Watching the plebiscite on proportional representation unfold you can't stop thinking we've been here before.

The province feels like it's in a perpetual state of electoral reform.

Islanders will decide on November 28 how extreme our electoral system makeover will be.

In the past, there have been drastic changes made to the province's political landscape. But this time Islanders will vote in a plebiscite, with pre-determined thresholds for change. The dual riding system provided that opportunity until a decade ago. It was a simple system to understand: two members were elected to the legislature and represented the same district.

Province House in Charlottetown

History

What seems most familiar is that the Island used to have its own form of proportional representation. The first use of dual member ridings began in 1893 and continued in different forms until nine years ago.

That first system saw a total of 30 men elected to the legislature. Fifteen assemblymen were elected by all men of voting age, while the other 15 councillors were elected by a vote of all men who owned property worth at least $350.

Over the decades the number of ridings and seats changed and women and native peoples were given the right to vote, but the dual riding system stayed in place until 1996.

That system did give Islanders a chance to cast two votes, one for their assemblyman and another for councillor.

In time for the 1996 general election, the province's electoral boundaries commission recommended moving away from the dual-member system. Their report came as a result of a 1991 court challenge over the fairness of the ridings and urban versus rural representation.

Political pendulum swings

The talk of electoral reform started to heat up in 2000 as Islanders woke to yet another lopsided election victory. The habit among voters had become to give either the Liberals or Tories an overwhelming majority, then wipe them off the map and replace the governing party with an equally strong majority for the other party.

The system, and the extreme voting patterns, made it almost impossible for third parties such as the NDP to grow.

There had been four provincial governments with little opposition. In 1989 there were two PC members in opposition to the Liberal's 30-strong caucus. After the 1993 election the Tories found themselves with a single opposition member.

Tories were swept to power in 1996, with seven Liberals and one NDP MLA. It gave the Island its most vigorous opposition in a decade.

After the 2000 election the opposition dropped to a single Liberal member.

In 2001, a report conducted by Elections P.E.I. pushed forward the discussion of proportional representation. The principle, in use around the world, might lead to what some observers call a more accurate result of voting patterns.

In January 2003, Premier Pat Binns made good on an election promise and created the P.E.I. Electoral Reform Commission. It was a one-person commission headed by retired justice Norman Carruthers.

In the 2003 election, the Liberal opposition elected three members.

Representation, in proportion

When Norman Carruthers reported back to Premier Binns in December 2003 he recommended the province explore one of two electoral systems as the best alternatives to our current first past the post system.

He recommended either a:

· Mixed member proportional, or
· Single transferable vote.

Carruthers said his choice would be the mixed member proportional system, which is used in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales.

Under the commission's plan the P.E.I. Legislature would have 30 seats, up from the current 27. Twenty of the seats would be contested under the current first past the post system, with candidates running in districts and representing a political party.

The remaining 10 seats would be awarded to candidates by the percentages of popular vote.

The premier was non-committal. More to the point, he believed the public was unconvinced.

"I would not want to impose a change on an unwilling electorate," Binns said in 2003. "I'm not saying they are unwilling. But to this point they have not been engaged despite the efforts of commissioner Carruthers and everyone who has submitted briefs to cause a major groundswell of discussion by Islanders about this."

Binns took the next step December 2004 as a flurry of legislation passed before MLAs wrapped up business for Christmas. One of the bills called for an eight-person commission to be appointed to oversee a plebiscite on the electoral future of P.E.I.

This second commission returned with a recommendation of a 27 seat legislature with 17 seats being contested by district and 10 more proportionally won by popular vote. The commission also recommended the Closed List party system to determine who could be elected into the proportionally represented seats.

Each party would come up with its preferred list of candidates, and then rank them.

On election day voters would cast two votes: one for an individual candidate running in their district and a second vote for the party of their choice.

The second commission recommended a blended system where individual candidates would be elected to represent a district, and additional members-at-large would be elected based on the number of votes received by their party.

Anyone who wanted to be a candidate on the first ballot could register with Elections P.E.I. in the usual manner. But the political parties themselves would decide who was eligible to be on the "closed" party list, and the order in which their names would appear.

During recent public hearings on the proposed system many people expressed concern over the closed lists, fearing the system would allow the parties too much control and that the lists might not reflect rural and urban areas, or could ignore women and minorities.

There is an argument that the system for determining the proportional seats rewards parties that perform poorly in the districts. Critics also say that the method used to determine the "party" seats would guarantee a series of minority governments.

The commission on P.E.I.'s Electoral Future considered making changes to its proposed closed party list system but decided against it, saying there was not enough time to educate the public about the system and also conduct the plebiscite.

The future

Regardless of how the plebiscite vote goes on November 28 there will still be other changes to the province's electoral system.

The electoral boundaries commission has already recommended that rural Prince Edward Island has too much representation and there needs to be a re-distribution of the province's districts.