A Very Long Explanation on Rural Urban Proportional
The Following article is an Old Script for Rural Urban Proportional Explained. The structure of which was designed similarly to the CGP Grey Videos with fancy Asterisks for more information. However I feel like this script now needs a rework with the type of visuals I want to go for (Canadian Wildlife for visualization purposes for a nice “Neutral” representation) and might be a little... Wordy for a video.
Not wanting this to go to waste, I’m posting this here with all the citations that I’m using for the article and the main video(s). If and when I get the actual video done I’ll be posting the video on the blog as well relinking to this article. I hope this article is helpful for those looking for information on Rural Urban Proportional (RUP).
The main video will be at the top and additional talking points and context will be below. At the VERY BOTTOM is where the a lot of my research and arguments came from.
Rural Urban Proportional Explained
If you’re watching this video, it’s election time in Canada again, or you’ve seen the CGP Grey videos on the proportional systems of STV, and MMP as possible electoral reforms. Now both of these are these are fine systems but there’s a tendency of either system being more proportional depending on region, and population density. This can be specially true for Canada where people can be vastly spread far and wide even within provinces while also having clusters of pop density. I’m looking at you Ontario. If only there was a best of both worlds solution that took elements from both, and could a good choice for Canada. Oh hey... I know you!
Rural-Urban proportional representation is a misunderstood electoral reform proposed by Fair Vote Canada that I’ve become very interested in over years. I’m going talk about the system in broad strokes with some additional footnotes for further explanation and additional Pro Rep info you can see in the playlist or hitting that “I” icon. In the description and pinned comment I’ll add the resources I’ve used to make this video if you’re interested.
In RUP there would be two types of local districts. Single member, and Multi member districts. This means that a seat can be given to either one, or more than one respectively. Usually 5-7 though exceptions may apply for as low as 2-3. Multi member are densely populated areas, and single member ridings are usually of population of less than 100,000
A common misconception is that multi member and single member ridings have two different voting methods. Described as “Urban” having STV while rural would get a form of MMP, but that was not the case in original proposal. All ridings would have the same ballot which could be a Ranked preference ballot like with STV/AV, or copy sweden directly with an X beside the candidates name with Open list/FPTP. All that matters on the local level is how many local Mps there are in each riding. It’s probably for this reason it can go by it’s less catchy name “Flexible District PR.” All local ridings are first voted and representatives are elected.
Where the MMP element actually shines is that a mix of these districts form together as regional districts of top up seats. These regions could be of the whole province or sections of the province depending on how big the province is, and how proportional the region already is with the size of multi-member districts and a share of single member districts. The amount of these top up seats would be pretty small per region, as the multi-member districts are pretty good at becoming proportional, and the top-up seats are to squeeze in better proportionality. This means that RUP would have smaller amount regional seats compared to a pure MMP system who needs huge amount of regional seats to be proportional. The proposed method of who receives those seats are similar to Baden-Württemberg, a No-list best runners up where the remaining unelected candidates of the underrepresented parties with most votes in the region are given those top up seats.
And with that we have a system that combines the two strengths of the two systems for optimal proportionality while still offering higher voter choice. Though to make the system a reality either more seats would have to be added for a total of 380-390 seats (42-52 seats added) or to set aside some seats and enlarge ridings by a bit. It's for this reasons that most voting system proposed has a citizens referendum attached.
Well you can make the argument this isn’t the only improvement that could be made towards Canada’s democracy, I think it is an important step in that direction.
Sincerely,
A dissatisfied Canadian Voter
Thresholds “*”
Now you can’t give a seat to every party that was voted on. Even proponents of Pro Rep think that’s ludicrous. There’s to a point where you need to have some losers. So generally a party would need to meet a certain threshold of votes nationally and/or in a region to be eligible for a seat. Typically this is 4-5% but it could be as high 12% or even higher if such a system was to be approved. Of course these individuals can get the local seat in their riding if the populous really wants them to contend with the other 337 Mps. I’m also just generally skeptical that First Past the Post is this vanguard against extremism some people claim it to be given the events of the past 2 decades.
Even then because the joys of mathematical probability there could also be a natural threshold per region. Such as 5 seats needing 20%-22% depending on the threshold method. So even if a fringe party, such as the wolverines, was to be eligible in a legal standing a candidates still would need to meet a certain amount of votes in the region get those top up seats. Look up Highest Averages method for List PR systems, and Droop quota for STV on how seats would be decided because some of the math there is above my wheel house.
STV/AV+
STV+ would be my ideal form for Rural-Urban to take. This model is commonly refereed to as as such as both Single Member Ridings would have ranked ballots. The plus part is their the Best Performing candidate not locally elected also acts as the MMP style top up vote. This appeals to me because it takes the choice and semi proportional nature of STV and tunes it slightly with the regional top up to accomedate canada’s geographical challenges. Even the formulas would be the same just with a higher threshold in single member ridings (50% using hare, and 51% using droop) because you only need to worry about 1 seat such as in AV. Voting for independents could not discouraged either as you could have it where your top up vote would be transferred from the highest Party Candidate you ranked if you choose to rank one. Special thanks to Fair Vote Canada support staff for clarifying my concern.
This method might also tends to encourage more Multi-member ridings with 2-3 mmps for some lower populated areas with less regional top up seats, but that will come down to whether or not the districts prefer to be single member or multi-member locally. There’s a chance we could see a mix of the examples given in the RUP Document.
Open List
If you saw the CGP Grey video on MMP you might have noticed that the party gets all the say on which member is first in line to get a second vote seat. This is a closed-list system and its a great way of showing MMP or List PR in a simplistic way but it will likely rubs people like myself the wrong way. In fact this was the main reason I favoured STV, because of the choice in who was representing me based on preferences and what was important to me rather than the whims of a political club, Ahem party.
Open list allows for a voter to choice a candidate of a party for those seats. The more votes a candidate of a party gets, the more entitled that individual candidate is to a seat. This is one option for how to vote in a multimember riding, along with STV.
A neat thing about open list systems is they can be more or less open depending on design. One example used is Sweden which is used as an example similar to RUP as you can vote for a specific candidate that acts both as the party vote and candidate vote. There are also more open systems where you have as many votes as there are seats in the riding and can even be across party lines in some cases. The more free lists however have a more complicated voting method called cumulative as a result. I’ve even seen an argument for an approval voting style system could be done in this manner called apanarchage.
Chances are that if a simple x ballot is chosen it would likely stick closely to the Sweden system as that would require less change in the minds of Canadians and is what is referenced in the documentation of RUP.
Second Ballot
MMP usually requires a second vote for a political party in a some kind of party list system. This can be a closed or open system but would be used in the regional top up seats. Unlike how it is described on wikipedia and BC referendum where MMP would only be for rural, the second vote would be for all districts. When talking with Fair vote Canada members the reps explained while it is an option, best runners up is preferred as to not overly confuse voters when filling out a ballot.
The reason of the misconception
What I described in the main video is the original pitch for Rural Urban Proportional by fair vote canada in 2016.
So, you might now be wondering where Stv urban and MMP rural came from. Well when looking into it, and asking FVC directly I was told that it was a miscommunication for the 2018 referendum in BC. Instead of STV with MMP top up seats, it was explained as STV in urban and MMP in Rural on the ballot and in the Attorney General’s report. This can even be confirmed with older pages of Bc’s fair vote website in the wayback machine matching up closer to the national site though not exact.
Full clarification, I think it’s better to understand Rup more of a way of how to distribute seats among a population within regional boundaries rather than a concrete ballot system. Like there’s nothing stopping Rup from having approval or score voting be the universal ballot instead of what FVC proposed, that’s just the model they went with. This can seen as Panama with an extra Layer.
I’m not going to speculate as to how or why the Attorney General’s report and the Model developed by FVC has these differences, but it is what happened, and it is why FVC has people like myself emailing them to clarify this confusion to this day.
Broad Explanation:
In the video I go over the Rural-Urban Proportional System that was proposed by fair vote canada electoral reform for Canada's voting system. I made this video for a number of reasons.
The most obvious reason is that proportional representation is a topic I find very important. This is for numerous reasons such as voter choice, the importance of having a voice, have better reflection of what the public voted for and diversity with in parliament. In fact the most recent election made me realize just how important it was which of the candidates got into parliament beyond party affiliation and is how I dictated who I voted for in the end. Think about it, having black, first nation, neurodivergent, or gay (as some examples) reps is as important as having a local rep as issues that affect them. Not that allies aren’t important, but I do feel that a representative democracy should reflect the overall population, and have those voices heard.
Another reason is a moment in the 2019 election where I got to talk with my Mps looking for reelection where the main pitch came off as “well you don’t want this other leader to be voted in” when I brought up I was interested in voting green. That wasn’t the only pitch but that... bothers me on a fundamental level. That the conversation was tended to focus on “giving” the vote for someone I didn’t not vote for because they were so low on the polls in my local area including a weak leader as a result. Of course, Pro Rep does not solve this, we the people may need to have more control over who leads the country in some way, and there’s the question of the senate but I would hope that the local candidates would start to focus on what they and their party could do for their constituents and less of these scare tactics about who leads the country. That if they truly want a majority, they should explain the merits for voting for them.
And lastly that most videos on the topic left me dissatisfied. You either had the hour long FVC livestream vod, or the news and lectures covering what was proposed in BC. Even the scorecard on fairvotingbc, underlines these discrepancies that was explained to me in the FVC email thread I had. So it was important for me to explain it in the way that was actually advertised because I think it’s an interesting possible solution to canada’s voting given our.... let’s say uneven geography.
I know this video is far different than the others on this channel but this is probably one of the few topics I’m confident and passionate about that I’m comfortable in making this. Don’t expect things like this often, I just thought it would be an interesting video to make and it gave me an excuse to muck around in krita/opentoonz.
Top Up Seats choice between rural and urban
You might be wondering, If the Top Up seats were best runners up has an equal number of votes a party candidate receives doesn’t this give urban votes an unfair advantage over rural? After all one of the goals of RUP is to partially mend the perceived divide between Rural and Ubran demographics, having top up seats largely going to the city candidates would still alienate rural voters when if the seats better reflected the overall regions make up.
Well, Wilfred Day recommends that when selecting the best runner ups of the region, that you look at the multi member and the group of the single member districts and see which of the two are the most underrepresented for the parties of the regions. The seats then then given to the strongest candidate of the underrepresented district. This means that the top up seats will have better balance of urban and rural representatives and will encourage that voters vote as authentically as possible regardless of their geographical location. As a result, while still not as choice as a pure stv, it still is better proportionality, while keeping most of the candidate decision up to the people and not at the whims of a closed party list.
Regional alliances/parties?
Now technically there is a way that independents and extremely minor parties could win regional top-up seats in theory. Multiple parties, or independents could form an Electoral fusion or Alliance on a regional level. Netherlands until 2017 had the ability to combine two or more party lists to increase winning a party seat. This was a wholly list PR system but I could seen why one couldn’t apply this to an MMP like system.
The question of course is if independence and smaller parties within a regional district would be willing to coordinate and ally with another other in order to achieve seats they normal could no on their own? Would pre-2017 Netherland like electoral alliances or would there be a rise in parties focusing on regional seats? It’s not unheard of, considering this is one of the goals of The None Of The Above Party. It’s something to consider when pondering a change to how we vote in a country.
Sources:
https://fairvotingbc.com/scorecard/
https://web.archive.org/web/20180614140521/https://fairvotingbc.com/scorecard/
https://www.fairvote.ca/2016/08/19/fvc-erre-submissionsappx10-made-in-canadastv/
https://www.fairvote.ca/2016/08/19/fvc-erre-submissionsappx12-rural-urbanpr/
http://wilfday.blogspot.com/2016/04/multi-mp-ridings-in-big-cities-single.html
https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/ERRE/Brief/BR8456964/br-external/DayWilfred-e.pdf
A Nemes Content Blog 2022.