First-Past-The-Post can give exactly what voters don’t want

Some columnists and letter writers to the nations newspapers don’t see a problem that must be fixed in our electoral system.  They seem to think that false majorities, such as our current Liberal government who got 70% of the seats with 47% of the popular vote, are perfectly acceptable.  “At least”, they say, “more people voted for them than voted for any other single party.”

But recent examples in other provinces show that this need not be true.

In the 1996 BC election, the Liberals received 41.82% of the vote and won 33 seats.  The NDP received 39.45% of the vote and 39 seats, enough to form a majority government.

In the 1998 Quebec election, the Liberals received 43.55% of the vote and won 48 seats.  The Parti Quebecois received 42.87% of the vote and won 76 seats, enough to form a majority government.

In the 2006 New Brunswick election, the PC’s received 47.5% of the vote and won 26 seats.  The Liberals received 47.1% of the vote and won 29 seats, enough to form a majority government.

No matter how you spin it, these are elections in which the majority of voters wanted a different result and by accident of where they live and riding boundaries they got stuck with 4 years of majority rule from the wrong party.

Our system is broken.  Under the proposed MMP system, these results would not occur.