[Rural]

I hadn’t even thought of that one Reargard, you are right the big boys would be sure to “stack the deck”. What I had thought was that with 15 or more candidates to chose from it would be very hard to know about all of them and there would be a strong possibility of folk simply rating all the members of the party of their choice in the top 3 thus making it less democratic and even harder to get a wider mix of ideas in the House. The whole idea of STV as presented in BC and presumably possibly similar system if recommended in Ontario simply is much worse than our existing system in my eyes. I can see no major flaws in the MMP system, the actual voting part of it is much simpler (one vote for the man, one vote for the party) and although some math is used to calculate the translation of votes into MPs it is no more complicated that that required to do so in the STV system. To me its simply no contest.

[atlanticaparty]

[QUOTE]As I said before I have no problem with STV VOTING but the size of riding , number of representatives and how it is decided which and how many ridings are combined is a MAJOR problem for me.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Proposal, keep the ridings exactly the same and increase the size of the house accordingly.<br /> <br /> Riding shape and size should be handled independent of the electoral reform issue (just the was it is done now) (AP certainly supports an independent agency charged with the elector's interests to be in charge of boundary decisions).<br /> <br /> [QUOTE] ... corporate funded parties would have a field day saturating the new system with their bought and paid for politicians.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Excellent point. See our reply under the Atlantica Party thread.

[Rural]

"Proposal, keep the ridings exactly the same and increase the size of the house accordingly.<br /> <br /> Riding shape and size should be handled independent of the electoral reform issue"<br /> <br /> At this point I can only repeat what I have said before, and also ask you to go back and read my other concerns about this system........<br /> Increasing the size of the house substantialy with the associated costs and accomidation problems is NOT an answer. If ridings are going to be changed in order to accomidate a new voting system then that IS part of that system and MUST be consdered when deciding upon the electorial system.

[rearguard]

"See our reply under the Atlantica Party thread."<br /> <br /> Thanks for the reply and I've responded in that thread.

[atlanticaparty]

[QUOTE]Increasing the size of the house substantialy with the associated costs and accomidation problems is NOT an answer.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> The additional costs (presumably salary and overhead) are a bargain if we can get a better electoral in exchange.

[rearguard]

I have to agree with atlantic, the additional costs for better representation will be a cost saving bargain. What we have going on now amounts to open ended theft.

[Rural]

I cant disagree with that totaly, but I do not believe that STV as presented (for instance) in BC IS better representation and exactly how much cost are you willing to pay for in your taxes for what to me would simply be a larger number of members to waste time and money disagreeing rather than finding consensus. Direct costs seem to be around $500,000 per member right now!

[atlanticaparty]

[QUOTE BY= Rural] I cant disagree with that totaly, but I do not believe that STV as presented (for instance) in BC IS better representation and exactly how much cost are you willing to pay for in your taxes for what to me would simply be a larger number of members to waste time and money disagreeing rather than finding consensus. Direct costs seem to be around $500,000 per member right now![/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> At the federal level each member costs about $200,000. At the provincial level quite a bit less.

[Rural]

Sorry but the average office and incedental expenses for a federal MP is around $300,000 (it varies emensly from one riding to another) and if you add their stipend it IS around $500,000. And that is only the DIRECT costs!

[atlanticaparty]

[QUOTE BY= atlanticaparty] [QUOTE BY= Rural] I cant disagree with that totaly, but I do not believe that STV as presented (for instance) in BC IS better representation and exactly how much cost are you willing to pay for in your taxes for what to me would simply be a larger number of members to waste time and money disagreeing rather than finding consensus. Direct costs seem to be around $500,000 per member right now![/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> At the federal level each member costs about $200,000. At the provincial level quite a bit less.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Sounds good. We stand corrected.