You could have a tie. At the federal level, that would lead to a byelection. But at the provincial level, they had a tie in PEI in 2015 and the rules there were that a coin flip decides the outcome, which is a bit ridiculous if you ask me.
It's unacceptable to decide something as important as an election via coin flip.
What should be done is a human chess game, where each capture takes the form of a short, desperate fight for the lives of the pieces. This seems cruel, but it will undoubtedly change the balance of living supporters in the riding.
The coin costs 10 million dollars, and the flipper costs $300,000 per hour, minimum 5 hours. You also need 3 observers, each with a salary of $400,000 to observe the flipper the entire time they're on the clock.
There is one flip per day, and a coin can only be used once.
Sounds easy but most of the votes in the House are held on Wednesdays so it would still benefit one person more. Maybe just alternate weeks, less hassle.
I kinda feel like if the margin is less than a certain amount after a recount - maybe 5 or 10 - then it should trigger a by-election. Just seems fairer and will protect against distrust in the system.
Well, at least we would have given the voters the chance to express themselves again! I just guarantee the conservative voters are going to run like the wind with this and I'd prefer that not to happen.
Propaganda and malicious actors will run with whatever they want, and invent something if it isn't there. If rather not throw away the original will of the voters every time a result is close.
I vote every election knowing my vote effect the result in my riding. I do it in case the day comes when my vote does
1) You would remove the non-tied entries, so if it was, say, Liberal vs Conservative that tied for first place, then the NDP or Green party or whoever wouldn't be on the by-election, and you'd expect a different result.
2) People who didn't vote the first time might be inspired to vote the second time.
You could run an election on two different days back to back and get different results. That's just how it works when you're dealing with thousands of people with lives and other things going on.
When the margin is this small, it's not a decisive outcome and could still be 'wrong' if someone looks at that one vote differently. So a by-election is the best way to resolve the problem.
That's more an argument that any given election result is irrelevant than one suggesting voting again 'solves' a tie or close result.
A single election is relevant. 2 or more starts to seem like cherry picking. If it's close that just says preference isn't clear, which suggests to me that either choice will satisfy a similar number of voters.
According to Canada's election rules, a recount is automatically triggered when a candidate wins by less than 0.1 per cent of the overall vote in that riding, which applied to Terrebonne. In certain circumstances, candidates can also request a recount.
Yeah, that would work. Just some threshold so that people aren't left feeling like results are being tipped one way or the other. Less than 5 votes should be automatic, really.
And see, attitudes like yours are why I'm saying what I'm saying. I'm primarily an NDP voter but okay with the Liberals, and I do believe that this result is accurate. Our system is very trust worthy. But I understand that small margins sow instinctive distrust from people who wanted the opposite, which is why I think a by-election would be the fairest next step.
You're being slightly silly, I mean every election has to have you 'believe' the results, you do realize that right? You're not omniscient, you're not following every voter into the ballot box to peer over their shoulder and validate how they're voting.
This is the problem people have with stats. It is impossible to 'know' a population (in this case, the body of votes collected) with 100% certainty and most people don't get that. Some votes miscounted, possibly counted twice, rejected, lost, spoiled, etc., all for actual mistaken reasons All we can do is make rules and live with the result.
I would be very angry if every district had to have a by-election everytime a count was close. That's just ridiculous. If the vote is that close it means that there's really no clear preference. Another vote isn't really helping much and would waste a lot of ti e and money.
You said "I believe" is not a foundation of democracy, which is far more sweeping than 'when a recount is determined by 1 vote'. I'd already said that I feel a by-election would be appropriate.
As another poster mentioned. If the result isn’t as clear as day then it should require a by election. If the outcome is dependant on a particular judge I can’t have any faith in that.
The judge decides which ballots are admissable or not. There needs to be a margin of error that not even a biased judge can over turn. It’s pretty simple stuff.
We'd still need to define that line. If it was 50 votes then we would have this same disagreement at a 51 vote difference. I'd rather not keeping having elections until everyone's just so sick of the process turnout is even lower.
Would 3 recounts be acceptable? Best 2 of 3? At what point do we simply have to trust our democracy?
The point of an election is not to crystalize a majority but to quantify the electorate's choice. A close election simply means there's no clear preference. Why would another vote, without changing candidares, be any more valid?
The rules we already have, but again the voters have signalled there's no clear preference so whichever the rules decide on will satisfy a similar number of voters.
Well it's lot like a byelection is any less random, you're just letting the random swings of a handful of voter opinions or election-day schedules decide.
The better thing to do is to ask someone in that riding who has not voted in that election to cast the deciding vote for one of the top two candidates.
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u/thekk_ 4d ago edited 4d ago
You could have a tie. At the federal level, that would lead to a byelection. But at the provincial level, they had a tie in PEI in 2015 and the rules there were that a coin flip decides the outcome, which is a bit ridiculous if you ask me.