The Misunderstanding is Strong

What do you get when you both misunderstand math and representative democracy?

This:

Why does it matter what he thinks?

Canada is a representative democracy. We are divided into roughly equal ridings based on population and geography. Each election the eligible voters in those ridings can cast a ballot to choose the person that will represent them in government. The person that wins the most votes, wins the right to represent the riding. This is fundamental to how our government is structured and how it works. And based on that fundamental nature, there is no such thing as the “popular vote.” It would be absolutely wrong for the Lieutenant Governor to reject the will of people as expressed in the legally held election.

This misunderstanding of how our representative democracy works leads to a false conclusion about the will of the people, and then the failure of understanding is compounded by bad math.

YOU CANNOT TAKE THE PERCENTAGE OF THE “POPULAR VOTE” AND THEN DIVIDE IT INTO THE POPULATION AT LARGE. It is a logical fallacy.

Let’s use the popular vote, (even though it is a false construct, because it is so prevalent, it has become it’s own truth. Enough people believe in it that it now has its own power and it distorts all coverage of Canadian politics) as shown here on the CBC News website.

The Progressive Conservatives received 40.8% of the popular vote. 43% of eligible voters participated in the election, so take 40.8 and 43, add a dash of magic, some wishful thinking, a bit of math and presto! the PCs represent less than 20% of eligible voters.

One would think with all of the incessant reporting on political polls that people would understand how representative sampling works. An election is the authoritative representative sample poll that is used to select the people that form government. 43% of eligible voters is a pretty good sized sample size and can be trusted to reflect the will of 100% of eligible voters with well over 90% confidence. Especially when the election day results line up with months and months of sample polls up until election day.

Would it be better for democracy if the vast majority of eligible voters bothered to vote? Yes. If only to shutup this particular argument every *#$& election.

But arguing that the results would be substantially different if everyone voted, creating a more authentic result, requires proof that the election itself is subject to a massive error due to Selection Bias. Requires PROOF. Your opinion is not proof.

All the polls leading up to the election and the election itself make for a very strong and solid argument that 41% of all eligible voters desired a PC representative/government. Any other conclusion is pure conjecture without any evidence whatsoever and is not proof of anything.

I will conclude this by saying this is not an argument for or against First Past the Post or for or against Proportional Representation. The PR argument is often linked to the discussion above, but is actually a separate discussion.

This post is only here to tear apart the bad faith argument made by Thomas Yanuziello and by many others. If you wish to construct a sound argument for PR, do not start with the logic Thomas did. You will be wrong, and it will leave your argument for PR unsound and subject to attack.