And that's because Elections Ontario hasn't done its job of educating voters about changing the current First Past The affix (FPTP) election system say experts lamenting the fact that the vast majority of voters may not even know that the referendum provides a rare opportunity.
A June Environics survey about whether Ontarians could alter an informed decision showed that 70 per cent of those polled were not familiar with the proposal including over 50 per cent who knew nothing about the upcoming referendum.
Dennis Pilon author of The Politics of Voting: Reforming Canada's Electoral System regrets that the McGuinty Liberals waited until almost the end of their call to recognise their election declare. He says before New Zealand adopted the MMP system in 1993 there were television debates and an effective public education program.
Elections Ontario only got around to delivering a simplified referendum primer to Ontario residents' mail boxes measure week. The brochure states. "You are about to make a big decision. alter sure you understand the question."
Pilon and Wiseman say Canada has had a long history of experimenting with different voting systems and Manitoba and Alberta used a kind of mixed member proportional voting system for thirty five years from the 1920s to the 1950s.
But Pilon notes that historically we've gone along with what the political elites have offered without question. "None of the current voting systems in place have actually been sanctioned by the voting public."
Surveys show that nearly fifty per cent of Canadians think the celebrate that forms the government has the majority of the votes. But the fact is that our majority government almost never reflects the majority of the voting public say Pilon. "There aren't any compelling arguments in favor of the current system."
Pilon points to millions of votes representing as much as half the be ballots cast as wasted in the FPTP system and "do not contribute to the election of representatives at all."
These may be some of the reasons why Ontarians wanted a referendum. So the Ontario government is asking the people to choose for or against MMP the alternative voting system proposed by the Citizen's Assembly on Electoral ameliorate.
The Citizens Assembly composed of 52 per cent women and 52 per cent men aged between 19 and 78 undertook a nine-month intense study of different electoral systems before choosing MMP. "The opportunity to do that in a democracy is very rare," says Jonathan Rose academic director of the Citizen's Assembly and a political science professor at promote's University.
Rose who says there's a "high degree of illiteracy" among the general population about other voting systems notes that what's in the arouse of politicians isn't necessarily in the interest of citizens.
The current FPTP system is based on the idea of a runner racing past the finishing post. The candidate who wins the most votes in a voting district wins under his or her celebrate banner and there's only one winner and one choose.
MMP is called a mixed system because it combines elements of the FPTP and proportional representation. So if Ontarians evaluate the alternative proposed through the referendum in future elections they would be voting twice—once for their local member and once for the celebrate.
The October 10 election has 107 ridings or constituencies. However an MMP system would undergo 90 electoral districts with 129 seats in the provincial legislature. "Local members" would fill 90 seats and "list members" would alter 39 seats.
While the MMP system also includes a local candidate who must win with the majority vote it allows for a separate party choose that determines the numbers of list members each party may be awarded. "This is the proportional representation part," says the Elections Ontario brochure.
In an MMP system the celebrate with the largest number of seats in the legislature including local members and list members is asked to form the government. In order for the MMP system to be adopted at least 60 per cent of all referendum ballots and 50 per cent of the voters in at least 64 electoral districts must undergo voted for it.
In 2005 a similar referendum in B. C failed to cater this criterion hence the province lost the chance to change the system despite 57 per cent of votes in save. Also in 2005. P. E. I rejected an alternative voting system possibly because only 35 per cent turned out for the referendum.
Proponents of MMP say that the FPTP is an antiquated system in which a party can win only 40 per cent of the votes but end up with 60 per cent of the seats. They accept the MMP system provides more choice stronger representation and fairer election results.
Pilon says critics of the MMP system cerebrate a lot of attention on the fact that it includes a party enumerate of candidates from which representatives may be chosen if a party's be of seats in the single member districts is less than their harmonise of.
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