A large majority Nova Scotians do not support government
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009The 2009 Nova Scotia election, lets do the math!
Here are the basic facts taken from the Elections NS web site. There are 714,675 voters on the official list. Of those 413,871 voters voted. 1,520 ballots were rejected for one reason or another so that leaves 412,351 valid votes. The results:
Party votes % valid votes % voters Seats % Seats
NDP 188,556 45.7 26.4 31 59.6
L 112,160 27.2 15.7 11 21.1
PC 101,203 24.5 14.2 10 19.2
G 9,636 2.3 1.3 0 0.0
I 2,796 0.7 0.4 0 0.0
Two facts jump out.
1. The NDP achieved a majority of 60% of the seat count yet only had a minority 46% vote tally. This error is common in First-Past-The-Post systems where the tendency is to ‘manufacture’ a majority that does not exist. If voters wishes were represented correctly we should have an minority government working in concert with one of the other parties. A very, very different result.
2. Since four out of ten Nova Scotians shunned the electoral system the government can only claim the active support of about one in four (26.4%) voters. Said another way a majority of Nova Scotians, three out of four, do not support the current government. And this is based on listed voters, typically there are an additional 5% to 15% of voters who are not registered so active support is even lower.
There are various stock responses to this dilemma.
One response is ‘Those who don’t vote shouldn’t count’. Perhaps but the government still cannot claim their support.
Another is ‘That is how the system works’. True but if the system produces wacky results like this why put up with it?
So whichever way we turn we have a majority government not supported by a large majority (three out of four) Nova Scotians.
So the troubling question has to be asked. Can the ‘government’ claim to be the government of Nova Scotians?
At what point does a government loose legitimacy? With less than 50% support? We are well passed that here. At a third support? We have passed that too. At 25%?
Voter turnout continues to decline. How much lower can we go? 20%? 10%? Lower?