I am genuinely curious. Some of my passing thoughts are below, if some context is needed.
I strongly believe that PR is a much better and fairer system than FPTP, and I hope it passes in Canada at least at the federal level.
The question. Are there any real disadvantages to PR compared to FPTP?
PR is obviously not a peefect system, and it has downsides compared to other forms of representation, such as Direct Democracy. But i cant find any real downsides when compared to FPTP.
I heard about:
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PR allows extremist ideas to be represented. This is maybe true, but I think it is blown out of proportion It is also probably not a negative. Allowing their representation means that these ideas can be challenged in public, rather than simply censored. It also could reduce feelings of not being represented among the public, feelings which might be a strong contributing force to the rise of authoritarianism.
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PR could effectively freeze government by not allowing anything to pass. This could be a negative, but in many cases it isn’t. In case the majority is the extremist party, PR allows a sort of damage control.
It depends on the method of PR you’re using, but if people value “one constituency, one representative” (or “equally distributed Parliamentary power among constituencies”) the idea of having a pool of representatives that aren’t accountable to any specific constituency could be a downside.
Eg. if you use a “closed list party-list proportional representation” where the parties get to pick who gets the ‘proportional seats’ from their own ranks, then some MPs are accountable only to their own parties; they don’t have constituents that can threaten their jobs.
But that’s easily addressed by just using a different kind of PR. RCV-PR uses ranked ballots where voters support individual candidates in a multimember district, and dual member proportional has its own apportionment method that gives every constituency two representatives accountable to the voters of that constituency.
So as far as weaknesses go, that one is an easily mitigated one.
In case the majority is the extremist party, PR allows a sort of damage control.
I’m not sure I follow. If an extremist has an absolute majority, ie. 51% of seats, then they have control?
One disadvantage would be that the ballots take a little bit longer to count after elections.
PR could effectively freeze government by not allowing anything to pass. This could be a negative, but in many cases it isn’t. In case the majority is the extremist party, PR allows a sort of damage control.
That is actually a myth as governments under pr are actually slightly more stable as elections are less likely to occur. The confidence and supply deals function differently as parties have to separate themselves from the government in order to win more seats as attacking your competition is how you win elections under first-past-the-post.
