Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 31st, 2016

[Prof. Joachim Behnke]

If you were referring to the public, and if they could express a preference for a specific electoral system, some of our electoral systems in the Länder were changed after referenda, but referenda exist in Germany only at the level of the Länder, so there is not the possibility of holding a referendum for the Bundestag elections.

There is a civic movement to try to change the Bundes law to introduce referenda on the level of the Bundestag. Certainly there is also the intention to use this referendum for a change in the electoral system. But the changes where this took place are changes.... They kept the essentials of the mixed member proportional system, but they replaced the closed lists with open lists.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Okay.

I turn to our colleagues in Scotland. Of course, Scottish voters are exposed to the distortions that we experience in Canada through first past the post when you're electing members to the U.K. Parliament, and then have proportional voting when you're electing your Scottish Parliament.

Given the explanation of the four different voting systems, is there any way you would have any sense of what Scottish voters prefer? Given that they experience single transferable vote, some form of mixed member proportionality, and first past the post, are there opinion polls or surveys that you can assess which ones Scottish voters find most satisfactory?

[Andy O'Neill]

As part of our statutory duties, we have to report on all elections.

We do many things to get information. We do public opinion surveys, and we ask the question, “Did you find it easy to vote in the polling place or via postal vote?” We regularly get in the low 90% saying that it's easy to vote and expressing their preference, easily, for all four electoral systems.

We haven't actually ever asked which electoral system they prefer. However, they do find all four easy enough to fill in, if you think of it in terms of completing a ballot paper.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Do you see a difference in levels of voter participation and voter turnout at the four different levels?

[Andy O'Neill]

Yes.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

What are those differences?

[Mary Pitcaithly]

For example, we had over 90% voting in our independence referendum. In a local government election, the turnout might well be closer to 50%. It's much more a function of how voters view the specific importance of the election rather than what the system is, though. Voters will vote more if they think their vote will count more. That's been our experience. You can usually tell in advance whether the turnout is going to be very high or not so high, and it has nothing to do with what the system is.

One of the other things I would say, though, is that another indicator of whether voters find it difficult is the level of rejected papers and the level of papers that are not accepted into the count. Those that are specifically rejected because a voter hasn't managed to cast a vote clearly are very low in Scotland. In the referendum we had two years ago, fewer than 0.01% of papers were rejected. People obviously found it relatively straightforward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor to Mr. DeCourcey.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you to our presenters in both Germany and Scotland.

I'll start with the German experience as it relates to strategic voting because it was mentioned in the brief. An oft-heard claim here by advocates of different PR systems is that these would do away with the need for voters to vote strategically. We've had plenty of testimony to the contrary, or suggesting that the compromise a voter makes is shifted to a different consideration.

I wonder if you can expand on the experience in the German system with strategic voting. What strategies, compromises, or decisions do voters employ, as a matter of us understanding that and being able to speak to that reality when we tour the country to speak with Canadians about different electoral systems?

[Prof. Joachim Behnke]

To put it rather casually, we understand that by strategic voting, a voter will not vote for his favourite party, his highest-preferred party. The motive for strategic voting consists in avoiding a wasted vote. I will concentrate here only on the first votes, because I think this would also be the important part for you.

Strategic voting in this case means that a voter will not give his first vote to a candidate who has ostensibly no chance of winning the constituency. The usual pattern here is that supporters of small parties, such as the liberal FDP in Germany, or the Greens, will vote for the constituency candidate from a big party that is closest to their own party, such as our coalition party. Whether this pattern of strategic voting is desired or not depends on the electoral system and on the normative beliefs you have. But the consequences are certainly set. The point is that it is possible to induce overhang seats by this kind of ticket splitting and strategic voting. This means that a coalition can enhance the share of seats it will get by steering some of its voters to this ticket splitting. This has been a main problem in Germany since 1990, and obviously, it increased in the last election.

There's also a case in [Inaudible--Editor] that had a dramatic influence. Imagine, for example, that you could found a party named the “Friends of Conservatives”, and then recommend that supporters of Conservatives vote with their first vote for the the Friends of Conservatives, and with their second vote for the real Conservative Party. This would mean that the constituency seats that are won for the Friends of the Conservative Party could not be accounted as party votes for the Conservative Party, and this would create a potentially huge number of overhang seats. This is the reason that we recommend you take only the one-vote solution.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

In Scotland, are there any lessons learned on the way that voters make strategic decisions when they go to the ballots, particularly in the Scottish parliamentary system, but not exclusive of the others?

[Andy O'Neill]

In Scotland we don't have overhang seats on the AMS, or our version of AMS, so it's slightly different.

Split voting, which our German colleagues talked about, is called here “second vote” strategies. We just went through a Scottish Parliament election in May. The biggest party, the Scottish National Party, argued that both votes should be for the SNP, because that was in their interests. The Scottish Green Party—which doesn't stand in constituencies, but stands, apart from one or two places, only in the regional lists—would argue for the second vote to go to the Greens. So do some of the smaller parties, because they believe it is to their advantage. They tend to suggest to the electorate that they aren't going to win for their party in the regional list, they won't get any regional members, so they should vote for them because they are their second choice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll go to Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. O'Neill, I have some questions for you. I'm sure in your role with the electoral commission you have overseen a number of referenda on different topics, correct?

[Andy O'Neill]

We've had a few, yes.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

With legislation governing referenda, how does it work? Is there a single piece of legislation that governs referenda in the U.K., or when each referendum is held, does it require a stand-alone piece of legislation to set up the referendum? How does that work?

[Andy O'Neill]

There is PPERA, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, which set up the U.K. electoral commission in 2000. Essentially, for U.K. referendums, either across the board in the U.K. or in part of it, the chair of the electoral commission is the chief electoral officer, the chief counting officer. The rules and everything else, and the financial regulation that comes with that referendum, including the question and the testing, all come in a separate act of the U.K. Parliament, and that is bespoke to each individual referendum.

So the Brexit vote which we had in June had a single bit of legislation. Of course, Scotland is slightly different. The independence referendum that took place in 2014 was a creature of the Scottish Parliament, following a deal between the U.K. and Scottish governments whereby the Scottish Parliament was allowed to legislate under what was known as the Edinburgh agreement for that referendum.

Mary, on that occasion, was the chief counting officer for the independence referendum and all the rules that related to it were in that particular act. That gave us, in the U.K. referendum, a number of rules. We weren't the chief counting officer, or the chair wasn't, but we regulated the parties.

Mary gave guidance to the counting officers where we would do it at a U.K. level. It sounds very complicated but—

[Mary Pitcaithly]

It was actually very straightforward and it worked very well.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

In order to have a referendum here in Canada on electoral reform—which my party believes very firmly is necessary before we can undertake electoral reform, so we receive that consent, and which an overwhelming majority of Canadians seem to agree is important before we undertake any electoral reform—we would certainly have to update our existing legislation or create some kind of stand-alone legislation.

As an example, our current referendum laws haven't kept up with some of the changes in campaign financing or third-party spending, for example. Could you give us some advice with respect to putting laws in place to ensure that we have a fair and well-run referendum?

[Mary Pitcaithly]

I suppose it would be helpful perhaps to refer you to the referendum that we had in the U.K. in 2011, which was exactly about moving to a different form of voting for the U.K. Westminster Parliament. We called it the AV referendum. We were going to move to an additional vote system if the public had agreed, but the electorate didn't agree, and so we didn't make those changes.

However, the provisions that allowed us to move very quickly toward that referendum when there was a coalition government the election before last were very much based on the 2000 legislation that Andy referred to. So the framework was all there. It was just a question of specific discussion in Parliament about who the franchise should be extended to, when the actual referendum would take place, and what some of the rules would be, but the basic thing was there in the legislation dating back to 2000.

So set up your referendum legislation before you think about the specifics of what your referendum is going to be.

[Andy O'Neill]

I think you would need a very long answer to a question like that, but a short answer would be that we could send your clerks the report on the Scottish independence referendum, which we produced in December 2014. It goes through the whole development of the process, what was done with the question testing, how it was tested, the development of the legislation, and the agreement between the U.K. and the Scottish Parliaments.

That's probably the easiest way of getting it in a concise form.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Ms. Pitcaithly, with your experience on the ground running the referendum, is there anything that you would suggest would be required to help us ensure a fair and respectful process when we undertake a referendum on this topic?

[Mary Pitcaithly]

Yes, regarding the referendum on independence, people had very, very strong views on it. But actually, in terms of running it as a process, it was really quite straightforward. A lot of what we did was focused on ensuring voters understood how to cast their votes, understood that their vote would count, understood the importance of registering in advance, and then turning up on the day to actually cast their votes. A lot of it was fairly basic voter education, but it took a lot of effort and it was absolutely worthwhile.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'm finding this very interesting. My questions will be geared toward the Scottish electoral representatives here today. I find it fascinating that the voters in Scotland are able to work within so many different systems. Has there been any confusion caused by that at the municipal level, and at the level of the Scottish legislature, the U.K., and EU, all of which are using different systems?