First Past the Post or Mixed Member Proportional
There's a provincial election coming in Ontario this week, and with the election comes a referendum. I haven't really paid much attention to the referendum until I heard an attack ad on the radio this week.
I'm going to have to paraphrase, but the ad essentially said "You're going to be asked to choose between the current system and a new system that would add many new politicians. Don't we have enough politicians? And these new politicians would be picked by old-boy back-room unelected bureaucrats. Is that really what we want?".
It reminded me way too much of the kind of BS I hear in American elections.
The actual question is asking voters to choose between the current system, where government is made up of the 107 individual candidates who received the most votes in their district, and a new system, which would have you vote for a local candidate and also for a party. The government would then be made up of 90 directly-elected members, and 39 members chosen by the parties voted for, based on the proportion of votes those parties received.
The "First Past the Post" system effectively ensures the smaller parties have no representation at all in government, while the "Mixed Member Proportional" system will grant these parties a voice.
The comment about those 39 members being chosen by unelected persons is technically true, but it seems to me if you voted for the party then you're granting the party leader the right to choose their representatives.
I can only assume the attack ad was run by one of the major parties, which will stand to lose some of their representation in this new system.