Democracy commission to release report
Published September 8th 2004 in CBC

FREDERICTON  —  New Brunswickers will soon be debating whether to change the way they vote in provincial elections when the commission on legislative democracy releases its interim report later this month.

The commission was appointed to suggest ways to improve New Brunswick's democratic system, because voter turnout has been declining.

Members were asked to suggest what kind of proportional representation system would be best for New Brunswick. That's a system common in Europe, in which parties win seats based on the percentage of the vote they receive.

Commission co-chair Lorne McGuigan says that makes sense to a lot of people he knows. "The idea that the number of seats that a party gets should be roughly proportional to the number of votes it gets is fairly attractive."

But the recommendation won't be for a pure proportional system. The commission is required to keep some type of riding system in whatever it proposes.

Conservative MLA Kirk MacDonald is nervous about the idea because it could create two classes of MLAs – those who represent ridings and tthose elected "proportionally," who wouldn't have to worry about local issues like rural road repairs. "They wouldn't be answerable to a particular geographic area of the province, as are MLAs at the present time."

Premier Bernard Lord has said any plan to change the province's electoral system would likely be put to a referendum vote.

  
IRV Soars in Twin Cities, FairVote Corrects the Pundits on Meaning of Election Night '09
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers.  Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections;  the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.

And as pundits try to make hay out of the national implications of Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections, Rob Richie in the Huffington Post concludes that the gubernatorial elections have little bearing on federal elections.

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