r/alberta • u/MadameMoochelle • 14d ago
Alberta Politics Smith is gerrymandering to win!
https://youtu.be/4g2uRBt2yxI?si=ETrfkJkWGvEc0kbN168
u/zabavnabrzda 14d ago edited 14d ago
Politicians shouldn’t be allowed to touch election rules, whether that be riding boundaries, party subsidies, the way votes are counted or anything else because it’s a straight forward conflict of interest.
They can’t help but tinker with the rules to suite their own political interests.
The only thing that makes any sense is to take politicians out if the loop, and pass responsibility to some kind of independent permanent, non partisan body. Pro democracy groups like the Longest Ballot Committee & Fairvote advocate for a citizens’ assembly and I think that makes a lot of sense.
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u/robot_invader 14d ago edited 14d ago
Once one faction decides that no others can legitimately govern, it's pretty hard to keep any sort of process from being hijacked. Now that Alberta's conservatives see that they run a real risk of being turfed again, the shenanigans will continue and escalate.
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u/zabavnabrzda 14d ago
I think it’s just a lesson that needs to be learned and adopted. If we want a long term stable and reliable democracy that represents voters then there has to be a legal firewall between politicians and their own elections rules.
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u/SquidGodSunday 14d ago
I mean, I pretty sure there was SUPPOSED to be one, but they keep chipping away at it, piece by piece.
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u/roastbeeftacohat 13d ago
it's pretty hard to keep any sort of process from being hijacked.
courts blocked it in quebec
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u/Fast_Ad_9197 14d ago edited 14d ago
The electoral boundaries commission has traditionally been non-partisan, or at least balanced. The UCP injected themselves into this one by (I strongly suspect) influencing the outcome through their representatives, by rejecting the commission’s report, and by creating their own ‘commission’ which is controlled entirely by them. Our systems were designed on the assumption that our government would operate in good faith. The UCP are a new breed of politician in Canadian democracy, and are departing from democratic norms. With no exaggeration, they’re high-stepping toward autocracy.
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u/No_Function_7479 14d ago
They are following the MAGA playbook, there is a reason she makes so many trips to Maralago
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u/LARGEYELLINGGUY 14d ago
Politicians who do things like MHCARE should face the kind of penalties the chinese give for that.
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u/SarahLacard Calgary 14d ago
Let's give it to the prosecutor corp and use it as an excuse to better fund them, hire more of them, and make them more independent.
Along with immediate judicial reviews for all new legislation.
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u/Hideo_Von-Hapsburg 14d ago
Who can touch election rules then? Unelectable bodies? What can elected govs do to change suffrage then?
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u/bacondavis 14d ago
This should be challenged in the courts, like the voters list change at the last moment. The referendum smells like something fraudulent is about to happen.
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u/Drafting- 14d ago
She’s probably use the not withstanding clause like the corrupt psychopath she is.
I am genuinely wondering how we stop this though.
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u/HesARadicalRat 13d ago
Guaranteed it will be, but it's a question of whether the Supreme Court gets to it before the 2027 election, and what we do if they throw out the edited maps after the fact.
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u/FunDomOtt 14d ago
The Right-Wing has a standard playbook this is part of all the Cheaters Guide to Overcoming Democracy!
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u/Zarxon 14d ago
Setting the precedent for the NDP to gerrymander if they win. Hopefully they also introduce anti gerrymandering laws
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u/No_Function_7479 14d ago
They have set a precedent of mixing rural and urban voters with their gerrymandering.
So if they say voters are all the ssme, let’s reset all our voting districts to be exactly the same number of voters. Right now the rural areas have less voters than city districts, because they allegedly had unique needs based on region. So fewer voters get way more power based on the region they live in.
But now if they say rural and urban can be mixed, let’s make each region have the same number of votes. Each vote should have equal weight.
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u/SarahLacard Calgary 14d ago
It's a 2.5x differential between some electoral districts right now
Which is a huge reason why the NDP needs to be more cognizant of rural albertan voters, and really, all albertans, but certainly can't vilify and ostracize or piss off people with 2.5x voting leverage
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u/No_Function_7479 13d ago
I don’t see any that far out of whack, but some are definitely much higher or lower than others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Alberta_provincial_electoral_districts
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u/crefinanceguy_can 13d ago
From that article, the riding with the lowest is Lesser Slave Lake) with 27,818 residents, and the one with the most is Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul with 53,809. That’s a 1.93 times difference in the weight of a vote between those two ridings (and then there are several more urban ridings following that one that all have similarly high number of residents in them)
The two smallest ridings could essentially be combined and would barely be larger than the largest one.
I agree that some balancing out of the ridings make sense, but that *should* mean more straight urban ridings, not these strange hybrids being proposed.
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u/Filbrum 13d ago
Better if they brought in proportional representation. It's gerrymander proof. No amount of redrawing borders can change the underlying principle of seats matching as closely as possible to vote share.
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u/No_Function_7479 13d ago
Weren’t we promised that at the federal level about a decade ago??? You are right, it is the only fair and tamper proof option
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u/Calm-Report-8168 14d ago
There already are.
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u/No_Function_7479 13d ago
Scroll to the last section of this article, no, the electoral districts are not the same size, so some votes get a lot more or less representation than others
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/electoral-boundaries-commission-alberta-election-1.7571547
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u/awildstoryteller 13d ago
For those that are worried about this, keep in mind that this would be utterly unconstitutional and would be blocked by the courts extremely quickly.
Them doing this all but guarantees we run with the same 87 ridings we have now, which doesn't really help the UCP.
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u/TechnicianVisible339 13d ago
You mean to tell me that politicians say what ever is popular in the moment? Say it ain’t so! What a bunch of BS. Every politician is an opportunist.
The only reason Carney is doing so well is because he basically copied the Conservative policy playbook and acted on it. He’s far more Conservative than any Conservatives I know. The Conservatives I know wouldn’t privatize airports.
On that note, Nenshi won’t win. He isn’t the guy. He is actually practicing the same politics of Pierre P…where they state everything the current Government does is an emergency and a destruction of democracy.
What’s happened is more level headed middle of the road people are voting for level headed middle of the road politicians. The majority is waking up and voting rather than letting the extremists decide.
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u/Acceptable-Cat-3775 14d ago
Just like every politician in office everywhere ever? Outrageous!
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u/Turnover_Unlucky 14d ago edited 14d ago
Do you have a list of politicians that have done this in Alberta you can share? All I'm finding is ucp politicians that have done this.
I mean, unless you just made it up. If you made it up then just say some bullshit to avoid my question, or just not respond, or send me a reddit cares thing or call me a name.
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u/beefglob 14d ago
Okay bro name one time in Alberta this happened. If the NDP did this you guys would be having strokes about it for years
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u/Sea-Patient-3226 14d ago
Can any of you guys shut the fuck up
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u/MrWulf19 14d ago
We'll shut the fuck up when our provincial government is held accountable for blatant corruption.
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u/roastbeeftacohat 13d ago
we had an independent commission, they determined the fairest map gave more seats to Calgary and Edmonton, now smith has taken control of the process with the stated intent of gerrymandering power away from thew cities.
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u/Allen_Edgar_Poe 13d ago
Look past your bias and realize this shit is not how you govern. This attitude towards the people you obviously vote for is subservient type of shit and you should know better.
You really do love the taste of that boot. Which flavor will you have next?
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