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Civic
elections in Toronto are not meeting our expectations.
Turnout is surprisingly low.
New faces on City Council are uncommon. Candidates can 'win' a seat
with as low as 20% of the vote. And perhaps most importantly, our
City Council does not reflect the evolving demographic of Toronto’s
diverse population. The challenge is to determine whether our current
voting system plays a role in these outcomes and whether alternative
systems could produce more effective results for Toronto.
Better Ballots is a non-partisan dialogue,
exploring options that could make Toronto’s
elections more relevant, effective, fair and participatory.
We've hosted four Town
Hall meetings across Toronto in April 2010, exploring fourteen
options for voting reform. (Download: Town
Hall Survey Results).
On June 1st, we'll be hosting a mayoral
forum on the topic of municipal voting reform. Stay
connected, with our Newsletter!
There are many successful models of municipal elections
we could look at:
Vancouver has a vibrant local party system
(independent from provincial or federal parties).
Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New
York City all have municipal term limits, designed to increase turnover.
Cambridge
(MA) uses a system called single transferable vote (STV) to make sure
that its Councilors are elected based on proportional representation.
San Francisco and Minneapolis use a simple ranked ballot system (also
called instant runoff), to eliminate vote-splitting and strategic voting.
Montreal voters elect local Borough Councils, giving more power
to neighbourhoods.
All these ideas, and others, would be worth exploring. Some changes
could be made by a simple Toronto bylaw (such as multi-member wards)
while others would need the cooperation of Queens Park (such as boroughs).Some
systems would require significant change to our current system (such
as parties or STV) while other systems would be easier to implement
(such as a ranked ballot or term limits).
In addition, we'll explore other options
for reform such as finance rules, extending voting rights, etc.
Let's raise our expectations, and work towards a voting system that
meets them.
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