Tuesday, September 09, 2008

No vote is a wasted vote...

...not at $1.75 per vote per year.

With that said, I would like to revive my attempt to alter the subsidy that federal parties get.

As you may, or may not know, each party recieves $1.75 per year per vote (indexed for inflation) for each vote they receive.

I would like to see this subsidy altered to be:

$1.75/vote X (number of ridings with a registered candidate/total number of ridings)

This would drastically alter the playing field as the BQ is able to pretty much fund itself out of its subsidy and does not require substantial fundraising.

It would also make people think twice about deals like Dion-May and the Conservative decision not to run anyone against the independent guy (whose name escapes me) in Quebec.

However, I would argue that 307/308 X 1.75 is more acceptable than 75/308 x 1.75 per vote.

Q

Comments:
I see why the system is frustrating, but implementing a system like the one you suggests is fraught with peril as well.

It would encourage a party to have candidates in every single riding, regardless of the quality, just for the sake of getting money from the government.

Simply putting a candidate up should not be anough.

Maybe a calculation where 1.75 x # ridings you get 10% of the vote.

The last few elections the Green Party took solace in the fact they ran someone in every single riding in the country, even though lots of the candidate did not even live in the provinces they were running in, and in some cases didnt even really know what the Green party even was.

Is that better for the democratic process? Not in my humble opinion.
 
Perhaps to dsicourage that approach of having a candidate for the sake of having a candidate, the deposit for running a candidate should be higher for those receiving the subsidy and that the threshold for getting your rebate back raised.
 
Would you please contact me directly? We are looking for assistance with a national get out and vote campaign and could use your help.
Many thanks,
Pyper
punitt at rogers dot com
 
Very thougghtful blog
 
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