Mr. Speaker, I imagine I could think of several ways, but here is the easiest one.
In the last election, according to an exit poll conducted by Nik Nanos, we know that between 10% and 15% of voters for the Liberals, Green Party, Bloc Québécois, and the New Democrats had no second choice. They only had their own party as a choice, but it was 46% for Conservative voters. I think this is a reflection of the fact that there are many parties that lean to the left and only one candidate that leans to the right.
If we design a preferential system like the one we used, which I designed, for electing the Speaker, what happens is that one ticks off those people one supports in the order one supports them. If there are five candidates and a person only supports three, his or her vote remains valid as long as one of those three stays on the ballot and it is put on the pile for that particular candidate. That is called optional preferential.
Now, if we design something called full preferential, something different happens. Under a full preferential system, if a person votes for three candidates and there are five on the ballot, that vote is put aside as invalid, or what is called “informal” in Australia, where this system is used. It is informal and cast aside.
If that is done, and one party has many more supporters who simply do not have a second choice, and that party does not engage in an aggressive program of trying to explain to its voters who are totally unfamiliar with the system that they have to vote for all those people they hate, that they have to rank them or their ballots will be cast aside, what will happen is that a substantial number of their votes, four or five times as many of their votes as anyone else's, will be cast aside and lost. That will virtually guarantee that the party is wiped out, losing seats where it gets an absolute majority of first preferences.
This is one way the Liberals could rig the system, and of course, it is something that is very much on my mind as I watch them move forward with a plan to change the system without having a referendum first.