Quebec, recounts and Proportional Representation

I've made a special map of Quebec that shows not only the 3 ridings likely to undergo recounts, but what things may look like with Proportional Representation.

Remember the map shows the current state of the Assembly, and not the election results.

You'll notice the 20 extra hexes on the map. This shows what a Parallel system would produce with 20 seats, coloured by party.

I am a big fan of parallel systems, and Legault would be well advised to look into one. I've included this here due to its ease of calculation and to quickly show an example of how this might work using Japan as a template.

Japan uses an interesting method to figure out who wins these seats. Instead of a list, which most countries use, Japan ranks the local (riding) candidates. A list still does exist for candidates with no riding, but it is not over-used. For example in 2017 in the Hokkaido region, 4 of the winning candidates ran locally, while 3 were on the list only.

So how is this decided? Using Sekiharititsu. Or, ratio of margin of defeat. Now that word "ratio" may look familiar to regular readers of this blog. All of my projections are done using ratios. As such, I am well set up to calculate the Sekiharititsu of any election. Simply divide two numbers; the number of votes taken by the winner and the number of votes taken by the candidate you are looking at. If, for example, someone takes 10,000 votes in a riding, and wins it, someone who lost and took 9,900 votes, would have a ratio of 99%, a very high number.

In fact, by using the Japanese method, we know who would win in the Quebec election. The candidates from the following ridings:

CAQ:
Duplessis
Laval-des-Rapides
Vimont
Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue
Jean-Lesage
Marie-Victorin
Mille-Îles
Jean-Talon
(Fabre)

PLQ:
Îles-de-la-Madeleine
Huntingdon
Ungava
Châteauguay
Soulanges
(Rivière-du-Loup–Témiscouata)
(Sainte-Rose)

PQ:
Ungava
Gaspé
Abitibi-Ouest
Verchères
(Labelle)
(Bourget)

QS:
Maurice-Richard
Bourget
Marie-Victorin
(Verdun)


You'll notice some extras, riding names in brackets. These are the extra seats that could be won if the party manages to win a recount or two.


The downside of using this method - a single province-wide district, is that it allows regional imbalances to continue; the CAQ for example gains no extra seats on the Island of Montreal. It is quite likely if some sort of parallel system is adopted, it would be regional in nature, at least, as a part or feature of the system. This would allow the CAQ to win additional ridings. As well, as mentioned, in Japan you can have list-only candidates who are preferred when it comes time to dole out the seats. The CAQ in particular would be very likely to have an Anglophone from Montreal on such a list, probably joined with a Francophone from the downtown core.

I will speak more on Proportional Representation in Quebec in a future post (hopefully tomorrow)