frank klees is a jackass

I’m going to pull one from the John Gruber bag of tricks.

Where to start?

Frank isn’t so much scary or dumb - he’s just downright weird.

He opposes Mixed Member Proportionality because:

Third, I strongly object to the concept proposed under the MMP system proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly under which 39 people would be appointed to the legislature by their Parties rather than be directly elected. These so-called “List Members” will have the same rights, privileges and responsibilities as an elected MPP, but will be accountable only to their Party bosses. This is not democracy as I understand it.

and

Fourth, this system under which the “List Members” get appointed according to the percentage of popular vote, will open the door to multiple parties having one or two seats and will result in perpetual minority governments. The instability brought on by this structure is evident in countries like Italy where a similar system exists

I’ve skipped points 1 and 2, because they amount to “well…. the topic is being brought up late and people aren’t going to get it”.

So - I’ll do a little hand waving and assume that Frank can’t bother educating the public about the ramification of MMP voting because he’s busy and not because it might me he may be out of a job after the election.

Let’s tackle #3 “This is not democracy as I understand it.”

That’s kind of an amazing statement to make. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could just go back in time to see what the actual popular vote numbers were?

Oh oh oh! Here we go!

Ontario Election data for :

• 2003
• 1999
• 1995
• 1990

For those of you who are too lazy to click on the hyperlinks - here’s the top couple rows of data for each year:

Now I want you to pay attention to the spreads between what the popular vote was and who took power.

In 1990, Bob Rae and the NDP won a majority government (57% of the seats) with just 38% of the popular vote.
In 1995, Mike Harris and the PCs wont a majority government (66% of the seats) with just 44.8% of the popular vote.
In 1999, the PCs won again with a majority (57% of the seats) with only 45% of the popular vote.
..and in 2003 the Liberals won a majority with 70% of the seats and only 46% of the vote.

What kind of fucked up world is Frank Klees living in when those numbers make sense?

In 1995, 1999 and 2003, the NDP gets under represented by ~6%.

You’ll also notice that majority governments are formed without an actual majority of the popular vote by a wide margin.

Say it with me: WHAT THE HELL?

Let’s look at point #4. Yes. Italy has had political instability since WW2 - but that doesn’t indicate anything. As anybody who’s had even a modicum of exposure to statistics will tell you - the correlation between unstable governments and MMP is completely screwed in Frank’s analysis. If you were to look at a broader number of countries that implement MMP - there is simply no statistically significant data to indicate any correlation whatsoever. To take just one example - Germany has had 16 federal elections under MMP since 1949. Ontario has had 16 elections since 1948 using First Past the Post.

You can take a look for yourself at all the other countries that have implemented MMP.

Let me repeat myself: Unstable governments and MMP have no correlation.

If you don’t believe me - well - frankly I don’t care what you believe. But if you can show me data that actually proves me wrong - that would be news to me.

So why do the PCs care so much about a NO vote for MMP? Probably because it means that the NDP and the Green Party would start to take up more seats in the house and that would mean less power for the Conservative party.

Vote YES to MMP.

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