‘Fair’ voting system is eye of the beholder

Editor: In response to Jorgen Hansen’s letter in The Okanagan Sunday on May 14, I want to ask how he arrived at a seat count of 28 for the Greens in a ‘fair system.’

He must be one of the staunchest Greens supporters to do the math in his calculation. Surely, it is a typo. Somehow his reasoning escapes me.

A simplistic calculation based on popular votes would give them 15 seats based on 16.74 per cent of the votes (the B.C. Liberals would get 36 and the NDP would get 35) for a total seat count of 86.

The 2.55 per cent votes cast for other than the three parties results in one seat allocated to who? Overall popular vote is simplistic to apply after an election but very difficult and complex to try and arrange for an election of candidates.

It would appear that Mr. Hansen’s ‘fair’ system is some form of proportional representation.

If you go online to Wikipedia, proportional representation comes in several versions and is quite complex with political scientists arguing the benefits and shortcomings at length. There is quite a bit of information on what other countries are using and how it affects the seat count. Overall, my conclusion is that there is no ‘ideal’ or completely fair system for a democracy where in all cases the majority rules, but hopefully with meaningful input from the minorities.

Also I do not agree that majority rule becomes a dictatorship. Certainly, a majority government has the power to enact policies and legislation after due discussion in parliament and within the constitutional framework, but that does not amount to a dictatorship where there is no discussion with minorities, and laws are passed without regard to constitutions or anything else.

As well, in contrast to dictatorships, majority governments will still be held accountable at the next election and any ‘unfair’ laws can be overturned by the next government.

This may not be an ‘ideal’ fair system, but it is perhaps the most efficient that has been developed so far in our modern world. Quite a few other countries have proportional systems and many result in minority governments which have found ways of cooperating in coalitions.

However, before we endorse the changes advocated by Mr. Hansen, we need to be completely certain that these unspecified changes would result in a fairer system without significant shortcomings.

The fact that many people do not vote does not change the definition of the majority for me. If people do not care to vote, then I conclude that they will accept whoever is elected by the majority of people who do vote.

Wolf Penz, Kelowna More letters on page 7