THE RANKED BALLOT REPORT
Why Di Pasquale Should Have Won
When I first shook Jagmeet's hand I asked him immediately: "Why didn't we get voting reform in 'the deal'?"
His simple reply? "It's the first thing we asked for, Trudeau said no."
Aghast, I pressed him further, "Can't we shame him for it? It's an election promise!"
He empathized and smiled wryly: "Well, if you were The Liberals would you just give up seats?"
I said "I would if I promised to!" and he simply laughed, as if he wished that Trudeau played by my honest rules — but the devil was in the details:
The NDP focused first on our immediate material needs, and understandably so, but I learned that Trudeau DID suggest "Ranked Ballots" as an alternative to Proportional Representation (PR), and that we turned our nose up at it as a bait-and-switch — which it is — but Ranked Ballots still smell good and they fit the narrative in Trudeau's mind — for better or worse, Trudeau is a man guided by narrative, so this is our chance: complete the theatrical scene Justin began in his mind and get step one for voting reform: Ranked Ballots — it will open up conceptual space for more alternatives later — demand that Singh ask Trudeau for the Ranked Ballots Trudeau himself suggested!
I told Jagmeet that turning down Ranked Ballots when denied PR reminded me of Fair Vote's rhetoric on many twitter accounts — demanding PR and poo-pooing Ranked Ballots — and I told him I would write him a report on this topic, which is what you are reading now.
THE SPOILER EFFECT
While Ranked Ballots aren't the guaranteed seat gain for the NDP that PR would be, they do prevent vote-splitting including THE SPOILER EFFECT, which costs us seats — I should know, because I was a spoiler candidate in Ward 11.
Norm Di Pasquale should have defeated Diane Saxe in the race for Ward 11 — the NDP-aligned left should have had municipal control of the flagship University-Rosedale riding. Why?
There are two reasons Norm should have won:
1. THE NDP SHOULD HAVE HIRED GOLDING TO WORK ON NORM'S CAMPAIGN
I won’t belabor this point, but my run as the only radical left of Norm is a perfect example of The Spoiler Effect in action: many of my votes would have gone to Norm, the NDP-aligned candidate, if I had still been working for them, and my pull was FOUR TIMES the margin between Norm and Diane — in fact, up to 11 of 12 alternatives to Norm and Diane could have been spoiler candidates based on their individual numbers, and they certainly were collectively, just look at the results!
2. WE SHOULD ALREADY HAVE HAD RANKED BALLOTS
Under a Ranked Ballot system, however, you don't even have to hire the radical in a situation like this one to prevent vote-splitting — the voting system takes care of it, all by itself: under ranked ballots, Adam and Norm wouldn't really have been working at cross-purposes — they would have both drawn out voters that would have ranked the other high on their ballot as well.
As explained above, Ranked Ballots were already on offer, at least as an idea in negotiation, and what advantage do Ranked Ballots share with Proportional Representation? They both resist the spoiler effect:
Under ranked ballots, Norm would have been my second-choice vote, and he would have been the second choice of nearly all of my voters, and of many who voted for the alternatives, even of Liberal voters who voted for Robin Buxton-Potts.
THE OTHER EFFECTS
While each merits a separate article, here they are in a table as a preview — benefits that PR and Ranked Ballots SHARE over First-past-the-post:
Stay tuned for more on why Singh should DEMAND Ranked Ballots from Trudeau! .. it's the only reason I voted for him, via Chrystia — other than LEGAL WEED, which just destroys small business anyway.
ps Why is it a CARBON TAX and not a GREEN SUBSIDY? Am I right?
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adamgolding.ca