Kid strategy takes spotlight in climate-change campaign

A provocative public awareness campaign is hitting the streets in 20 hotly contested federal ridings, urging voters to pressure the Harper government to do more to fight climate change on the eve of a major international summit in Copenhagen.

[FairVote]

Germany dodges bizarre election outcome thanks to its proportional voting system

First-past-the-post would have given Merkel 73% of the seats with only 39% voter support

The recent German election results provide a classic illustration of how badly first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting can distort election results in a multi-party political system.

If Germans had used FPTP in last weekend’s election, Angela Merkel’s victory would have dwarfed the Canadian record for distorted election results (set by Brian Mulroney in 1984, when 50% of the votes translated into 75% of the seats for the Tories).

Germany uses a mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system, which combines first-past-the-post voting with an element of proportional representation. German voters use FPTP to elect MPs in 299 single-member districts. Voters then cast a second vote for a favoured party, which elects MPs to additional at-large seats to ensure that each party has a portion of seats that reflects the popular vote.

[Larry Gordon]

The real results

Using MMP, the German parliament closely reflects what voters said with their ballots. The CDU/CSU – FDP coalition, just shy of a majority of the popular vote will form a majority coalition and face three well-represented opposition parties.

The second vote (the “PR” vote) indicates the popular support for each party and shows how the final result closely mirrors what voters wanted:

CDU/CSU – 33.8% of the PR votes - 38.4% of total seats

SPD – 23.0% of the PR votes – 23.5% of total seats

FDP – 14.6% of the PR votes – 15.0% of total seats

Left – 11.9% of the PR votes – 12.2% of total seats

Green – 10.7% of the PR votes – 10.9% of total seats

[Larry Gordon]

FYI - American colleagues at FairVote (US) discovered this when analyzing German election data.

Very powerful.

Results if Germans had used first-past-the-post

But what if Germans didn’t have that second PR vote? What if the German parliament only reflected the results of the 299 first-past-the-post races?

With 39% of the votes, Angela Merkel would have won a whopping 73% of the seats. Her real-life coalition partner, the FDP, would have been wiped out, with no seats. The Green Party would have just one seat.

CDU/CSU – 39.4% of the FPTP votes - 72.9% of the seats

SPD – 29.7% of the FPTP votes – 21.4% of the seats

FDP – 9.4% of the FPTP votes – 0.0%(no seats)

Left – 11.1% of the FPTP votes – 5.4% of the seats

Green – 9.2% of the FPTP votes – 0.3% of the seats

“Germans don’t have to worry about ludicrous first-past-the-post results, because they use a fair and proportional voting system, as do voters in most developed countries,” said Bronwen Bruch, President of Fair Vote Canada.

“But Canadians have good reason to worry. With five parties competing at the federal level, bizarre elections results are going to be the norm. We have already had three provincial elections where a party formed a ‘majority’ government despite finishing second in the popular vote.”