Preferential vs. proportional

David Winter letter, Re: proportional ballot, Jan 14, 2016 is a good example of why we need to explore, and explain the pros and cons to the different electoral systems.
 
Mr. Winter states ‘it empowers people to parliament who were not elected in my riding’. Well, only one candidate is ever elected in any of the 338 ridings, regardless of what system we use, so that cannot possibly be a valid concern.
 
‘They are people selected from a pool of candidates who do not represent anyone’.  Each of the candidates running in any election has been nominated by party members in the constituencies across the country, just like in any other federal or provincial election, and again, that will not change one iota, regardless of which system we use.
 
He also states using the Preferential ballot ‘no voter is left behind’. Not true. 50%+1 vote is required to elect a candidate, the remaining votes are discarded. Using a Proportional ballot, every single vote is used to elect a candidate.
 
‘All Members of Parliament would enjoy over 50% of the votes of their own constituents’. That is true, however, the people have made one thing clear, they want the parties fairly represented. Only a Proportional ballot will do that.
 
Using a preferential ballot a lot of voters will be choosing between their long time favourite party – or a candidate representing another party. It will destroy the party system we desperately need to produce candidates we need to represent the different parties in future elections.
 
There is a lot of credible information about party systems to be found in libraries, and on the internet. Nobody needs to guess about anything, and doing your own research is a lot smarter than ‘flying with gossip’.

Andy Thomsen