Machjo

In fact, I'm shocked that people are defending such misleading practices.

Or let's look at it another way. I put a check in a box on my ballot. Does this check go to a candidate or a party. if candidate, then be honest and remove the party name. If party, then be honest and remove the candidate's name. If the candidate crosses the floor, does he keep his seat or does he get booted out and the party can choose someone else? If he keeps his seat, then remove the party name form the ballot. If the seat must then go to another MP of the party's choosing, then remove the name. What's so difficult to understand about honety on a ballot?

Well, if people vote party, shouldn't we go to the party list then, if we're truly honest? To stick to FPTP while misleading people to believe they're voting party, is the most dispicable form of political manipulation. If we insist that they vote Party, then let's at least be honest about it and take the candidates' names off the ballot. After all, some people just look at the party name and don't even look at the candidate's. So let's make a decision already. Are we voting candididate or party. If candidate, then let's have the moral decency to remove the party names form the list. If party, then let's remove the candidates' names. It's just a mtter of honesty either way.

Just another point. If the voter simply has to raise his eyes to a board in front of him to see the party affiliation of each candidate, for one thing it forces him to look at eachbiography to find the party affiliation he's looking for, thus making him at least somewhat familiar with the other candidates. And secondly, once he finds the candidate with the desired party affiliation from the board, and then goes to put an x next to the name of that candidate, the fact that no party name appears on the ballot adds emphasis to the fact that he is voting for the candidate and not his party, and that that candidate does reserve the right to change party. This could also lead him to think more seriously about whom to vote for.

There's a difference between a voting booth and a ballot. If at the voting booth a complete biography of the candidate appears, but on the ballot only his name, that makes it clear that whatever affiliations the candidate may currently have, be they party, religious, ethnic, linguistic, or otherwise are only current and the candidate has no obligation to maintain any of these ties once elected. But if we include his entire biography on the ballot, then it would imply that we're voting for him as is, that that all the information about him on the ballot is fixed and goes as part of the package, in that he's not allowed to change anything about hmself once elected. To put info about him at the booth could be useful. But to put all his info on the ballot could be misleading. One suggests current status only, the other suggests that he's promissing not to chane anything about himself.

But this leads to another question: Do voters know more about a candidate's party-membership than his own ideas because they know his party name will be on the ballot; or did we add the party name to the ballot because voters know more about a candidate's party affiliation than they did about the candidate himself? I suspect it's a little of both. However, adding the party name simply further encourages such ignorant voting habits. If we removed party names from ballots, then at the very least, voters would have to go out of their way to at least find out what parties their candidates belong to. The hope would be that they might learn somethig else about the candidate in the process, thur raising the knowledge level of the average voter at least a notch. With party names on the ballot, we're actively encouraging voters to vote without thought.

Well, to take an example: I go to the ballot box intending to vote for party X. I see a candidate's name with party X under it, so I vote for him thinking I'm voting for the party. A month later, this MP votes against his party, or starts to create a rift within the party, or resigns from the party altogether. Now if I'd voted for that candidate because of the party name under his, then my party vote would be wasted. In fact, if he crosses the floor, I could very well find myself having voted for party Y! Seeing that there is no guarantee that a candidate will stay with a particular party, and that our vote under the current system does in fact stay with the canddiate and not his party, is it not misleading to give the impression that voting for that candidate guarantees a vote for that party for the length of the following mandate?

In my opinion, under the current FPTP system, since my MP is free to cross the floor or change parties at any time, and since I'm technically voting for the candidate and not the party, do you think that including party names on a FPTP ballot is misleading, or perhaps even dishonest?

Yes, I was referring to party list, which is probably the most exact proportional of all. But again, it makes the MP totally dependent on the party. As for which system I prefr, that depends. Ideally, I'd prefer FPTP but with all candidates running as independents, or at the very least, with no party name appearing on the ballot, since that's unfairly misleading to voters, thus making it an ethical issue. Second to that on my list of favourits would be STV, again with only candidate names on the ballot, for the same reasons as above. Havig said that, however, I do believe that, to avoid misleading the public, one of the following ought to be done: 1. Remove party names from the ballot, keeping candidate names only, but making party membership a personal matter for the candidate only. 2. Add both the party name and candidate name on the ballot, but make it compulsory for the candidate to always vote with his caucus and never be allowed to withdraw from the party for the length of his term. Though there could be legal issues there infringing on the candidate's freedom of association and political freedom. 3. Have only party names on the ballot, we vote for the party, and the party chooses the candidate. Any of these would be more in line with justice than what we have now, which is essentially that we have canddiate and party names on the balot, but are really voting for the candidate only, and he's free to walk across the floor, thus making the ballot dishonest at best. If party names must be on the ballot, then I think I would support the list system over either FPTP or STV. I probably wouldn't be too interested in voting after that, either, but would at least agree that the ballot would be honest by including party name only, making us vote for the party, and giving power to the party, thus making the ballot honest in its impressions. The worst of the 'honest' ballots that I could see would be to include both candidate and party names on the ballot, and make us vote for the canddiate, but require the candidate to remain a member of his party, reuiring a bi-election if he should vote againt his party. I do beleive in political freedom even for politicians, and freedom of association too. That's why I'd say that would be the worst of the 'honest' ballot systems. But the current ballot isn't even honest in the impression it gives, that we are somehow voting for a party when we're doing nothing of the sort.

With pure proportional representation, you are aware that independent candidates are completely shut oout from running, aren't you? All you have on your ballot is a list of party names. No candidate name even appears in a pure list system. Under such a system, the party then chooses its MPs, thus making the MPs totally dependent on the party to get anywhere, essentially transforming them all into strict party hacks.

Wouldn't proportional representation entrench the power of parties even more? I guess it depends on how we go about it. With STV, we're still voting for the candidate technically, but if we go along the list system, then it's pure party, and independents are shut out of the democratic process completely. I'm not against STV per se, but if we do go that route, I think it's only fair to make voters aware that they are in fact voting for a candidate and not a party, that the candidate does have a right to change parties as he wishes, and as such, no party name should appear on the ballot so as to not mislead the voting public about this.

But in a no-party system, with each candidate running as an independent, the only way for any MP to become PM would be to be elected by the House... not to mention that the House could just as easily replace him too. This would thus make the PM not much more powerful than any other MP, not to mention that he'd always have to keep on his toew knowing that the only way to remain PM would be to keep the support of the House.

I realise that. But how is it that a candidate can't give his own answer? Is the official party answer necessarily better than his? The one candidate that had shown a brainwave had tole me the party line and also was not afraid to tell me his ideas on things, and admit that he didn't know much on some of the topics but was willing to look further into it. Now that's the kind of candidates we need to elect, those who can think, not those who just turn to the party Bible for the answer to every question. There are just too many party hacks among our MP's now.

So how do we explain the success in Nunavut and the NWT?They have no parties at the territorial level. I'm almost inclined to vote systematically for independent candidates, but I know some party candidates are sometimes smart. But either way, I always vote for the candidate, not his party. And if I see he's a party hack, he loses my vote. I want independent thinkers, not borgs, certainly not for the salary they get.

Scary stuff. I was just readig Ignatieff's Wikipedia page. I'm not a pacifist myself, but Ignatieff makes me look dovish in comparison. I never realised how militaristic his ideology really was.

Under a non-partisan system, Harper and Ignatieff would be but simple MPs with no more influence than any other in Parliament, as it should be.

Well, there ya go!

My answer is not among the poll options, but it's this: Abide by international law. We as a nation must set an example, that whether friend or foe, all can trust that we shall abide by the laws we expect them to follow. From that standpoint, we should side with whichever of the two sides is in the right.

Plenty of voters too couldn't care less if the candidate has half a brain, as long as he has the right brand name (oh, sorry, I meant party name) under his name, he's guaranteed to get alot of votes. If we got rid of the partisan system, each candidate's character woud be stripped of its party colours, making the candidates own personal blemishes and strenght of character shine bright as day for all to see. That alonw would improve the quaity of candidates considerably. Now as for the US, in spite of their experience, I'd say Canada has done better overall, which shows that character surpasses experience or education. Just look at the Iraq fiasco. We managed to stay out of it. Harper supported it, and he had a degree.

Under a partisan system, as long as the party leader has experience and an education, the rest is unimportant. If an MP can think for himself, he'll never move up party ranks and so will likely drop our eventually. It takes a simpleton to satisfy himself with following the party line. Last federal election, I'd done my rounds to meet the candidates. In one candidate's office, I'd asked him a question about his ideas on a particular subject. What did he do? We went straight ot the party manual to read it out to me! I cold have got that information on-line for crying out loud! Is that what we'd be paying him a salary for? Another candidate (the one who won) wasn't in his office, so I wrote the question on a piece of paper and handed it to one of the campaign workers there. The next day I get aphone call from some supposed profesor to answer my question. Well, that professor was not on my ballot; I wanted to know what the candidate had to say about it, not some professor friend of his. And a third candidate, also a party member, though still somewhat of a party hack, did sometimes venture into thinking for himself. I was unable to get info on thefourth candidate, but all four of them were members of a political party or other (no independents). With that kind of mentality, they don't need any intelligence; that's what the party's for.

Israel's 'secret' plan doesn't seem to be too secret anymore, does it.

Then how about "no-party"? At least it would force MPs into co-alitions, and would also mean that those most skillful in building co-alitions are the ones who'd get their votes passed. But one essential characteristic of such a skill is to prove your point. This would also increase the quality of the laws passed as a result.

And just another point: Many today will vote for a candidate without knowing anything about him simply owing to his party affiliation. I remember one woman in her 60s I was talking too saying how she voted Liberal all the time because her dad had told her that Conservative governments always start wars. Well, never mind that it was the Liberals and not Conservatives who'd first gone to Afghanistan, as we talked, I realised that ideologically she was quite conservative and would be repelled by Liberal ideas. So why did she vote Liberal? Because her dad voted Liberal. What kind of democracy is that? If we went to a non-partisan system, then people would find voting to be more complicated since there'd be no brand recognition anymore. There'd be nowhere to go but to learn about your candidate, and that would thus reflect values more accurately. Now I'm not saying this to promote conservaism per se, as I'm sure some 'Conservatives' who are quite socialist might vote in the same mindless fashion.

Well, then it seems we have a different understanding of non-partisan. Here's how I'd understood it: non- = no parti- = party -san = adjective thus having to do with no parties, or not having to do with parties. Sure condidtes must run for office and present each their individual ideas, but the ideas they present are their own, not their parties', thus allowing for much more diversity of ideas. Right now in Parliament, we only have 4 main blocks of ideas being presented: Bloc, Liberal, Conservative, and NDP. Sure different MPs might have individual ideas, but party stricture prevents those ideas from being expressed as openly as they ought to. So in the end, it's almost as if we have only four MPs in parliament: Harper, Ignatieff, Duceppe, and Layton, each with a different number of votes behind him. In a non-partisan system, each MP can express his own ideas, some will be similar, but each with its own nuances, and each with but one vote behind it, that of tis original creator.

Another point about the party system. Since many vote for the party leader even if he's not even in their riding, this essentially means that the riding the party leader represents essentially has douzens, possibly well over a hundred, MPs looking out for its interests because they're all voting with the leader. In a non-partisan system, since we'd be voting for the candidate himself, each riding would thus have a genuine voice as it ought to have.