POLI 1F90 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney, Proportional Representation
9 Oct 2015
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Allow citizens to select government; influence public policy; acquire representation. Elections used to channel dissent; participation limited to occasional, sanctioned ceremony; legitimize the system . In many democracies voters don"t directly select executive (us presidential elections; Accountability: undermined by party discipline in canada. 1993 federal election: liberals elected but did not get rid of gst. Even though broke promise they were re-elected in 1997 (electoral rules p. 296) Rules govern timing of elections, term limits, proportion of vote needed for victory, size and nature of constituencies . Would reducing voting age increase voter turnout. Can become mp without 50% of vote. Distortion between percent of votes and percent of seats a party gets. Much different results under israel electoral system (pr system) Pr trues to mirror percent of votes. Only need to get more votes than rest. If 1 gets 24% of the votes and the other 4 competitors get 19% each, then 1 wins.
