In his text “Three lessons for Quebec” drawn from the American political experience, Professor Mario Polèse concludes that the serious problems that the democracy of our neighbors to the south is encountering today should encourage us to maintain our political institutions English, including the method of voting.
“Our first-past-the-post system is not perfect, but at least has the merit of producing a fluid political landscape where parties come and go and where political defectors are commonplace,” he wrote, adding that we should retain the old British electoral system because it is “simple and easily understood by ordinary mortals”.
Curious and surprising conclusion when we know that American elections are held according to the same voting system as ours! In reality, there are other elements in the American electoral institutions which explain why there are only two parties instead of several like now in our country, which often come from defectors from the oldest parties. And that has nothing to do with the voting system.
Without going into all the details, the explanation is linked to the procedures for nominating candidates, procedures determined individually in each state, even for the positions in the Senate and the House of Representatives at the federal level, in Washington.
The ballot is the property of state legislatures dominated by either party. In the late 1800s, a reform gave state legislatures the power to determine who qualified to be on the ballot. Legislatures controlled primarily by Republicans and Democrats quickly realized they could use this power to stifle emerging third parties and block the way for defectors eager to offer new options. The two major parties have essentially assigned themselves automatic lines on the ballot while instituting onerous petition requirements to hinder the recognition of new parties and thus monopolize the parliamentary scene.
So what is happening in the United States has nothing to do with the voting system which, once again, is the same as here!
Moreover, in representative democracy, the objective is and should be to obtain a Parliament where the major political tendencies are present according to the fundamental principle of fairness, and therefore of respect for the will expressed by the electorate. Well-understood fluidity would therefore be to have an electoral system that does not erect, as is the case with systemic blockages, to prevent each vote from counting and thus compromise fair parliamentary representation in contradiction with the principles of true democracy. . In fact, these blockages exist as much at home as in the United States.
In this regard, it should be noted that there, the election is effectively limited to a small number of contested constituencies known as “purple” (purple). Republican voters in “blue” Democratic districts and Democratic voters in “red” Republican districts are not represented in Washington, just as in Quebec, all citizens who did not vote for the CAQ in the ridings won by this party.
Diversion of values
Claiming, without saying it too openly, that the system which, on October 3, ensured that absolute power based on a parliamentary majority of 90 members out of 125 was granted in Quebec to a political leader who obtained a little less 41% of the vote is a good thing from a democratic point of view is a diversion of the democratic values that we pride ourselves on promoting.
Brandishing the specter of the “American democratic disease” to encourage us to keep our old voting system is not a wise argument.
The voting system that René Lévesque proposed in 1968 under the inspiration of the German experience, the one that Jean Charest’s government proposed in 2004 under the inspiration of the same model and the one that the Coalition avenir Québec, the Parti Québécois , Québec solidaire and the Green Party proposed together in 2016 and 2018 also inspired by the German model, Scottish version, deserves better than a stolen, simplistic and pithy condemnation. Like the British system we have had since 1792, it is not perfect. In fact, no system is perfect! But it has the great advantage of allowing a more balanced democratic life, genuinely more fluid, more satisfying and less frustrating for the losers, forcing the parties to compromise and to share the exercise of power. Germany, Scotland, New Zealand are not only democratic models more worthy of inspiration than the United States of America but also than Canada, Quebec and the United Kingdom!