A few months before the provincial elections where the polls anticipate (another!) significant distortion between the percentages of popular support and the number of seats obtained in the National Assembly by the political parties, it is not useless to think again on the usefulness of reforming our voting system, but, above all, on how to conduct such a perilous exercise correctly. Because nothing is more difficult for a well-established democracy than to modify its voting system.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
International experience is also there to demonstrate it: we no longer count the number of States that have tried and failed. Should we conclude from so many setbacks that these reforms were not in themselves desirable? Not at all. Above all, it should be remembered that the way to go about it poses serious practical difficulties. The most important is well documented: incumbent politicians cannot be relied upon to carry out these reforms, as they find themselves in a direct conflict of interest and will necessarily favor, in the long term, the formula that suits them the most. If they find themselves in power, they will generally favor the status quo. The case of Quebec is admirably illustrative in this respect.
So who can legitimately support such a reform? Should we, for example, leave the matter to specialists in the question, political scientists and other researchers, especially since the subject contains a certain number of technical details and specific knowledge? That would not be acceptable.
The reform of a voting system, beyond its more technical considerations, contains issues of values and society that specialists in the field, however necessary they may be to explain them, do not have the authority to settle. by themselves.
In fact, a good way to proceed, from the point of view of impartiality and democratic representativeness, would be to start with the formation of a citizens’ assembly made up of people who initially have no firm ideas on the subject. . Neither politicians nor activists of the cause or official representatives of any organization, “ordinary citizens” preferably chosen at random in the spirit of forming the best possible representation of the social diversity of a community. These citizens will of course have access to all the necessary opinions and expertise before deliberating and rendering their verdict. Such a deliberative structure is not new, quite the contrary. It was notably set up in British Columbia in 2004 in a process that spanned almost a year for its 160 members.
Popular referendum
But an assembly of this kind, however well equipped it may be to deliberate on the issue, would not yet have the necessary legitimacy to then decide unilaterally on changes to the voting system. It would therefore be necessary, in my opinion, to provide for the establishment of a popular referendum in a second stage to settle the question. The holding of this referendum will pose many risks of manipulation by politicians. This can range from the conditions under which it will be held to the way in which the population would be informed before the vote, but above all to the role assigned to political parties before, during and after the campaign. Elementary prudence would dictate that the parties stay as far away as possible from the process. But how to get there?
These questions and many others are of great strategic importance and the error of the militants for a reform of the electoral system is to have neglected them too much in the past. To be convinced of their importance, let us return to the experience of British Columbia. In 2005, its population was invited to vote by referendum on the main proposal of its citizens’ assembly to introduce a preferential voting system in the province. This change would have had the positive effect, among other things, of requiring a minimum of 50% support to elect a candidate in a riding, which is far from being the case today with our voting system. But the government had set the success threshold for this referendum at 60% and had provided no resources to properly inform the population about the proposed reform. British Columbians still supported the project with 57.7%, a slightly insufficient result.
We must insist on the ironic nature of the situation: elected officials with sometimes less than 40% of the votes in their favor during their own election have nevertheless imposed a 60% rule on a referendum favoring a more demanding voting system in their place in the future!
Such situations, as we can see, go beyond mere logistical organization: they touch the heart of the difficulty in reforming our democratic institutions. Fortunately, solutions exist, but they need to be well thought out and executed correctly.
In conclusion, if ever a political party still ventures to propose a reform of the voting system once elected, it will demonstrate its seriousness and its civic sense by first committing to stay as far away as possible from the process in place for this purpose. Politicians must sometimes, for the sake of impartiality, give way to other democratic institutions. And it’s no offense to them to point this out, especially when the conflict of interest is so obvious and they have a lot of other things to contribute to the public sphere.