Evidence of meeting #7 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ireland.
A video is available from Parliament.
Michael Gallagher
No, I think that deals pretty thoroughly with that aspect. It's basically not a political issue in this country.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Do you find that having the multiple choices...I can't remember the number on your sample ballot here, but there are quite a lot. You said the average is only about four rankings. Is that because people are not able to well inform themselves about all of the candidates and all of the options that are presented to them?
Michael Gallagher
People just don't have strong feelings about many of the candidates.
The maximum number of candidates for a constituency at the last election was, I think, 24; that's the longest ballot paper. There was another with only five candidates chasing for three seats. Generally speaking, voters just wouldn't know a lot about all the candidates. They would be reasonably well informed about the ones who mattered to them, the ones from their favourite party, the ones from around their part of the constituency or anyone else with a high profile, but they wouldn't see any need to take the time and trouble to find out about all 24 and learn about them. Some voters do—about one in 10, as my colleague says—but for most voters that's not necessary.
Michael Marsh
When you sit down to fill in these ballots, it's usually easy enough to fill in the first few and it's easy enough to do the ones at the bottom. You know who you really don't like, so if there are 24, you might know who you want to rank 20 to 24 and who you want to rank one to four. It's the ones in the middle who are difficult.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Is there any process of elimination previous to putting these people on the ballot? What's the system of getting on to the ballot? It appears that there are quite a lot of options from every party.
Michael Gallagher
That's entirely up to the parties. The parties run as many candidates as they want, and independents can stand as well.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
In a typical parliament, how many independent MPs or TDs would actually be elected?
Michael Gallagher
In a typical one, there'd be maybe five to 10. In the current parliament we've got more than ever, 21 or so, which is a record, and it's very unusual in a European context. There are a lot of independents in Ireland at the moment.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
I should have asked this question, too. What's the total number of TDs in Parliament?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Oh, my goodness! That's 15%, more or less, right now, and as an average about 7%.
Michael Gallagher
Yes, it's gone down to just one or so independents in some past elections, but at the moment we're in a very good time for independents, partly because parties are losing popularity, as we mentioned earlier.
Michael Marsh
Independents are in the current government. We have a number of independent ministers at the moment.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Oh, really? I would not have guessed that. One normally draws in a prominent member of a party in order to bring along all the extra seats that come with that person. That's part of coalition-building, as we conceptualize it elsewhere, so that is a very interesting fact.
Michael Marsh
Independents have formed groupings. They are not parties, but they're groupings. One grouping is part of the current coalition.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Okay. Do they caucus together? I don't know if you use that term there, but do they get together to meet privately to figure out what they'll do in the next few votes and that kind of thing?
Michael Marsh
Except that there is no requirement to vote in a particular way, because that would make them a party, and they're opposed to that.
This is Alice in Wonderland stuff, when parties are not parties and groupings of independents are not parties. They are groupings, but they are not parties.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Right. We have almost the exact parallel universe over here in our upper house, as a matter of fact. It's Alice in Wonderland versus Alice through the looking-glass, I guess. At any rate, that is interesting information.
One of the great fears I have had about being involved in electoral reform issues for over a decade is that many of the proposed systems have the effect of increasing the power of the parties over the individual members, which ultimately means that the connection between the members and those they represent is weakened. It sounds to me as though whatever flaws your system may have in Ireland, it does have the apparent advantage, at a number of levels, of actually doing the opposite. Whether that's considered a feature or a bug, I don't know, but it appears to have been the case.
Michael Gallagher
Yes. In fact, some independents are people who used to be in parties. Maybe they fell out of the party or the party threw them out or they tried to get picked as a party candidate and weren't successful, so instead of that they stood as an independent. “Independent” is a kind of neutral term. No one dislikes the idea of an independent. Independents tend to thrive at a time when parties are unpopular, and that's one reason the independent graph is steadily upward in recent years.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Thank you very much.
I wanted to ask about one other thing. The candidates in this list are ranked alphabetically. I know in one Australian jurisdiction, Tasmania, where they also use a system very similar to yours, they have developed a system for randomizing the placement of candidates on the theory that this removes what's called a “donkey vote”, which is people voting for those at the top of the list or the bottom in alphabetical order. Is that an issue at all in Ireland?
