POG 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Riding Association, Star Candidate, Party System
19 Jun 2018
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POG110
Lecture 6
Political parties and the electoral system Lecture 5 continued
Responses to the difference and can also reinforce differences
Manifest functions
Candidate and leader selection
Local candidate selection
- Selected locally by riding association
- Riding association has about 500 members and a fraction enter a nomination meeting
because usually only one person is going to win
- Sitting MPs rarely have to face a nomination contest
- Can potentially be open to abuse- can sign up all member of church for self and say I
want to represent NDP party- have to be a party member to vote, can have a hunch of
members to overwhelm the existing members in the meeting to win- not common but can
happen
- Drive to increase membership anytime there is a nomination race
- Limitations to local members and riding association- in order to win party need
endorsement of party leader, and have to win local nomination- leader may not sign if
there is an unacceptable candidate, they can refuse to let person run
- Party leaders can also select someone for riding (parachuting), don’t have to always have
local candidates select- do it to get star candidate (during election would be good at
helping party), to increase representation of those not represented equally (minorities and
women), provincial party has most problem with this, this doesn’t always happen without
controversy, decision to take local nominating voting taken away from you is upsetting,
- Trudeau says we want more democracy so no parachuting
- Vast majority of people selected to run are selected by local riding association
- People that represent local parties locally
Leader selection
- People that represent the party across the country as a whole
- Selection by caucus
- First half after confederation, leaders were selected by caucus- talk in caucus meeting and
select leader
- Early 20th century moved to convention to give more people input, get a big hall with
people representing ridings from all parties across country and pick leader- idea is to be
more democratic
- At meetings have delegates who make decisions, exefutio delegates-people elected in our
institutions by party, MPs and Senators, member of party executive- then have delegates
from riding itself, each riding has a number of delegates who get together and select
leader
- Liberals first to have a convention
- Conventions before were rarely competitive, small
- 1967- convention became huge, saw it on TV, more people contested race to be party
leader, new strategies on party leader, send representatives to ridings to sign people up
- parties also have to decide should we use delegates or one member one vote
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- delegates selected by local riding association, delegates promise we will support a single
candidate at the convention- problem is sometimes there is more than one vote if no one
wins majority have to have another vote, after first ballot do not hope to vote for anyone
particular because they may not be on second ballot, problem back home, I told you to
vote for this person but you didn’t
- shift away from delegates and vote more democratically, directly
- parties adopt one member one vote- each party member gets one vote and can vote
directly rather than through delegate
- in Canada we see different versions- weighted and unweighted
- provincial party has few members in Quebec ridings, have big ridings in the west
- with weighted system we make sure each riding is weighted equally regardless with how
much people are in specific place- 10 people in Quebec have a lot of power
- use weighted system for
- unweighted system- doesn’t matter where you live, one member is one vote, in the west
they will have more power than Quebec, attract wider group of people, parties looking to
be competitive in election will pick someone well known everywhere not just a specific
place
- all parties use weighted now- idea is pick a leader attractive as possible in all country-
each riding given 100 votes, ridings all given equal number of points regardless of how
many people are in riding
- electoral system- delegates used to only have to vote for single candidate in first ballot,
then if nobody got a majority (want party unity), take person at the bottom off ballot and
thy would vote again, a lot of parties around world use this, when vote again then vote for
suggested person and keep taking person at the bottom off and keep going for majority, in
between candidates tell speeches
- ranked ballot-make all choices at the same time, rank this person first then this then this,
count all first place ballot if there is no majority then knock them off and whoever voted
for them count their number 2 choice, person at the bottom who used to make a speech
and endorse someone has less power, all vote at the same time
- who votes- up until now is only party members (those who pay 10$), in 2013 liberals
decide we aren’t popular so we are going to open this up and let more people vote, we do
not want only party members we want liberal supporters, anybody, do not have to pay
party anything (sucks for party because they don’t get money) but attracting new people
to party
Party and the party system
- parties in Canada different
- goals of parties sometimes differ but they also have common goals- want to win votes
and maintain health of organization, usually through fundraising
- goals of parties depend on type of party they are (ideological and brokerage parties)
- ideological party- missionary party, parties that put forward a particular ideology or
agenda, have little form of government, do not attract number of people they need to win,
do not focused on winning, focus on having ideologies heard by as many people as
possible, not going to compromise positions if they know they aren’t going to win,
central to them, green party wants to attract only those that care about the environment
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Political parties and the electoral system lecture 5 continued. Responses to the difference and can also reinforce differences. Riding association has about 500 members and a fraction enter a nomination meeting because usually only one person is going to win. Sitting mps rarely have to face a nomination contest. Drive to increase membership anytime there is a nomination race. Trudeau says we want more democracy so no parachuting. Vast majority of people selected to run are selected by local riding association. People that represent the party across the country as a whole. First half after confederation, leaders were selected by caucus- talk in caucus meeting and select leader. Early 20th century moved to convention to give more people input, get a big hall with people representing ridings from all parties across country and pick leader- idea is to be more democratic. ), canadians are particularly non-partisan brokerage system implies there are no real differences between classes.
