Tag Archives: Canada

Election Backfires

Last month, I mentioned three elections scheduled for September.  One of them — Germany scheduled for tomorrow — is a regular election at the expiration of the current parliamentary term.  Two of them were not.  In California, Republicans, thinking that his COVID policies made Governor Gavin Newsom vulnerable, pushed through a recall petition to force a recall election.  In Canada, the governing Liberal Party, thought that favorable polls gave them a chance of turning their plurality into an actual majority.

The votes are now in.  And both elections were a wash that mostly maintained the status quo.

In California, while early polls seemed to show a chance for the recall to succeed, the current vote totals are similar to the results of recent elections.  With approximately 12.5 million votes counted (and only around 450,000 votes remaining to be counted), slightly over 62% of the votes are against the recall.  The current counted votes are very similar to the final count from the 2018 election with the “no” votes being approximately 60,000 more votes that Governor Newsom got in 2018 and the “yes” votes being approximately 20,000 fewer votes than the Republican candidate got in 2018. Continue Reading...

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Mid-Summer Hodgepodge

The last couple of weeks have had a mix of news that leaves so many possible topics for a post (and some may get a follow-up).

First, before taking their August recess (or in Congress-speak “District Work Period”), the Senate passed the infrastructure bill and the budget resolution that will be the basis for a reconciliation bill when Congress returns.  The House will take up these two items when the House returns.  Progressives want to table the infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill passes (to force moderates to support the reconciliation bill).  Moderates want to finish up the infrastructure bill before something that happens that could doom that bill.

Second, the House will also be voting on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  As expected, in the aftermath of this year’s Supreme Court decision in Brnovich undermining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the bill has been expanded to fix both Section 2 and reinstate the preclearance requirements struck down in Shelby County.    While there will almost certainly be changes in the House, the real debate will be when it gets to the Senate.  The Republicans will attempt to block this bill, and it will be up to a handful of Democratic Senators to balance whether protecting the rights of African-Americans and other minority voters matters more than protecting the filibuster. Continue Reading...

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International Elections — Summer and Fall 2019

With Congress out until Moscow Mitch deigns to call the Senate back to endless debate gun control legislation before ultimately passing the most minimal bill that the Republicans think they can get away with, it’s a good opportunity to talk about the politics of our allies.

The biggest one for domestic politics is probably the Israeli election.  A mere four months ago, Israel went to the polls and Benjamin Netanyahu eked out a narrow victory.  However, given that Israel uses proportional representation, coming in first is not enough to be prime minister.  And many of the groups that would naturally support a Netanyahu government have conflicting non-negotiable demands.  (The big dispute on the Israeli right is between secular and religious parties.  Current Israeli law exempts religious students from the draft.  The religious parties want to keep this exemption.  The secular parties want to repeal this exemption.)  Because he could not put together a majority behind a unified agenda, Israel is going to have a second election on September 17.  Again, like our own President, Netanyahu has to face allegations of improprieties and could likely be facing criminal charges if he loses.  One of the interesting factors in Israeli politics is the use of joint lists in which various parties agree to run as one list to assure meeting the threshold for winning seats (and to maximize the seats won) with internal agreements based on estimated support determining how any seats won are allocated between the parties.  Not much has changed since April so another narrow Netanyahu win is the most likely result.

In Europe, there are a lot of elections set for the smaller economies — Portugal, Poland, Austria, Croatia — but the big question is the United Kingdom.  After the recent Conservative Party elections, Boris Johnson is serving as Prime Minister, but when Parliament returns from the summer recess the Conservatives and their allies from Northern Ireland will have a 320-319 majority.  However, the United Kingdom is currently scheduled to leave the European Union on Halloween.  Boris Johnson is the new Prime Minister because Theresa May could not negotiate a deal for the departure that could obtain the consent of Parliament.  While Johnson is trying to negotiate a new deal, the European Union is not willing to negotiate against itself.  It made concessions in the negotiations with Ms. May and is not willing to agree to move the goalposts (especially as the main problem is the Ireland-Northern Ireland border).  There is a solid bloc of the Conservative Party that is opposed to departing without a deal which could lead to Mr. Johnson losing a “no confidence” vote when Parliament reconvenes.  If there is not a consensus alternative to lead a “national unity”government, early elections (but no sooner than October 31) are likely.  Given that the predominant issue in the UK remains the relation between the UK and the European Union (and that the UK is split down the middle on this issue) and the use of a first-past-the-post system (which means the fact that there are multiple parties on both sides of the divide can lead to weird results in individual constituencies). Continue Reading...

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Weekend Wrapup — October 23rd

Sometimes, a week is a long time in politics.  There are still 53 weeks to go to the 2016 general election, and three months to the Iowa Caucuses, but this week was a big week.  Three candidates out on the Democratic side, a probable new speaker, an old investigative committee, a new investigative committee, and two elections — one in Canada and one in Louisiana.

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Strategic Voting-U.S. and Abroad

In most of the United States, the general election (at every level) is mostly a two-party race.  In 2014, there were thirty-four races in which the winning candidate got less than 50%.  In only two of these races did the winning candidate get beneath 45%.  In only 11 of these races did the loser get below 45%.    In ten of these races, it is probable that the minor part candidates may have altered the winner of the race.  Given the rareness of such races, strategic voting is normally not viewed as  a significant issue in the general election in the U.S., but it is a significant issue in the primary and in elections in other countries.

Starting with other countries, the two countries with the most similar election system to the U.S. are the United Kingdom and Canada.  Both use a first-past-the-post system for parliamentary elections, just like most states use for Congressional and Senate elections.  The difference is that — unlike the U.S. — Canada and the U.K. have, at least, three major parties and some parties with regional strength.

In the last U.K. election, the Conservatives won 330 seats out of 650 seats to get a majority.  Out of the 650 seats, the winning candidate got less than 45% in 68 seats, and failed to get a majority in 97 seats.  The Conservatives won 40 of those seats. Continue Reading...

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A Look Abroad — Upcoming Elections

From time to time, I like to take a look at upcoming elections in our allies.  As the recent market fluctuations in response to problem with the Chinese economy show, the U.S. is not immune to feeling the effects of problems in the rest of the word.  Between now and November, there will be elections in Greece, Canada, Portugal, and Turkey.  For now, I want to focus on Greece, Canada, and Turkey.

Greece will hold its second election of 2015 next Sunday, September 20.  This election was almost inevitable after the results of the January election.  The Greek economy has been on shaky ground since the 2008 global recession, and Greece has needed multiple bailouts from its economic partners to avoid defaulting on its loans.  In January 2015, the Greeks voted for a new party (Syrizia) that opposed the concessions made in past bailout deals and promised to be a tough negotiator in the next round.  The problem was that Greece needed a new bailout more than its partners needed to keep Greece afloat.  So the government eventually had to accept a worse deal than its supporters wanted.  Several members of the governing party voted against the deal, costing the government its majority and leading to this second election.

Greece uses a proportional representation system to elect 250 members of parliament.  To reduce the likelihood (endemic to proportional representative systems) of an inconclusive result in which tiny parties hold the balance of power, Greece gives the party that finishes first an additional 50 seats.  As a result, it only takes around 35-40% of the vote  rather than 48-50% to get a majority of the seats.  The question for next week’s election is whether Syrizia will keep their supporters (with voters recognizing the limitations that the Greek government faces) or whether Greek voters will look for some other party promising the impossible. Continue Reading...

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