PR: as simple as one person, one vote

Start the revolution without us: with a referendum on radical electoral reform less than three months away, a new survey shows just one in two British Columbians has even heard of it. Of these, just one in three claim to know much about it. One supposes that number will improve in coming weeks. There will be time enough to debate the specifics of the system the province’s voters will be asked to ratify, known as the single transferrable vote, but for now let me take up a basic objection raised by critics of proportional representation, of which the STV is a variant. It starts with a simple question: What's so special about political parties, anyway? PR bores like me go on and on about how obviously flawed the current first-past-the-post system is, since the representation of the parties in the legislature diverges so sharply from their share of the popular vote. So it's a particularly devastating rejoinder for opponents to inquire, "so what?" Isn't it more important that each riding be properly represented than that the parties should be? To which I reply: What's so special about ridings? The division of the country into 308 geographic districts is one way of representing the population, but it's not the only conceivable way. At various times in world history, it has been thought more important to represent the different classes, or estates. Some people today would like to see seats apportioned by race or gender. So there's nothing self-evidently "natural" about the riding as the basic unit of representation. What is, or should be, that basic unit? Let me suggest one that has several centuries of philosophical spadework in its favour: not ridings or parties, but the individual. That's why we give every person one vote. It's the basis of our economy, our system of laws, and so on. So perhaps you'll agree that the ideal electoral system is one that reflects the preferences of individual voters. Isn't that obligation properly discharged by first-past-the-post? Everyone gets a vote, and whoever gets the most votes wins. Simple as that, right? But there's an assumption buried in there: that the majority -- or rather, the plurality -- should rule, not just in the aggregate, as when there is a vote of the House of Commons, but in the selection of its members. If you happen to support a candidate with fewer votes than the winner in your riding, tough. Perhaps I'm too much influenced by economics, but it doesn't have to be that way. One of the great things about markets is that the majority doesn't rule. I don't have to buy the shoes that most people like: I can buy the shoes that I like. If 5% of the population prefers that kind of shoes, 5% of the market is what they get. You can't settle every issue that way: sometimes the majority has to rule. But you certainly wouldn't want to do that any more than you have to. Wherever possible, you would wish the minority to have its way as much as the majority. And even where the majority does rule, you would want the body in which that majority was represented to reflect the preferences of individual voters in the larger population. Short of allowing them to vote directly via referendum, you’d want a system in which each riding was represented in rough proportion to the distribution of preferences within it, rather than, as under the current scheme, giving 30% or less of the voters in a riding a 100% say in its representation. So instead of one MP from one party with one vote, you'd divvy up the riding's vote in the House in line with the popular vote: If one-third of the voters in a riding supported a particular candidate, that candidate and his party would get a one-third say in how that riding voted on a given matter. (As it happens, the BC proposal, with its use of multi-member constituencies, would do approximately that,) Arithmetically, that implies a similar division in the aggregate. Which is to say, proportional representation. But to come back to our original question: Is it the party that matters? Or the riding? Analogously, should members of Parliament be chosen according to their points of view on important national questions, for which the party and its platform are a proxy, or according to how well they represent the concerns of each riding? Well, both, surely. Indeed, isn’t that what allowing more free votes in Parliament is all about? On a few matters, MPs will be expected to vote the party line: notably, those issues on which the party campaigned in its platform. As for the rest, each MP would vote as he prefers, guided by some mix of his own conscience and his constituents' wishes. And what is the electoral system that best represents that duality: MP and party, local concerns and national platforms? Proportional representation. Whether on the model envisaged in BC, or in the more traditional hybrid systems (some elected by PR, some at the constituency level) in use in many countries around the world, it allows voters to divide their preferences, if they wish, between party and candidate. At present, we are often forced to choose between a candidate whose party we loathe, or a party whose candidate we abhor. Among the many benefits of PR is to liberate us from that false choice.