No large political party has shown intention of electoral reform, and no large party ever will. The Liberals betrayed electoral reform. The BC NDP has abandoned efforts for PR. The Alberta NDP isn't going to do shit.

This is purely because electoral reform doesn't benefit large parties in a given election race.

So here's just a quick idea. What if a single issue group is made, that's independent of party lines with a single affirmation:

"I am person X, and I'm a member of party Y. I will not vote in the upcoming election unless my party promises to enact MMPR within 365 days of forming government. If they betray this promise, I will not vote in any given election until electoral reform is passed".

While I don't have data, I think that people irrespective of parties, AND non leading factions within political parties would like PR. Why?

People: Most people I've encountered, hate what their party does. The only way they vote is to keep the "worse guy" out. I've observed this in the Federal liberals, Alberta and BC NDPs and even the Alberta UCP. If we frame this correctly as "people vs politicians" instead of "party A vs party B", then there could be some non partisan momentum to this.

Politicians: As a politician in the current system, either you join the two largest political parties in a race, or you never win a seat. The Alberta NDP for example, is made up of quite a few politicians who ideally should've been Liberals or Greens. Same with the UCP, who should've been everything from Liberals, progressive conservatives to straight up separatists.

Splitting up into independent parties without fear of vote splitting gives more power to these politicians as well. I can't see why a politician would be against gaining more power.

Also, the movement doesn't even have to be THAT large to be a pain in the ass for political parties. Seats are won on razor thin margins. If even a single digit percentage of the electorate identifies as the "MMPR or we won't vote at all" bloc, then political parties are forced to address these demands if they have any desire to win.

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[–] JustADrone@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

A new one-issue party with candidates in every riding - the "Electoral Reform Party". Their entire campaign is a binding commitment to implement proportional representation and then trigger a new election using it.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

This NEVER works. You are part of the problem by doing this.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

yeah this is that 5d chess type of thinking. each election is one shot and you have a variety of options some of which are better than others and almost none that are going to be perfect from a single persons perspective. I get folks want perfect but its better to just support the best option.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Exactly. Perfection will never exist. So plug your nose and vote.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 4 hours ago

yeah and maybe do other things. get involved with improving the party or if you have to make your own. help on a campaign for someone you see as acceptable or run yourself. Contact your reps and tell them what is right and wrong about what they are doing. protest. whatever you can. not doing the smallest and easiest thing to choose better over worse to get better rather than worse. insanity.

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Absconding from voting is never a good strategy. I could see it doing something if you had a large cohort that all voted for a specific candidate or similar that was actually countable in the stats.

[–] hume_lemmy@lemmy.ca 9 points 11 hours ago

Politicians care if you vote for the other guy. If you don't vote at all it's basically the same as winking out of existence in a puff of irrelevance.

[–] ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 1 points 6 hours ago

I think this could work if a critical mass of people showed up and spoiled their ballots, or voted for the Rhinoceros Party or whatever.

But just staying home won't do it.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 20 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

'We're gonna not vote and get what we want' never ever ever works.

Ever.

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Why?? Seems like using the only power you have over the politicians (to vote or not vote for them) is about the best thing you can do to get what you want within the confines of the system.

[–] ergonomic_importer@piefed.ca 3 points 7 hours ago

The choice shouldn't be to vote for them or not at all, it's to vote for or against them.

What you're talking about is taking slacktivism to its extreme by refusing your right to vote as a form of protest instead of putting in any actual and meaningful effort.

The people who won't stay home on election day are conservative voters, and even though electoral reform shouldn't be a partisan issue I guarantee the Conservatives would never move to implement it.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org -3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have examples of this? Not debating you, just want to know if "vote protests" or whatever were held before and the effects they had/did not have.

[–] fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 16 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That's how Trump happened. Look at the turnout. I have good idiot friends that sat out our last election because Harris didn't pass the Palestine purity test.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 2 points 15 hours ago

Hmmm, good example.

Although this is kinda different, is it not? From what I understand, the vote withholding was purely one sided.

Republicans: Majority were pro Israel. Minority were apathetic, and preferred that the US stay out of the "Israel-Palestine situation" entirely.

Democrats: Half were pro Israel, half were pro Palestine, cuz the IDF was genocidal.

Even within the Democrats, a huge chunk was fiercely pro Israel. A pro Palestinian stance meant that this section would either not vote/flip red.

BUT

The electoral reform thing is quite different from what I understand. No faction in the NDP, Liberals and Greens is absolutely anti electoral reform, right? Half is pro electoral reform while half is just apathetic. There will still be a big and powerful pro electoral reform faction in a "big tent" party, which all of them are cuz of fptp.

If the "we won't vote till electoral reform is promised to us" group is diverse in terms of political affiliation, then EVERY party has to make and keep this promise (assuming at least one large political party accepts the demands first).

Let's take the case of Alberta. The NDP and the UCP are the big parties. The electoral reform block is made of progressive conservatives and maybe separatists too on the UCP side, and Liberals and Greens on the NDP side. Let's say the NDP blinks first (as they have a greater numerical disadvantage due to the electoral reform block than the UCP) and accepts the demands. From the UCP's standpoint, only their own voters will have lower turnout now that the NDP has given in to their side of the block. This is bad. Internal pressure from PC and separatist politicians would force them to eventually accept the demands as well.

[–] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Saying I am not going to vote if something is not done is saying “here take my vote, I am not going to stand in your way ever again.”

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org -4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't it a voter block that DOES come out to vote usually, but isn't doing so this time, and the only thing that a given political party has to do is to promise and deliver reform to get them to come out?

A given political party would want to maximise turnout of its own members, yes? But if say, a subset of members says, "hey, we won't come out to vote unless you make this promise", that's holding the party by its balls, isn't it?

Usually, getting people out to vote takes a lot of effort. Canvassing, repeated adverts and so on. BUT, if a simple inclusion in the manifesto is going to increase turnout by even a percentage point, then well... that's not so insignificant for the party to just ignore.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 6 points 9 hours ago

If you're threatening to not vote, you're also promising not to vote against them. Bit of a wash.

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 3 points 13 hours ago

It's only the 2 largest parties that oppose proportional representation since it is against their interest in taking turns at forming fake majority governments with dictator style power for 4 years or more. Liberals+Conservatives federally and NDP+Conservatives provincially.

The federal Greens, NDP and Bloc were consistent supporters of PR if you actually researched their records.

The federal Liberals+Conservatives love wasting taxpayer money in cancelling the previous government's projects. Lets not become a liberal one-party state like Singapore. We need real political party competition in this country.

[–] Muscle_Meteor@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 hours ago

It would be nice if there was a electoral method officially backed by the "fringe parties" for it to gain momentum and an understanding by the masses.

Probably it would be MMP, which is okay i guess, i'd support that but it has its own flaws. Id prefer STV but i've been told thats too "complicated" for the average.

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 2 points 15 hours ago

It would need a lot of organizing and campaigning. The main action wouldn't be withholding the vote but the organizing behind a cohesive message. You (as a collective) would have to agree on what exactly are your demands and be loud about it.

I agree that lesser evilism will only ever lead to more and more evil candidates as long as the other candidate is more evil, but reversing that course is going to be tough.