Gotta love the Canadian voting system

[g.iaroos]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/

So we just had a federal election here in Canada and the results are in. What shocked me the most - BQ (Bloc Quebecois) have 50 seats in the commons, NDP have 37 seats. However, only 10% of the canadians voted for BQ and over 18% voted for the NDP. The big flaw in our system is that votes are only counted to elect the local deputee, not to elect the winning party. Thus, a party that is strong in Quebec (like the BQ) and that wins most of it's seats there gets more democratic power than the NDP who presented everywhere in Canada but was not really strong anywhere to have winning deputees.

After that, they wonder why the participation rate is only 59% (and from my memory, this was a good year). People are not going to go vote if they know their vote will not make a difference in the end.

[MasterSwordUltima]

Yeah, in the U.S. you don't vote for the president, you vote for the guys who will vote for the president.

[Cloral]

Welcome to Democracy. It's like that everywhere. Take our electoral college system here in the US. You vote for president, but your vote only counts if that candidate wins the state, and then it's treated like every person in the state voted for that candidate. So if you live in a state like California or Utah where it's pretty obvious which way the state is going to go, it really doesn't matter who you vote for. In the end, the 'swing states' end up wielding an undue amount of power since they are the ones that will end up deciding the election. Don't live in Ohio, Florida, or Pennsylvania? Then who cares what you think!

[g.iaroos]

There should be a way to ultimately make every vote matters, because anyways, all members of a political party will always vote the same in the commons. Representatives should be elected to represent the local populace of a county and bring their voice to the commons. However, when voting comes, each party should have a voting weight represented by the total votes of the last election. It would be just as simple! Each county would be represented by what the local populace thinks, but when a vote comes off to decide something country-wide, what every citizen decided counts.

Sadly, such a motion will never be implemented because it gives the main party a disadvantage during such votes, and every political party want to have as much power as possible.

[deathbyhokie]

In the end, the 'swing states' end up wielding an undue amount of power since they are the ones that will end up deciding the election. Don't live in Ohio, Florida, or Pennsylvania? Then who cares what you think!

And if you do live in a Swing State (which Virginia supposedly is this year), you get three political ads per commercial break, not matter what channel your watching, no matter what time of day.

I'll go back to my vote being insignificant it means i don't have to hear serious music and questionable statements and statistics all the damn time.

[aces2022]

The problem is we give our 50 states their so called sovereignty and we act like we give the states enough power to control themselves and make them seem equall to each other. When it comes down to voting, the numbers come out and it's obvious that some states are completely forgotten about. I bet if we actually gave the states more power then alot more of the problems would be solved. We need that leadership on the lower level, the people who know what they are talking about and how to solve it. Oh wait then that would mean that most of the taxes would go back to .... us, and not to fighting wars which I geuss is what really brings our country together.

[Cloral]

The problem is we give our 50 states their so called sovereignty and we act like we give the states enough power to control themselves and make them seem equall to each other. When it comes down to voting, the numbers come out and it's obvious that some states are completely forgotten about. I bet if we actually gave the states more power then alot more of the problems would be solved. We need that leadership on the lower level, the people who know what they are talking about and how to solve it. Oh wait then that would mean that most of the taxes would go back to .... us, and not to fighting wars which I geuss is what really brings our country together.

I feel exactly the same way. If the states and local governments held more power, people would get more involved in politics. There would be a sense that you could actually affect something.

[Lemon]

The problem is we give our 50 states their so called sovereignty and we act like we give the states enough power to control themselves and make them seem equall to each other. When it comes down to voting, the numbers come out and it's obvious that some states are completely forgotten about. I bet if we actually gave the states more power then alot more of the problems would be solved. We need that leadership on the lower level, the people who know what they are talking about and how to solve it. Oh wait then that would mean that most of the taxes would go back to .... us, and not to fighting wars which I geuss is what really brings our country together.

The first draft of a U.S. government, Articles of Confederation did exactly that: strong states rights, weak central government. They were bonded by a "League of Friendship" and due to each state acting so independently, coining their own money, controlling tax, etc., they got together and scraped the thing as a failure.

It is nice to be reminded though that while we complain about our two party system, it could be worse. It does seem kinda retarded that the conservatives only have 8.5% of popular vote, but more have 15 more seats than the party that got 19% .

[aces2022]

Ya I geuss when everyone started turning on eachother, someone had to throw a leapord at it to make sure it was at least equally crappy for all.