{"id":1716,"date":"2011-11-09T17:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T23:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2011-11-09T17:00:10","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T23:00:10","slug":"ndp-capture-majority-minority-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/2011\/11\/09\/ndp-capture-majority-minority-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP Capture Majority of the Minority of the Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SASKATOON (SBP) &#8212; By capturing over 99% of the minority of votes cast in the 2011 election, the Provincial NDP and Green Parties have resurrected the debate over whether such a statistical achievement should result in them actually forming government.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This clearly shows that something has to be done about a system that is broken.&#8221; said an NDP representative who was filling in for the currently missing Dwaine Lingenfelter, &#8220;How in the world does it make any sense that we can get nine-tenths of the second place vote and still not form government?  It just defies logic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In order to regain control of the Saskatchewan Legislature, the NDP have suggested that new voting schemes may have to be employed.  Recent &#8220;vote trading&#8221; strategies by political activists in the federal election, while unsuccessful, are just one of the likely ideas that will be brought forth when the Legislature resumes in December.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we were to take all the extra votes from the seats that we won and put those in the other close seats that we lost, we likely would have a much different outcome,&#8221; said an NDP strategist, &#8220;For instance, instead of winning just 9 seats out of 58, you distribute those extra votes and, we likely would have won a total of 10 seats.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And, that&#8217;s all the difference in the world between being the opposition and being the&#8230;how about that local professional sports team?  What are they called again?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Representatives from other parties also weighed in on the voting-to-seat discrepancy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We believe in representation by percentage of vote.  Based on that formula, we should be given at least 2 seats.&#8221; said a Green Party representative, &#8220;This way &#8212; Gaia willing &#8212; we can represent random constituencies where 99% of the people don&#8217;t think the way we do and we can serve them best by ignoring their concerns and pushing ahead with our own agenda.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Normally, we wouldn&#8217;t complain about such things if we were running the province.&#8221; continued the Green Party rep, &#8220;And, should we run the province, then that would be the only time it wouldn&#8217;t be okay to have representation by percentage of vote.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Because the current system is not fair to those who can&#8217;t relate to majority opinion, opposition parties vow to continue to push for ways to rule the province.  <\/p>\n<p>Said the Green Party rep, &#8220;Think of it in the same way that it&#8217;s easier to drive a car from places like the back seat or the trunk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s only fair and it makes sense.&#8221; said the NDP spokesperson, &#8220;After all, we are the 99% of the 35%.  You just can&#8217;t argue with those numbers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>[paypal-donation]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SASKATOON (SBP) &#8212; By capturing over 99% of the minority of votes cast in the 2011 election, the Provincial NDP and Green Parties have resurrected the debate over whether such a statistical achievement should result in them actually forming government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1731,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions\/1731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}