MMP

Last night, my Mom asked me: "Do you know what's MMP?" and my answer was "hummmm". Well, I am not really into elections, but I am curious about MMP.


There are two things happening on Oct. 10:
- choosing the next government
- the referendum, where we're choosing how we're going to choose governments from now on (The next provincial election will be in 2011.)


Current Electoral System - First-Past-the-Post

Ontario is divided into 107 electoral districts. In each district each voter gets one vote to choose which candidate they feel should win a seat in the provincial legislature. One vote. One ballot.

In an election using the First-Past-the-Post system, the candidate with the most votes wins and will be the representative for the electoral district in the provincial legislature.

After the election, the political party that wins the most electoral districts is normally asked to form a government.


New Electoral System - Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

Mixed Member Proportional is called a mixed system, because it combines two voting systems: a First-Past-the-Post system and a Proportional Representation system.

If this system is accepted, Ontarians will have two votes in future elections: one for a ‘Local Member’ and one for a political party.

The provincial legislature would have 129 seats: Local Members’ would fill 90 seats while ‘List Members’ would fill 39 seats.

The political party with the largest number of seats in the legislature, including ‘Local Members’ and ‘List Members’, is asked to form a government.


Sites that talk about MMP:
Referendum Ontario
National Post


Oh well... I guess I'll have to vote this year!! ;)