The present voting system appears simple, but is clearly unfair and may need readjustment.
The three different systems that have been proposed to overhaul the current one are not rocket science, but confusing nonetheless.
Although somewhat late, a different voting system came to my mind, and it appears to be simple and fair.
Each party will represent a riding with one candidate. Like under the present system, the candidate with the highest number of votes will win and represent the riding as number one candidate.
Some candidates who have lost will win the number two seat in a riding, depending on the party’s total spoiled votes.
After all polls are closed and all votes have been counted, the total number of votes from all parties combined would be divided by the number of ridings. The result would be the magic number.
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Afterwards, all votes above the magic number from all candidates that have won are transferred to each party’s own pool of spoiled votes, so are all the votes from all candidates that have lost.
For each magic number of votes in the pool of spoiled votes, each party will claim one number-two seat in a riding where their candidate had the highest number of votes but lost.
When the vote pool of all parties is depleted below the magic number, the party that has the highest number of votes left will be granted one more number-two seat.
Some ridings with a lower number of votes cast will receive only one representative, the first candidate elected.
During a new election, the number of seats in the house may differ.
This could be democracy in action, every vote counts.
Hans Jost
@SalmonArm
newsroom@saobserver.net
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