The Tyranny of the Minority
First Past the Post voting: why every election is now a Flight 93 Election
In 2016 in the lead up to the US Presidential Election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Michael Anton wrote an essay entitled “The Flight 93 Election.” Flight 93 referred to United Airlines Flight 93, which on September 1st, 2001, crashed in Somerset County, PA after passengers chose to storm the cockpit in an attempt to overpower the hijackers. Anton sought to compare a vote for Donald Trump to storming the cockpit. His argument came down to this: a vote for Trump may end in disaster, but letting Hilary win will be a disaster. Storm the cockpit or die. As arguments go it was both simple and simplistic. It is also, to some extent, why politics and elections are so cutthroat these days. Every election means the end of “our way life” if the other side wins.
Historically, the vitriol with which Canadian elections are fought always seem to pale in comparison to US elections. While the extended length of the US campaigns may contribute to this, the partisan nature of US politics is likely a greater impact. While there were at one time conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, resulting in more compromise, this is no longer that case and while once the winning party sought to govern for the nation as a whole, today both parties seek only to govern (reward) those who have elected them. This mentality has begun to seep into Canadian politics as well and while it is difficult to put an exact date on this approach there is little doubt the conservative/liberal divide is firmly in place today.
The inability of either side to gain a significant share of the vote only adds to this problem. In 1972 Richard Nixon was elected with 60.7% of the vote. In 1984 Ronald Reagan won with 58.8%. Since the 1992 the high-water mark was Barack Obama’s 2008 victory in which he earned 52.9% of the vote. Hardly a mandate. In Canada where we have more than two major parties, the numbers are even worse. Since 1972, only 9 of 16 elections have resulted in majority governments. Worse, due to the mechanics of parliamentary elections, majority governments do not require a majority of the popular vote. In fact, in the last 50 years the only government to receive over 50 percent of the popular vote was Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government of 1984. It is also not uncommon that elected government receive less votes than the second-place party, a situation that happened in 2021 when the Liberals earned 32.6% of the vote to the Conservatives’ 33.7% but won 47.3% of the seats. This is not a recipe for a peaceful political environment. This problem can be minimized if not eliminated by abolishing first past the post (FPTP) elections.
How do First Past the Post Elections work?
This is the system we live with in much of the United States and Canada even if we’ve never heard of the term before. Put simply, whoever gets the most votes wins. That’s it. In the example below, candidate #1 wins the election despite the fact that 79% of the electorate voted for someone else.
The problems with this are obvious and have been shown repeatedly in Canadian elections and while the situation is never this extreme, it is very common for one party to win a majority of seats in Parliament with less than 40% of the vote. This is not designed to make the majority feel that their views are being represented by the government.
The problems with this are obvious and have been shown repeatedly in Canadian elections and while the situation is never this extreme, it is very common for one party to win a majority of seats in Parliament with less than 40% of the vote. This is not designed to make the majority feel that their views are being represented by the government.
What are the alternatives?
In an ideal system, if the Liberals received 39.5% of the vote (see above) then 39.5% of the Members of Parliament (MPs) would be Liberals. A perfect representation may not be possible, but as Voltaire said, “perfect is the enemy of good” so any improvement might be good enough. Fortunately, there are a number of alternatives that would move representation in the right direction.
Proportional Representation
The most obvious method is to just count up the votes in the country and have the parties assign MPs based on the numbers. Using the results from the 2015 election (above) the seat breakdown would be as follows (actual results in brackets):
Liberals – 133 (184)
Conservatives – 108 (99)
New Democratic Party – 67 (44)
Bloc Quebecois – 16 (10)
Green Party – 11 (1)
Other – 3 (0)
Advantages: As 170 seats are needed for a majority, these results would have required to the at least two of the parties to work together to pass legislation which is the situation today. A clear advantage is that it’s simple. This method would also lead to more coalition governments and making passing legislation more difficult which, depending on your philosophy, is either an advantage or disadvantage.
Disadvantages: A disadvantage is that voters no longer vote for representatives but rather parties which then assign representatives based on a list published in advance.
Preferential, or ranked, ballot.
In this system voters rank the candidates and if no candidate receives a majority of the votes, then the last place candidate is removed, and their votes are redistributed based on the second choices cast. This is repeated until a candidate receives over 50% of the votes. This approach is used in Australia.
PARLIAMENTARY EDUCATION OFFICE (PEO.GOV.AU)
Advantages: voters would be more inclined to vote for smaller parties knowing that their votes would be redistributed as required. Redistribution of votes would also mean that more people will have voted for the winner once the final totals are calculated.
Disadvantages: It takes more time and is more complicated. In theory it also violates the “one person, one vote” rule.
Mixed-Member Proportional Representation
This system is a combination of the Proportional Representation and either FPTP or Ranked Ballots. Voters cast two votes, one for their local riding/district and one for their party of choice. Between half and two thirds of the seats would go to candidates from individual ridings and the remaining seats would be assigned based on each party’s share of the vote with MPs being taken from a predetermined list.
Germany and New Zealand use variations of this approach
Advantages: Results would more closely align with the share of the vote
Disadvantages: The system is much more complicated and would create a group of MPs without constituents who might not feel more beholden to a party than to the electorate.
Other options
The alternatives to FPTP described above are three of the simplest. Other options include holding multiple rounds until a candidate wins over 50% of the vote, making voting compulsory (increases voter turnout but doesn’t eliminate the issues with FPTP), Single-Transferable Vote System (similar to ranked but more complicated), and Proportional-Preferential-Personalized (trying to understand the last two gave me a headache). All aim to improve representation and the sense that a citizen’s vote matters, and all have advantages and disadvantages.
How would they improve the political environment?
The ability to “vote your conscious” without “throwing away your vote” might mean that smaller parties would become more competitive, or at the very least force the larger parties to consider policies they currently might not, in order to attract more voters (think the Libertarian vote in the US or the Green Party in Canada). The most obvious advantage however is that these systems would lead to more governments that more accurately represent the wishes of the voters, increasing voter satisfaction. Even the increased likelihood of coalition governments would be a good thing as they increase the percentage of people who feel the government represents them. Taking the 2015 Proportional Representation results as an example, a Liberal/NDP government would represent 59.2% of the electorate, which is better than the 39.5% that the Liberal government actually represented.
Conclusion
It’s clear that something must be done to eliminate the “Flight 93 Election” mentality that seems to increase with each election. The problem, of course is getting the politicians and parties onboard. There is one giant hurdle and that is getting governments to implement them. During his successful 2015 election campaign, Justin Trudeau promised voters that a new electoral system would be in place by 2019 only to abandon that promise in 2017. This should come as no surprise. Why would a party that just won an election under the FPTP system agree to change it to a system that promises them less seats moving forward? Given this logic, any promise made by any of the other large parties in North America (Conservatives, Democrat, and Republicans) would be equally suspect. In Canada the only hope for political reform likely lies with the NDP. Should the Liberals win another minority government, the NDP could trade electoral reform for their support as they recently did with free dental. While the chances for electoral reform in Canada appear slim, they are likely better than they are in the US, with its two-party system. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are likely to push through electoral reform after winning an election as the only benefactors would be third parties (and the electorate). American’s will likely have to live with the current system unless a very large number of them begin to “throw away their vote” on third parties.