest?
How large a role does geography play in those definitions? The larger the role geography plays, the more important the constituency-based assignment of elected offices is. Does the reverse also hold, is the commonality of interest among electors driven by location within a constituency’s boundary?
Do those interests require public policy responses? If so, must those responses to those interests be unique in program design and implementation? Are these decisions made, or at least approved, by the communities themselves?
Individual Electors:
Does each individual elector present self-defined interests? Is there commonality of interests found among individuals? Do these commonalities appear among individuals throughout the jurisdiction? Do these commonalities appear among individuals in more than one community?
Electoral Strategies for Parties:
The purpose of a party to be elected in governance roles is to assure its founding principles are engaged in the development of policies and the programs which realise those policies. How does a party assure itself enough votes to gain position of governing authority?
There are at least two timelines at work here. The short timeline ends with the next scheduled election. Gaining governing authority in this timeline enables the party to hold sway and influence throughout the ensuing term of office. The long timeline does not have a definite end, rather it extends throughout the lifetime of the jurisdiction it operates in. Gaining governing authority is known to not hold sequentially for every term of office throughout that period. The party therefore tries to hold sway in some terms of office and simply influence policy development and realisation throughout the other terms of office.
These two timelines may require significantly different strategies that will nonetheless be dependent upon each other to achieve success.
In the short timeline, parties will identify prospective supporters and find ways to motivate them to vote for the party’s candidate in that identified elector’s electoral district. A party may likewise find ways to motivate prospective supporters of other parties to abstain from voting. The reasoning behind these two combined may be that the candidate might well have only one run at election, so must be elected when the immediate election happens.
In the longer term, the party may try to motivate its identified supporters to help build capacity to attract others to the party’s cause. The party may also reach out to non-supporters, those supporting other parties or those non-aligned with any party, to encourage them to bring their support to the party.
These methods of persuasion may include demonstrating effective governance or pointing out other parties’ ineffective governance. The strongest argument is to illustrate how an elector’s interests were either served well by the party or disserved by the governance delivered by another party. This would mean that the party went out of its way to truly understand the elector’s needs to enable electors to make meaningful comparisons and contrasts.
Electors and parties must find ways to build confidence that the chosen strategies will result in greater effectiveness of representation of interests of any single elector.
The electoral model for B-W seems to offer the opportunity to blend both geographically defined communities and interests defined communities. The first-past-the-post members elected are geographically defined. The other allocated representatives offer the opportunity to represent interests that cross geographical boundaries. However, Mr. Grenier’s essay does not offer enough information to enable us to make any conclusion about whether those dual roles are delivered in practice.
So we are left with the question of whether the Baden-Wurttemberg electoral system provides better inclusivity and other measures of effectiveness than Ontario’s first-past-the-post application to only geographically defined constituencies.
It certainly seems to offer the opportunity for better representation of interests that are not strictly geographically based than the Ontario system. More work is required to provide the understanding that is required to make that judgement.
Lastly, that work with electors would offer an opportunity to have Ontario’s electors engage in a fulsome conversation on the issues, hopefully leading to a deeper appreciation of those issues. Ontario may then develop its own electoral system that may be some adaptation of Baden-Wurttemberg’s, some completely other system, or decide to carry on with first-past-the-post.
Perhaps the final test of effectiveness of electoral systems is the percentage of voter turnout. Will the Baden-Wurttemberg model outperform the current Ontario model? There may be only one way to find out and that would be to implement it, replacing the current model in actual elections.
What system do you think will help people elect to vote?
M G Klein
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