Month: January 2016

Democracy Under Fire: Electoral Reform – The Ballots

Having recently reviewed a few of the more commonly used voting systems that may be considered by the proposed committee to examine electoral reform in Canada I thought it might be useful to collect some examples of the type of ballot that such systems would require. These examples are from various existing or proposed systems across the world, it was surprisingly difficult to find good examples of some types of ballots. Click on the examples to get a clearer view.

First up Mixed Member Proportional – Closed List where you have one vote for your local representative and one vote for the partys extra candidate of your choice. The Party chooses the individuals needed to make up the number of MPs needed to satisfy the proportionality of the vote.

Next up MMP – Open List where you have one vote for your local represntitive and one vote for the partys extra listed candidate of your choice. The individuals needed to make up the number of MPs needed to satisfy the proportionality of the vote are decided by who gets the most votes. I was unable to find an example of this type of ballot but it would look something like this which is a combination of the above and an open list proportional ballot.

The third example is that of a, Single Transferable Vote ballot based upon a sample from the BC STV proposal, the instructions were added from a Scottish STV ballot as no such information was included in the original. It is the same as AV shown below in that you rank the candidates except that the list contains the names of candidates from 2 or more ridings and the one per riding are elected. Those who win (using the ranked method of selection) represent the combined district..

A far better example of an STV ballot is this one from the U.S., it has the additional quality of being machine readable, something that I believe ALL ballots should encompass but particularly any that have ranked voting.

Finaly we have this simple machine readable Alternative Vote, Ranked Ballot (or whatever you wish to call it, I wish we could settle on a common name for this voting method). Here you rank you local candidates and your choices are taken into account when non of the candidates get more than 50% of the #1 votes.

One final note here. In MMP all votes (for both the local candidate and the Party or their choice list) are counted using First Past The Post, there is nothing stopping one or both of these choices being a ranked choice (except to make an already complex system more complex) thus eliminating those with less than 50% of the vote from automatically winning a seat. Such a ballot for Ranked MMP – Closed list might look something like this…….

As with each voting method there are many different varietys of ballots and what constitutes a valid or spoiled ballot as well as how said votes are counted. Any proposal must include a sample ballot which includes clear instructions on its use printed ON the ballot as well as, where appropriate, exactly how that vote is distributed. (i.e. The number of ridings represented in and STV ballot)

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The Adventures of Diva Rachel: Stacey Dash’s Little Black Lies: When Blacks Agree with Bigots

Alternate title : Stacey Dash — Human Shield of House Negro ?

It’s painful to watch someone pimp themselves out for a paycheque. But Black people do it every day. Why? To “go along to get a long”, to make colleagues comfortable, to insure the few strands of opportunities that may come their way despite an unlevel playing field aren’t rubbed out.

This week, Stacey Dash traded her values for a check when she turned her back on the African-American owned media outlets which supported her career, and their audiences. The once still ‘Clueless’ actress-turned-Fox News commentator called for the elimination of Black History Month, the BET Awards and other venues to highlight talent which is otherwise eclipsed by the ubiquity of whiteness (see #OscarsSoWhite controversy 1.0 and 2.0). Too many bigots–blissfully unaware of the trick compensated ruse–salivate on Dash’s diatribe, wielding it like a weapon to uphold white supremacy.

The ruse has been employed for decades, and not just in the U.S. Banking on vulnerable people to lie to save their skin is one thing. To use these misguided statements, possibly offered under duress, as a catalyst for further marginalization of racialized groups is cruel. This tactic has often worked well for the establishment.

In the mid-1950s, Dresden, Ont. was like many segregated Canadian towns. Black and white residents led separate social lives. Restaurants, barbershops and even churches banned African Canadians from entering. Many merchants refused to serve people of colour.

When Black residents challenged the long-standing segregationist climate in a Dresden court room, the media descended on the south-western Ontario town to survey the racial row. To gage the sentiment of the townsfolk, they interviewed local residents. Curiously, the black resident this journalist interrogated was the area’s token sole Black police officer. When asked about the race-based discrimination enforced by the City (and, implicitly, his employer), the smiling policeman stated “there was no discrimination here”.

Were (white) journalists enlightened enough to decipher the white lie a Black employee uttered to comfort his Caucasian coworkers and keep his coveted job? None of the period articles I found were conclusive. However, it is entirely plausible that local bigots used this coerced headline to justify the racist status quo.

The same sad scenario has repeated itself in Quebec this week. CBC TV producer and Quebecois celebrity Louis Morissette took to his wife’s magazine, the public broadcaster’s airwaves and La Presse newspaper to share his artistic sorrow: his bosses forbid him from using blackface during Radio-Canada’s annual New Years’ Eve TV comedy special. Even worse, Morissette was – gasp! – forced to hire a Black actor to play a Black character on TV.

Blackface, a longstanding practice by which a white actor tars his face to play a black character, is back in style in Quebec. (Some say it never went out of style.)

Two afro-quebeckers vehemently and publicly defend blackface in French-speaking Canada: African immigrant-turned-CBC comedian Boucar Diouf and perennial token-black-character Normand Brathwaite, who notably got his career started by playing to Haitian immigrant stereotypes — much to the Québécois audience’s delight.

“This is not blackface,” Normand Brathwaite said. “I’d be pretty pissed off if someone imitated me in a year-end show and didn’t paint himself black, because I’m very proud of the colour of my skin.”

The Brathwaite-Diouf duo are often dragged to Quebec TV, radio and print to prop up bigot blackface-disciples, with a clear aim at silencing the vast majority of the black community which is offended by the practice. Brathwaite and Diouf work for the very Québec-based broadcasters and producers who repeatedly rely on blackface for comic relief. No one has questioned the dynamics by which Brathwaite and Diouf defend their masters remain in the good graces of Quebec’s white-dominated star système clique.

HUMAN SHIELDS or HOUSE NEGROS?
It’s a false binary. Journalists pull the strings of public sentiment by selecting biased spokespersons. The Stacy Dash’s of Quebec say what their employers want to hear. They’ve convinced many uninformed purelaine Quebeckers that blackface is no longer considered racist with their post-racial paradise. Regardless, the responsibility to present analysis of a racially-charged controversy isn’t on Stacy Dash or the Brathwaite-Diouf duo. It behooves competent journalists forgo editorial fools’ gold.

The adventures of a Franco Ontarian Viz Min Woman in Ottawa.
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