Mini-MMP boot camp: Questions on List Members

List candidates are nominated by their party, just like the riding candidates. They get elected, or not, depending on their ability to attract votes to their party, just like the riding candidates. They are accountable to the people who elected them, just like the riding MPPs.

List MPPs have the same duties and responsibilities as riding MPPs. Most of them will be opening constituency offices where they live in order to serve their constituents, just like the riding MPPs.

In places that use MMP, voters do not distinguish between riding and list MPPs. The list MPPs are there specifically to represent the 60% of us who are not lucky enough to vote for winning candidates in our riding and who are currently unrepresented and ignored in our Legislature.

Studies show that almost all of us, even in rural ridings, vote for a party, not for a candidate. Some people will claim that they are voting for "good old Dave" (or good old Belinda), but when good old Dave switches parties for a cabinet post, suddenly he is the worst kind of traitor.

There is nothing undemocratic about electing people from party lists. Most major industrial democracies, including Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Holland, Austria, and Spain, elect ALL their MPs from party lists. These countries persist in believing that they are democracies, and that their members of Parliament are democratically elected.

The real difference is that, under MPP, every voter will have a vote that actually helps to elect somebody, every time, unlike our current system under which most of us vote for people who do not get elected, and we end up with a government that most of us voted against.

Under our current system, we get to vote only for the local candidate in our riding. Under MPP, every voter will have two votes, one to elect our riding MPP as we have always done, and a second vote for a political party, that will allow voters to pass judgment on ALL the other candidates, as well as the party leaders, platforms, and records.

List seats are not safe seats. With only 30% list seats in the Legislature, the largest party will likely not win any list seats at all. Ridings, on the other hand, are mostly safe seats. Most of us already know who will be elected in our riding NOW, before the votes are even cast.