Democratic Voting System Campaign

Advocating for representative, democratically elected, governments
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Key Links

Stop Snap Elections Fund
Please download and post on social media or print and post everywhere the I’m Voting for Good Government sign
Call on the politicians that represent you to Make the Democratic Good Government Pledge
Fixed Election Date court case (archive website)
Summary of Research Paper on Initiative, Referendum and Recall Process for Canada (by Duff Conacher (Democracy Watch’s Founding Director), published in the University of Toronto Law Review, 1991)

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April 24, 2025 4:56PM

Read all campaign news

Voter Rights Campaign 1993-2011 archive (archive website)

More and more Canadians are realizing that our current election voting system usually produces governments that give one party too much power, and that our elections are unfair in other key ways including that the Prime Minister and Premiers can call snap elections anytime that is best for their political party, and false election promises are allowed that mislead voters.

Many political party leaders and parties across Canada in the past few decades have promised to change the voting system, but then broken their promises after they have won power.

Politicians across Canada need to hear from as many voters as possible to ensure they finally and actually make changes that are in the interests of voters, not in the interests of politicians.

Background

Canada has an electoral system that consistently misrepresents the Canadian public and denies Canadians the right to have their vote count! The system at the federal level, and in all the provinces, is based on the British model known as first past the post (FPTP).

Under this system Canada is divided into a number of single-member voting districts (also known as “ridings”). At the federal level, there are currently 301 seats in the House of Commons (the elected house of Parliament), and various numbers of seats in each provincial legislature.

In an election, the candidate who gets the largest number of votes in each of these districts wins the election, and a seat in either Parliament (at the federal level) or in the provincial legislature.

Unfortunately, this system can lead to some very surprising, and fundamentally undemocratic, results! The main criticism of the FPTP voting system is that a candidate does not necessarily need to win a majority of the votes to win the seat, and usually, if there are 3 or more candidates in the district, the winning candidate does not win a majority of the votes. As a result, often political parties in Canada win a majority of seats in an election and form the government and have all the power (because the party controls a majority of seats in the legislature), even though the party only won the support of a minority of voters.

Other common criticisms of the FPTP voting system are that it effectively denies smaller parties fair representation in the legislature, it exaggerates the support of larger parties, and it exaggerates the support of parties that have support only in one province or region of Canada.

In addition, it often forces voters to vote for their 2nd choice candidate in order to ensure that a candidate they definitely don’t like loses. For example, imagine if a voter has 3 candidates to choose from in his/her district in an election, from political parties A, B, and C, and the voter wants to vote for the candidate from party A. If the promises and platforms of parties A and B are more similar than then platform of party C, then voters that vote for the candidates from parties A and B may split the vote (for example, 31% for the party A candidate, 33% for party B), allowing the candidate for party C to win the election with support from only 36% of the voters. The voter can only help prevent party C from winning by voting for his/her 2nd choice, the candidate from party B.

Many other countries use election voting systems that result in parties electing the number of politicians that match the actual voter support that they received in the election.

Election voting systems across Canada can and should be changed to provide a more accurate representation of the popular vote results in each election in the seats held by each party in the federal House of Commons and in the provincial legislatures (as in many other countries) while ensuring that all elected officials are supported by, and are accountable to, voters in each riding/constituency (with a safeguard to ensure that a party with a low-level, narrow-base of support does not have a disproportionately high level of power in Parliament).

The voting system in municipal elections across Canada also can and should be changed to a ranked ballot or similar system ensure each elected councillor is supported by a majority of voters.

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Hello,

I call on all political parties across Canada to make changes to make all election voting processes democratic by enacting the following measures:

pass an honesty-in-politics law that allows anyone to complain to an independent watchdog about a broken election promise, with high fines for party leaders and parties that break promises unjustifiably;
create a right to refuse to cast a ballot (as Ontario and Alberta voters have) or even better put a “none of the above” on the ballot (with space at the bottom to give 1-2 reasons why), and require the election agency to promote this right as much as every other voting right, and to report how many Canadians do so (so voters can, if they want to, send a clear message that they do not support any of the candidates or political parties in an election);
change the election voting system to provide a more accurate representation of the popular vote results in each election in the seats held by each party in the federal House of Commons and in the provincial legislatures (as in many other countries) while ensuring that all elected officials are supported by, and are accountable to, voters in each riding/constituency (with a safeguard to ensure that a party with a low-level, narrow-base of support does not have a disproportionately high level of power in Parliament), and change the voting system in municipal elections to a ranked ballot or similar system ensure each elected councillor is supported by a majority of voters;
change the law to actually fix election dates (given that the federal Conservatives’ bill passed in May 2007 was not detailed enough to restrict the Prime Minister’s power to call snap elections, and the fixed election date measures in the election laws in all the provinces and territories are also not clear enough to restrict premiers);
require candidates and parties to disclose before nomination race, party leadership race, election and by-election voting days their list of donors and lenders, and donations and loans of money, property, services and volunteer labour (all of which should be limited to $100 per person with no donations or loans from corporations, unions or other organizations), and also require them to disclose before voting day their spending by campaign category, and whether they have worked or cooperated in any way with a third party interest group in the 6 months leading up to election day;
ensure the heads of all election agencies and election law enforcement agencies are appointed only after a public, merit-based search by an independent appointments commission (whose members are approved by at least a majority of leaders whose political party won 10% or more of the vote in the last election) that sends a ranked list of 3 nominees to the government, with the government required to choose from the list;
empower election agencies across Canada to make merit-based decisions about the participation of political party leaders in election debates, and require broadcasters to air the debates;
ensure politicians represent voters not party leaders by prohibiting party leaders from appointing candidates (with only a few justifiable exceptions, such as when the riding has no riding association), and by prohibiting party headquarters from making large donations or loans to candidates and riding associations (instead give riding associations a fair portion of an annual 50 cents to $1 per vote public financing for parties);
fix the dates of all nomination races, and empower election agencies across Canada to oversee nomination race and party leadership votes to ensure they are fair and democratic, and only allow citizens who are 18 or older and registered voters to vote in nomination and leadership contests (same as in elections);
give voters a clear right to file complaints, and require all election agencies across Canada to disclose all their rulings on every situation they review, including on complaints that voters file with them during and in-between elections, and give everyone a right to appeal a ruling to court, to ensure that election agencies are accountable watchdogs for fair elections, not lapdogs that ignore violations or make biased, unfair, or ineffective rulings;
ensure significant mandatory minimum penalties are in place to discourage violations of election laws, and to ensure that election agencies and the courts penalize violators effectively;
empower election agencies across Canada to set by-election dates, and require them to take into account fairness for all parties, and maximizing voter turnout, when setting dates;
require the media to report equally all survey numbers, especially undecided voters, to end the misleading reporting of polls often seen during election campaigns;
reduce voter identification requirements;
require all elections, by-elections and referendums to have a 65% voter turnout to be valid, and;
pass a law allowing petitions leading to referendums.
Prohibit voters from signing the nomination form of more than one election candidate, and prohibit candidates from using the same financial agent, and prohibit anyone from registering as a nomination contestant or election candidate if they do not live in the same area as the electoral district in which they are running.

Until all of these measures are in place, and political ethics, transparency and waste-prevention rules and enforcement and penalties are strengthened, do not even consider mandatory voting (which violates voters’ rights not to vote for any candidate) or online voting (which can be hacked and therefore puts valid election results at risk) or lowering the voting age (as neuroscientists have shown that most people younger than 18 don’t have fully developed minds, specifically for making judgments).

Please let me know what you will do to ensure that these changes are made as soon as possible. I will be deciding which political party to vote for in the next election based on the responses I receive from representatives in each party. I look forward to hearing from you.

Hello,
I call on all political parties across Canada to make changes to make all election voting processes democratic by enacting the following measures:
<ol>
<li>pass an honesty-in-politics law that allows anyone to complain to an independent watchdog about a broken election promise, with high fines for party leaders and parties that break promises unjustifiably;</li>
<li>create a right to refuse to cast a ballot (as Ontario and Alberta voters have) or even better put a “none of the above” on the ballot (with space at the bottom to give 1-2 reasons why), and require the election agency to promote this right as much as every other voting right, and to report how many Canadians do so (so voters can, if they want to, send a clear message that they do not support any of the candidates or political parties in an election);</li>
<li>change the election voting system to provide a more accurate representation of the popular vote results in each election in the seats held by each party in the federal House of Commons and in the provincial legislatures (as in many other countries) while ensuring that all elected officials are supported by, and are accountable to, voters in each riding/constituency (with a safeguard to ensure that a party with a low-level, narrow-base of support does not have a disproportionately high level of power in Parliament), and change the voting system in municipal elections to a ranked ballot or similar system ensure each elected councillor is supported by a majority of voters;</li>
<li>change the law to actually fix election dates (given that the federal Conservatives’ bill passed in May 2007 was not detailed enough to restrict the Prime Minister’s power to call snap elections, and the fixed election date measures in the election laws in all the provinces and territories are also not clear enough to restrict premiers);</li>
<li>require candidates and parties to disclose before nomination race, party leadership race, election and by-election voting days their list of donors and lenders, and donations and loans of money, property, services and volunteer labour (all of which should be limited to $100 per person with no donations or loans from corporations, unions or other organizations), and also require them to disclose before voting day their spending by campaign category, and whether they have worked or cooperated in any way with a third party interest group in the 6 months leading up to election day;</li>
<li>ensure the heads of all election agencies and election law enforcement agencies are appointed only after a public, merit-based search by an independent appointments commission (whose members are approved by at least a majority of leaders whose political party won 10% or more of the vote in the last election) that sends a ranked list of 3 nominees to the government, with the government required to choose from the list;</li>
<li>empower election agencies across Canada to make merit-based decisions about the participation of political party leaders in election debates, and require broadcasters to air the debates;</li>
<li>ensure politicians represent voters not party leaders by prohibiting party leaders from appointing candidates (with only a few justifiable exceptions, such as when the riding has no riding association), and by prohibiting party headquarters from making large donations or loans to candidates and riding associations (instead give riding associations a fair portion of an annual 50 cents to $1 per vote public financing for parties);</li>
<li>fix the dates of all nomination races, and empower election agencies across Canada to oversee nomination race and party leadership votes to ensure they are fair and democratic, and only allow citizens who are 18 or older and registered voters to vote in nomination and leadership contests (same as in elections);</li>
<li>give voters a clear right to file complaints, and require all election agencies across Canada to disclose all their rulings on every situation they review, including on complaints that voters file with them during and in-between elections, and give everyone a right to appeal a ruling to court, to ensure that election agencies are accountable watchdogs for fair elections, not lapdogs that ignore violations or make biased, unfair, or ineffective rulings;</li>
<li>ensure significant mandatory minimum penalties are in place to discourage violations of election laws, and to ensure that election agencies and the courts penalize violators effectively;</li>
<li>empower election agencies across Canada to set by-election dates, and require them to take into account fairness for all parties, and maximizing voter turnout, when setting dates;</li>
<li>require the media to report equally all survey numbers, especially undecided voters, to end the misleading reporting of polls often seen during election campaigns;</li>
<li>reduce voter identification requirements;</li>
<li>require all elections, by-elections and referendums to have a 65% voter turnout to be valid, and;</li>
<li>pass a law allowing petitions leading to referendums.</li>
<li>Prohibit voters from signing the nomination form of more than one election candidate, and prohibit candidates from using the same financial agent, and prohibit anyone from registering as a nomination contestant or election candidate if they do not live in the same area as the electoral district in which they are running.</li>
</ol>
Until all of these measures are in place, and political ethics, transparency and waste-prevention rules and enforcement and penalties are strengthened, do not even consider mandatory voting (which violates voters’ rights not to vote for any candidate) or online voting (which can be hacked and therefore puts valid election results at risk) or lowering the voting age (as neuroscientists have shown that most people younger than 18 don’t have fully developed minds, specifically for making judgments).
Please let me know what you will do to ensure that these changes are made as soon as possible. I will be deciding which political party to vote for in the next election based on the responses I receive from representatives in each party. I look forward to hearing from you.

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