Vote reform comes too late to save Toronto from Ford
So, just to catch you up with all the latest on Toronto’s mayor: The police were reportedly aware of the infamous video of the mayor allegedly smoking crack weeks before it was shown to the Toronto Star; the mayor’s name is also reported to have been mentioned in discussions picked up on police wiretaps, part of a year-long investigation culminating in this week’s massive raid on an apartment complex in the city’s western suburbs — the same one where the mayor is reported to have told staff the video could be found.
Two of the three men pictured with the mayor in a photo taken outside a notorious local drug den inhabited by a high school friend of the mayor were arrested in the raid; the third was shot dead outside a downtown nightclub in March. The house was invaded days after the photo was first published by a man armed with a pipe who beat up the inhabitants. Oh, and the city’s police chief refuses to say whether the mayor is under criminal investigation.
Now for the bad news. If an election were held today, the mayor would have a good shot at re-election. As of late May, more than a week after the story of the alleged crack video broke, Rob Ford still had the approval of 42 per cent of Toronto voters. In a probable fouror five-person race, that would likely be enough to win.
That is, in an election run under the current “first past the post” system it would: to win, a candidate need not have a majority of the vote, but only more votes than his rivals. That’s true of any candidate, and any election, of course. But where an electorate is sharply divided, whether on lines of class or race or what have you, first past the post rewards the candidate who can best exploit that polarization to his advantage: who presents himself as best able to defend “us” against “them,” and by such appeals to tribal solidarity locks down a block of intensely loyal supporters who will turn up to vote no matter what. It values depth of support, that is, rather than breadth. And since that is the type of candidate it rewards, that is the type of candidate it produces.
Toronto’s most notable division is between its suburbs and its inner core, the enduring legacy of the city’s forced amalgamation in 1998. In the 2010 election Ford won the suburbs by a large margin; support in the inner city was noticeably cooler. And as his feckless mayoralty has bounced from one needless controversy to another, his support base has narrowed still further, leaving it largely confined to its suburban redoubt.
Indeed, that it remains so strong there may well be in reaction to the pounding he is taking in the downtown press. If they’re against him, his suburban supporters appear to be saying, then we’re for him. That may well be all he needs. The city is now in a situation where a mayor could be re-elected who was not only unsatisfactory to a majority of the voters, but deeply repugnant to them.
It is worth noting, then, even as the mayor’s office is enveloped in crisis, the imminent prospect of a seismic change in the city’s electoral landscape: this week’s decision, by an emphatic majority of the city council, to recommend dropping first past the post in favour of a “ranked choice” ballot.
As the name implies, rather than mark an X beside the name of the candidate they like best, voters rank them in order of preference: 1, 2, 3 and so on. The candidate in last place after the first choices are counted is eliminated; his second choices are then redistributed among the remaining candidates; the last-place candidate after that is again eliminated, his third-choice votes redistributed, and so on until one candidate has at least 50 per cent of the vote.
A small change, and yet it changes everything. If the province accepts the plan (it requires an amendment to the Municipal Elections Act), a candidate for mayor (and for council, too, by the way) could no longer win with a mere plurality of the vote. Nor would his first choices typically be enough to carry him to a majority. Rather, he would have to reach outside his base to supporters of the other candidates, in hopes they would make him their second and third choices.
It’s not the proportional system that many electoral reformers want, but it’s certainly an improvement. Not only would a much larger proportion of voters have a hand in electing the winner, but the kind of divisive, us-and-them politics with which we are all too familiar would cease to be rewarded. With the country’s largest city showing the way, it’s not hard to imagine other jurisdictions following.
Indeed, is it too much to suggest the scandals engulfing other levels of government also have their roots in the polarized politics of first past the post — the same bunker mentality, the same them-orus paranoia that justifies each bout of thuggery in light of the other side’s, the same smug belief that it doesn’t matter what “their’n” say so long as “our’n” stay with us?
Electoral reform can’t save Toronto from Ford: The province is unlikely to have any changes in place in time for next year’s city elections, but rather will aim for 2018. But it can make it less likely that a candidate can be elected with as narrow a base as Ford has. And as she considers the city’s proposal, Premier Kathleen Wynne might ask herself: if this is good for Toronto, why would it not also be good for Ontario?