Why Canada Needs a Rank-Choice Voting System

It's election day in Canada today.  While living in this democracy is pretty great, there are always ways to improve and make sure that each vote really counts.  The best way to do that is by allowing Canadians to change from the "first-past-the-post system" to a "rank-choice system".

What's the difference?

Canada's current system, "first-past-the-post", is the most basic of systems.  Voters indicate on their ballot which candidate they want as their Member of Parliament and the candidate who has the most votes wins.  Then the party (or the group of parties in a coalition) with the most MPs elected gets to form the government.  The leader of that party or coalition of parties becomes the prime minister.

It's not a bad system, but the problem is this allows for parties and MPs who receive between 30% to 40% of the popular vote to form a government.  It just doesn't feel as legitimate in a democracy to have a government that over 60% of voters didn't vote for.

My suggestion: rank-choice voting.

Sample ballot for rank-choice voting

In this system, voters are asked to rank which candidates they want as their first, second and third choice to represent them as their MP.  If a candidate gets more than 50% of the votes as the "first choice", then that person gets elected.  If none of the candidates get more than 50% of the votes as the "first choice", then the candidate with the least amount of votes gets eliminated.  The voters who selected that eliminated candidate as their first choice will then have their votes added to the totals of their second choice.  The process continues until one candidate gets over the 50% hurdle and is elected.

This will work particularly well in Canada because at any given federal election, there are at least 4 or 5 main parties vying for votes.

Why is this better?

Prevents Strategic Voting
Whenever there's a federal election campaign in Canada and polls show that one disliked party is likely to win with about 35% of the votes, there's always talk of strategic voting. Instead of voting for the candidate that they truly want to vote for, people will instead choose the "lesser evil" candidate they THINK has the best likelihood of winning against the disliked candidate.  So in this case, voters aren't really voting for something as they are voting against something else.

In Canada, despite having multiple legitimate parties, voters finally end up choosing one of the two main parties.  Again, this is because of the false perception that a third or fourth party has "no chance of winning" and voting for them will "split the vote".  With rank-choice voting, you remove this problem.  You can vote your first choice in, but your second and third choices will ensure that votes don't get split and you're not inadvertently voting for the party that you really don't want in power.

Creates a more educated voter
Because you now have multiple options, a voter is now going to have the incentive to look at other parties' platforms. They won't just end up picking one of the major parties because they don't like the platform of the other major opposing party.  In a healthy democracy, a more educated voter just means that the leaders they elect, for better or worse, truly represent the citizenry.  


Prevents the election of extremists
Historically, democratically elected extremists have targeted a small, but loud minority.  The problem is, in a system like Canada where having 30% to 35% of the popular vote is enough to bring a party in power, this is a possibility.  Vote splitting with other parties caused by the "first past the post" system can lead to this outcome.  With rank choice voting, this won't happen because a majority of electors would eventually overcome the 35% of extremists with their second or third choices.

Opens up new parties and ideas
On the other side of the coin, while the major parties are more likely to win with the second or third choice vote, the mechanism of rank choice voting allows voters to really vote the way they want on their first choice.  This can lead to some surprising first choice outcomes if enough voters truly believe in what they're voting for.  What that means is that the party that isn't supposed to win can actually have a legitimate shot. Whether that party wins or not, it sends a clearer message to politicians that these new parties' ideas are actually important to voters.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Bottom line, there's no such thing as a perfect candidate or political platform.  On the economic issues, I personally agree with one party.  On social issues, I'll agree with another.  On environmental issues, I'll agree with a third party.  And so on.  In terms of immigration, I'll disagree with one, but agree with the ideas from two different parties. My guess is that most Canadian voters are in the same boat as me.

If we had a rank choice voting system, this would make voting easier.  I can weigh the different issues that are the most important to me and come up with a first, second and third choice of candidate.  Rank choice voting means that I'm not stuck settling.  My vote will actually matter and I won't feel like I have to simply prevent the "most evil" candidate from winning by voting for the "lesser evil".  In the long run, this kind of system will force politicians to become less extreme and more reasonable