Never in the history of Quebec has a distortion between the will of the people and its expression in the National Assembly seemed so great. Is the current voting system twisting the neck of the popular will?
The outcome of these elections illustrates the disparity between the percentage of votes obtained by universal suffrage and the number of elected members: at the time when these lines were written (1h), 14% of the votes were worth 22 deputies to the Liberal Party, but 15% brought in 11 to Québec solidaire and only three to the Parti Québécois. The Conservatives won 13% of the vote, but left empty-handed. The CAQ, meanwhile, won 89 seats, or 71% of them with 41% of the vote.
“This year, the gap is huge, analyzes Julien Verville, professor of political science at Collège Ahuntsic and author of Voting reform in Quebec. The gap between the proportion of votes and the proportion of seats is really large.”
However, it is not new that Quebec questions the relevance of its first-past-the-post voting system. Five governments promised to reform it, none changed it. However, Quebecers express the desire to change it in a proportion that is close to 66% in the polls.
“When the parties that formed the opposition come to power, they often discover the virtues of the current voting system,” ironically Mr. Verville.
However, the current voting system comes to create “false majorities”, adds the professor. “The CAQ, in 2018, became the party to form a majority government with the lowest proportion of the vote. This year, he has about the same level of support as in the last election, but he gets about twenty more seats.
And with the reform, what does it give?
The CAQ government had tabled Bill 39 to reform the voting system. Before its death on the order paper, the legislative piece proposed the establishment of a compensatory mixed voting system. Under this method of voting, the election would have had a very different outcome, explains Mr. Verville.
“The distortions would have existed, but they would also have been greatly reduced. The under-represented parties would have obtained a vote in Parliament, the PQ and the PCQ would also have obtained an interesting representation in the Blue Room. The parties would not have started the race in the same place either. The PQ would have won 15 seats rather than 10 in 2018 under a compensatory mixed ballot. The PLQ would have gained five additional deputies, to 36. The Solidarity would have obtained 14, four more. The CAQ, for its part, would not have obtained its majority and would have had to settle for 60 seats out of 125, rather than 74.
“I do not believe that the CAQ will go in the direction of a reform, deplores Julien Verville. It’s too bad because the current voting system could stir up anger towards the system. Some citizens may think that the electoral system is broken.”
A proportional voting system would also have cost the CAQ its majority this year. The latter would have obtained about fifty seats, while the opposition parties, depending on the votes collected, would have elected between 14 and 20 deputies each.