Would the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) voting method that was considered for Ontario, Canada have been an improvement?
No. In fact the change would have increased the influence of money in Ontario politics. (This is why money was available to promote the change.) Why would the change have increased the influence of campaign contributions? • The recommended method would have continued the use of single-mark ballots instead of order-of-preference (or “ordinal”) ballots that also collect secondary preferences. Single-mark ballots (which are linked to “first-past-the-post” voting) fail to reveal which choice is most popular in situations where none of the candidates earns a majority of (single-mark) votes. • Using “closed” party lists for Proportional Representation (PR) allows the party leaders—who are very influenced by campaign contributions—to choose which of their party’s candidates are elected to the PR seats. • As explained above regarding the Iraqi parliament, Proportional Representation does not necessarily promote fairness, especially for minorities (including women and indigenous peoples). If in
