Canada PoliERA |OT| Two Years of Sunny Days? That’s Scheer Madness!

mo60 · Jan 10, 2018

The UCP's policy convention framework for their policy convention was released recently and a lot of the policy that the UCP rank and file will discuss in May is in the framework like a decrease of the small business tax to zero, the increase of private health care services to allievate long wait times, the reintroduction of the flat tax and a bunch of other policy proposals. None of this is final, but I am not entirely sure if these policy proposals are good enough for the Alberta electorate at the moment. Some of them seem a bit to extreme like the decrease of the small buisness tax to zero.

Link
http://calgaryherald.com/news/polit...lberta-flat-tax-increased-private-health-care

SRG01 · Jan 10, 2018

I mean, if we really wanted to prevent fringe extremist parties from entering parliament with PR, all you have to do is to set up a minimum threshold like many parts of Europe.

mo60 said:
The UCP's policy convention framework for their policy convention was released recently and a lot of the policy that the UCP rank and file will discuss in May is in the framework like a decrease of the small business tax to zero, the introduction of private health care services to complement the public health care services in Alberta currently to allievate long wait times, the reintroduction of the tax and a bunch of other policy proposals. None of this is final, but I am not entirely sure if these policy proposals are good enough for the Alberta electorate at the moment. Some of them seem a bit to extreme like the decrease of the small buisness tax to zero.

Do they mean privately-funded, fee-for-care health care services? Private health care already exists in Alberta, albeit privately owned publicly funded.

mo60 · Jan 10, 2018

SRG01 said:
I mean, if we really wanted to prevent fringe extremist parties from entering parliament with PR, all you have to do is to set up a minimum threshold like many parts of Europe.

Do they mean privately-funded, fee-for-care health care services? Private health care already exists in Alberta, albeit privately owned publicly funded.

It looks like they want to increase private health care services in Alberta which Klein tried decades ago but was never able to pull it off because of heavy criticism over what he was planning.No one knows what shape the proposed new private health care services will take yet.

Vibranium · Jan 10, 2018

firehawk12 said:
BC will save us. I can't believe it, but it seems like the Green party will be the one that saves us from FPTP.

Hopefully, but we've got a lot of people fearmongering PR in provincial media already, from editorials to letters. And of course those people fail to acknowledge that safeguards and thresholds can be put in place.

Caz · Jan 10, 2018

firehawk12 said:
BC will save us. I can't believe it, but it seems like the Green party will be the one that saves us from FPTP.

Let's wait for the referendum results to come in before we declare them our savior. Recall that this isn't the first time they tried to abolish the FPTP system in B.C. via a referendum, and last I recall, that referendum had the majority supported changing from FPTP, only to be stopped due to the minuscule margin. That said, I echo the threshold suggestion that's been brought up if one is concerned about, say, The Rebel or the Aryan Guard taking up a seat in Parliament.

firehawk12 · Jan 10, 2018

I'm hoping it's Quebec-style, 50+1, and none of that crap in the last BC electoral reform referendum.
And honestly, I don't mind the fringe parties getting in because it means the fringe left parties also have a chance. It'd also formalize the regionalism that already exists in our public poltiics and would potentially break up the Ontario/Quebec power bloc that basically defines who wins an election. Presumably they would also keep some form of party minimum so that any fringe parties would have to work with a mainstream party for speaking privileges, budgets, and all that stuff and I can't imagine the CPC would want to directly enter a coalition with someone on the far right anyway.

Tiktaalik · Jan 10, 2018

There's almost no chance it won't be 50% + 1. I think I recall hearing a pre-election interview with Horgan where he explicitly said it would be 50% + 1 and that the NDP would campaign on the Yes side.

The results of the 2005 referendum were 57.69% for electoral change, with 77/79 ridings voting in favour.

This did not meet the 60% super majority threshold.

Here's a fun question for fans of the Clarity Act, is that a "clear majority" or not? You'd think it would cause quite a stir in Quebec if Parliament decided it wasn't.

Gabbo · Jan 11, 2018

Those groups would be more marginalized than Elizabeth May, but I do agree with a threshhold being put in place for such issues anyway.

Karateka · Jan 11, 2018

So how big a deal is this aga khan thing and why do i keep hearing about it?
Can trudeau go to jail or get a fine or what?

djkimothy · Jan 11, 2018

SRG01 said:
I mean, if we really wanted to prevent fringe extremist parties from entering parliament with PR, all you have to do is to set up a minimum threshold like many parts of Europe.

Do they mean privately-funded, fee-for-care health care services? Private health care already exists in Alberta, albeit privately owned publicly funded.

This was discussed on a CBC podcast i think with eric grenier with respect to election debates but is somewhat related to this. The problem is, what's the threshold, if it's too high, the green party is excluded. If too low, the rhinoceros party will be included (which would be hilarious...). And who determines the threshold? The solution is tougher than most people think and will eventually lead to no consensus much like the electoral reform committee. Every party wants something different and won't budge so any decision made will be construed as a partisan move.

Karateka said:
So how big a deal is this aga khan thing and why do i keep hearing about it?
Can trudeau go to jail or get a fine or what?

There is no sanction. He violated a rule interpreted by the ethics commissioner. It ends there. It's a weird situation because it's a new rule (2006?) so no one knows where to go from here other than scoring political points.

It;s not exactly damning because I don't think Trudeau had corrupt intent. I mean, his crime was accepting a helicopter ride.

Deleted member 12950 · Jan 11, 2018

Karateka said:
So how big a deal is this aga khan thing and why do i keep hearing about it?
Can trudeau go to jail or get a fine or what?

There's no fine or jail or anything like that, the only penalty's what damage it will do politically.

I saw a U of A law professor point out on Twitter that Trudeau may have violated a section of the criminal code by accepting the vacation as a gift from someone who does business with the government but another law prof disagreed and it's not like the RCMP's started an investigation or anything. It's only a political thing.

SRG01 · Jan 11, 2018

djkimothy said:
This was discussed on a CBC podcast i think with eric grenier with respect to election debates but is somewhat related to this. The problem is, what's the threshold, if it's too high, the green party is excluded. If too low, the rhinoceros party will be included (which would be hilarious...). And who determines the threshold? The solution is tougher than most people think and will eventually lead to no consensus much like the electoral reform committee. Every party wants something different and won't budge so any decision made will be construed as a partisan move.

This is why I prefer AV and similar systems, by the way. No more questions about thresholds and open/closed ballots. Just an addition on top of the current FPTP system, but increases the possibility of crossing the 50% threshold instead of the current 30-40something percentages to win.

TheTrinity · Jan 11, 2018

Why do we care about extremist parties getting seats in parliament? If enough people vote for a party that it passes the X percentage that equals a seat, they should get the seat. If that's what the people want, that's what they should get.

Randomly Generated · Jan 11, 2018

Wormdundee said:
Why do we care about extremist parties getting seats in parliament? If enough people vote for a party that it passes the X percentage that equals a seat, they should get the seat. If that's what the people want, that's what they should get.

I think the fear is you end up with scary fringe parties, and due to a fractured minority parliament, they end up with some power.

Tiktaalik · Jan 11, 2018

If the Christian Heritage Party, the Communist Party and the Labrador Nationalist Party all manage to get 5%[1] of the national vote and are entitled to a couple of seats that's fine with me.

The opposite idea is more disturbing to me; the notion that people shouldn't have their (non hate speech) views represented at all just because the majority deems them "too extreme" and the majority doesn't agree with them.

No government is going to be forced into doing something unreasonable just because the budget rests on an unreasonable request from a fringe party. They'll just have another election.

[1] which amounts to 877,967 persons based on turnout from the last election.

killerrin · Jan 11, 2018

Tiktaalik said:
If the Christian Heritage Party, the Communist Party and the Labrador Nationalist Party all manage to get 5%[1] of the national vote and are entitled to a couple of seats that's fine with me.

The opposite idea is more disturbing to me; the notion that people shouldn't have their (non hate speech) views represented at all just because the majority deems them "too extreme" and the majority doesn't agree with them.

No government is going to be forced into doing something unreasonable just because the budget rests on an unreasonable request from a fringe party. They'll just have another election.

[1] which amounts to 877,967 persons based on turnout from the last election.

Not to mention, all proportional systems have mechanisms which can help mitigate the problem. With MMP its minimum vote counts or a win in a local non-pr riding. With STV its going to be the ranking order.

gutter_trash · Jan 11, 2018

I have zero patience for small fringe parties and don't wish to give them any time or legitimacy.

Preferential Ballot is the only way. I would vote 1) Liberal, 2) NDP, 3) abstain

AuthenticM · Jan 11, 2018

Wormdundee said:
Why do we care about extremist parties getting seats in parliament?

is this a serious question

firehawk12 · Jan 11, 2018

Randomly Generated said:
I think the fear is you end up with scary fringe parties, and due to a fractured minority parliament, they end up with some power.

The stupid thing is that Britain has a FPTP system and fringe parties are controlling the government, so it's not like it matters. If you get enough crazies to choose to live in one area (not that I'm suggesting that the DUP are crazies, even if they are :p) then they'll win seats in a FPTP system anyway.

Caz · Jan 11, 2018

Randomly Generated said:
I think the fear is you end up with scary fringe parties, and due to a fractured minority parliament, they end up with some power.

Something like this; you can see the problem with this lack of provision under the FPTP system via the UK's most recent election: Despite the DUP (an openly homophobic party) garnering less than 1% of the overall vote, they've become the kingmakers following said election with 10 seats that they wouldn't have if they were under an MMP or ranked ballot system.

Tiktaalik · Jan 11, 2018

Reminder you can end up with a fringe party holding the balance of power in a fractured minority government with FPTP too. (eg. BC right now)

And yep regional parties can also do disproportionately well which could resultantly create minority governments. FPTP made the Bloc Quebecois Official Opposition with only 13.5% of the vote in 1993.

Sean C. · Jan 11, 2018

Tiktaalik said:
Reminder you can end up with a fringe party holding the balance of power in a fractured minority government with FPTP too. (eg. BC right now)

I wouldn't call the BC Greens a fringe party. They received 17% of the vote last time.

The general point is correct, of course.

Gabbo · Jan 12, 2018

Tiktaalik said:
Reminder you can end up with a fringe party holding the balance of power in a fractured minority government with FPTP too. (eg. BC right now)

I think it's a little disengenuous to label the Green Party as fringe at any level of government at this point in time.

Your overall point is true, but generally requires one of the big parties to collapse in on itself in order to happen

Tiktaalik · Jan 12, 2018

BC Greens had a breakout result in this last election, but for the last four elections they've been at ~8-9%.
In the last three elections the Federal Greens have got 3%, 4% and 6%. Pretty fringe imo.

The point is that with hyper regionalized support in FPTP you can elect MPs even with little broad support. This can cause minority governments. Is this a problem? I don't see why we're pointing out that in PR systems governments can supposedly be held hostage by fringe parties (which is bs of course) when the same scenario is possible in FPTP.

I love fringe parties btw. More narrowly focused protest parties!

gutter_trash · Jan 12, 2018

Tiktaalik said:
Reminder you can end up with a fringe party holding the balance of power in a fractured minority government with FPTP too. (eg. BC right now)

And yep regional parties can also do disproportionately well which could resultantly create minority governments. FPTP made the Bloc Quebecois Official Opposition with only 13.5% of the vote in 1993.

the Bloc benefited from FPTP in a disgusting fashion. Two caribous in the Chibougamau were worth more votes than 10k in Down-Town Montreal

TheTrinity · Jan 12, 2018

AuthenticM said:
is this a serious question

I appreciate that other people put more thought into their responses than you did. I'm not being disingenuous.

And I see your point gutter_trash, but when does a fringe party become a party worth representation? Obviously we cannot have 100% proportional representation since there aren't enough seats for everything to be perfectly even. My point was simply that if a party gets the minimum percentage (whatever that may be for practical reasons), they should get a seat. Maybe they'll end up being the swing vote between 2 power players, maybe they won't. Personally, I have no issue with it being very unusual to have a majority government. I voted Liberal federally and I think it's ridiculous that they ended up with a majority government.

On the other hand, I'm not so strongly against ranked ballot as I used to be, but it's still not my first choice.

Cryptosporidium · Jan 12, 2018

PR is more or less a stepping stone towards more complex electoral systems.

I do want to see how a modern FPTP transitions over and which and how parties start to spring up

killerrin · Jan 12, 2018

Cryptosporidium said:
PR is more or less a stepping stone towards more complex electoral systems.

I do want to see how a modern FPTP transitions over and which and how parties start to spring up

You can pretty much guesstimate new parties pretty easily. CPC splits into two (Economical Conservative, Social Conservative). Green party becomes a major party. NDP Splits into two, one that's more towards the center and one that's more along its traditional roots. A wing or two will likely split off the LPC and either form their own parties or join one of the new spinoffs from the NDP or CPC. The top two parties in vote percentage which didn't earn a seat become minor parties.

Cryptosporidium · Jan 12, 2018

killerrin said:
You can pretty much guesstimate new parties pretty easily. CPC splits into two (Economical Conservative, Social Conservative). Green party becomes a major party. NDP Splits into two, one that's more towards the center and one that's more along its traditional roots. A wing or two will likely split off the LPC and either form their own parties or join one of the new spinoffs from the NDP or CPC. The top two parties in vote percentage which didn't earn a seat become minor parties.

I agree with this. I imagine though that a regional party will either arise or break off from the CPC to cater fully to the west. Wedge issues will weaken but they can still be the triggering point for party emergence and there is enough 'capital' to create a conservative party that 'says' it has western i interest at heart.

I do want to learn more about societal evolution, the short history of political party prominence, and electoral systems before I guarantee this scenario. Im not incredibly well versed on these issues though i do have a fundamental understanding of each

gutter_trash · Jan 12, 2018

the Conservatives are not going to dial back their embrace of Reform Party Social Conservatism. They have dug deeper and deeper further and further to the Right with each subsequent leader.
the Joe Clark PC or the Brian Mulroney PC is a page of history relegated to the past.

the Conservatives are now a bonnfied Far-Right Wing Party and they are doing nothing to return to Center.

Provincially, the Ontario PC is moving more to the Right, Alberta UCP has moved further to the Right, in Quebec the CAQ is doubling down on Ethnic Nationalism to the Right

SRG01 · Jan 12, 2018

gutter_trash said:
the Conservatives are not going to dial back their embrace of Reform Party Social Conservatism. They have dug deeper and deeper further and further to the Right with each subsequent leader.
the Joe Clark PC or the Brian Mulroney PC is a page of history relegated to the past.

the Conservatives are now a bonnfied Far-Right Wing Party and they are doing nothing to return to Center.

Provincially, the Ontario PC is moving more to the Right, Alberta UCP has moved further to the Right, in Quebec the CAQ is doubling down on Ethnic Nationalism to the Right

Ironically, the Harper CPC was their last attempt at moving towards the center (or at least the appearance of it) when he was heavily regarded as one of the more right-leaning leaders in PC/CPC/Reform's history.

killerrin · Jan 12, 2018

gutter_trash said:
the Conservatives are not going to dial back their embrace of Reform Party Social Conservatism. They have dug deeper and deeper further and further to the Right with each subsequent leader.
the Joe Clark PC or the Brian Mulroney PC is a page of history relegated to the past.

the Conservatives are now a bonnfied Far-Right Wing Party and they are doing nothing to return to Center.

Provincially, the Ontario PC is moving more to the Right, Alberta UCP has moved further to the Right, in Quebec the CAQ is doubling down on Ethnic Nationalism to the Right

That's because FPTP rewards their current behaviours. Do you seriously think the CPC would have ever merged together if they could win elections in its base elements?

Conservatives know they have their vote locked down because they know there vote has no where else to go. They know there vote has nowhere else to go because the only 2 options for pure conservatives merged together to give them one choice a decade ago. They know nothing will form to compete with them because they know any attempt to do so will cause them to consistently lose elections again as they split their vote again

gutter_trash · Jan 12, 2018

the rise of Social Conservatism has nothing to do with FPTP or Proportional Representation.
most Social Conservative voters don't even know the difference.

now, if you are arguing about the irrelevancy of the Old PC being forgotten into oblivion;
well they had a disastrous decade in office with two major recessions, hiking interests rates and horrible employment numbers. That Mulroney reign was an economic, employment hole.

Did Preston Manning's creation of the Reform Party harm the PC? perhaps in the West but out in the East we did not have a Reform Party to cannibaise PC seats. From Ontario to Newfoundland, only TWO, I repeat TWO PC MPs were re-elected: Elsie Wane (Saint-John) and Jean Charest (Sherbrooke)

Tiktaalik · Jan 12, 2018

In the 1993 election the PCs got 16% of the vote and 2 seats while Reform got 18% of the vote and 52 seats.

I think one could argue that the distorted electoral outcome that FPTP induced, which wiped the PCs off the map despite their level of support, contributed very strongly to the death of the party.

In a more proportional system the PCs would have been much more the equals of the Reform Party, and reasonably likely that PC party could still be around today.

Mr.Mike · Jan 13, 2018

I oppose any voting system with complicated ballots on the basis that it would encourage the use of voting machines. Ballots should be paper and hand counted.

killerrin · Jan 13, 2018

Mr.Mike said:
I oppose any voting system with complicated ballots on the basis that it would encourage the use of voting machines. Ballots should be paper and hand counted.

This goes back to one thing though. Are Proportional or Preferential Ballots really that complicated? Sure the methodologies behind them are super complex, but the science behind how a computer works is also super complicated yet I don't need to know how electrons move between metal to understand how to open my email, browse the web or code up an application (as long as I'm not going as low as possible). The same goes for ballots. There are really only a couple ways. You either number your candidates from favourite to least favourite, or you check one or multiple candidates.

Being as generic as possible...

Under systems where you are counting rankings, you go through the ballot and either...
- Add up all the numbers for a single candidate across all the votes. Do this for all candidates. Person with the least/most wins
- Count the votes multiple times, each time dropping off last place before you count again. Last one left is winner

Under systems where its a proportional...
- Count all the votes like a FPTP once then divide the seat availability by each party's total vote to get a percentage. Thats how many seats they win

It's nothing you couldn't do by hand if you doubled the amount of time to count the ballots. It's mainly all down to a cost cutting measure. But even then, the types of electronic voting machines he describes in the video the machines are black box ones. You could just as easily have a voting machine with a UI that you have to manually scan or even type each vote into. You could then see your data update in real time and if the value is off you know immediately something is up. Once all the votes were scanned in you could have the election managers just click a button which would walk you step by step and print out the calculations and results it does on screen for verification. Once again, you could have someone with a calculator off to the side double checking this to make sure all the numbers matched up so you would know immediately if something was up. For the more complex systems that use Ranked Ballots, you could have the computer print out the steps and stages along the way. You could even have it randomize the inputs and export an excel document to post on the Elections Canada website for anyone to run their own tests to verify it.

Of course though, this would all be coupled by sending the actual paper ballots to the Elections Canada HQ for the final count. Or this could just be something they do on their locked down non-network accessible hardware in their back office, like they probably already do.

Point being, its all about transparency. Of course a black box is a security hazard, its the tradeoff of having a black box. If you instead open things up and show the person overseeing what the computer is doing and where it is getting the numbers for (Which would be considered good UI for this type of application) then things are less likely to go wrong. And if they did, they can be caught since they will be out in the open for all to see.

Fuzzy · Jan 13, 2018

How much trouble has Markham had since they started offering online voting for their municipal elections 15 years ago?

Randomly Generated · Jan 13, 2018

All I know is, with everyone we've learned about Russian meddling in various elections, any sort of e-voting seems terrifying. Not just the possibility of something happening, but the optics of it even looking like something happened.

Mr.Mike · Jan 13, 2018

killerrin said:
This goes back to one thing though. Are Proportional or Preferential Ballots really that complicated? Sure the methodologies behind them are super complex, but the science behind how a computer works is also super complicated yet I don't need to know how electrons move between metal to understand how to open my email, browse the web or code up an application (as long as I'm not going as low as possible). The same goes for ballots. There are really only a couple ways. You either number your candidates from favourite to least favourite, or you check one or multiple candidates.

Being as generic as possible...

Under systems where you are counting rankings, you go through the ballot and either...
- Add up all the numbers for a single candidate across all the votes. Do this for all candidates. Person with the least/most wins
- Count the votes multiple times, each time dropping off last place before you count again. Last one left is winner

Under systems where its a proportional...
- Count all the votes like a FPTP once then divide the seat availability by each party's total vote to get a percentage. Thats how many seats they win

It's nothing you couldn't do by hand if you doubled the amount of time to count the ballots. It's mainly all down to a cost cutting measure. But even then, the types of electronic voting machines he describes in the video the machines are black box ones. You could just as easily have a voting machine with a UI that you have to manually scan or even type each vote into. You could then see your data update in real time and if the value is off you know immediately something is up. Once all the votes were scanned in you could have the election managers just click a button which would walk you step by step and print out the calculations and results it does on screen for verification. Once again, you could have someone with a calculator off to the side double checking this to make sure all the numbers matched up so you would know immediately if something was up. For the more complex systems that use Ranked Ballots, you could have the computer print out the steps and stages along the way. You could even have it randomize the inputs and export an excel document to post on the Elections Canada website for anyone to run their own tests to verify it.

Of course though, this would all be coupled by sending the actual paper ballots to the Elections Canada HQ for the final count. Or this could just be something they do on their locked down non-network accessible hardware in their back office, like they probably already do.

Point being, its all about transparency. Of course a black box is a security hazard, its the tradeoff of having a black box. If you instead open things up and show the person overseeing what the computer is doing and where it is getting the numbers for (Which would be considered good UI for this type of application) then things are less likely to go wrong. And if they did, they can be caught since they will be out in the open for all to see.

It is possible to do a more complicated voting system without electronic voting, and I'd be fine with that.

There are a lot of things someone might try to achieve by attacking a voting system. They might try to change the results of the election. Maybe they'd be satisfied casting doubt on the legitimacy of an election. Or maybe they'd just like to steal away some more detailed voter data than is intended to be public.

A machine updating and displaying tallies in real time as votes are cast would leak information about who voted for who, compromising the secrecy of voting. Maybe a party sees things aren't going well for them at a specific polling station and start doing some sort of voter suppression there. Or even maybe they see they are doing pretty well at a specific polling station and increase GOTV efforts in that area.

A compromised machine might display, print and report the correct tallies to local election officials but send modified tallies to Elections Canada. This might be caught with paper backups but then you'd just get a bunch of headlines about the election being hacked which would be a huge drag on people's faith in the system and enormously damaging on it's own. And of course the paper copy isn't fool-proof either. What happens if the party that won the electronic vote starts trying to discredit the paper ballots to hold onto victory?

Ultimately you'd end up relying on the paper ballots anyway, so you might as well just do that from the start. In a best case you save a little bit of time, and even then it probably doesn't really take that long to tally up the ballots at a single polling station anyway. In a worst case you get an incongruence between the electronic and paper results, which at that point shakes faith in the election at best, or causes a partisan split on which result is legitimate at worst.

"But remember: the fact you are not paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you or compromise your system." - Cryptography Engineering

killerrin · Jan 13, 2018

Mr.Mike said:
It is possible to do a more complicated voting system without electronic voting, and I'd be fine with that.

There are a lot of things someone might try to achieve by attacking a voting system. They might try to change the results of the election. Maybe they'd be satisfied casting doubt on the legitimacy of an election. Or maybe they'd just like to steal away some more detailed voter data than is intended to be public.

A machine updating and displaying tallies in real time as votes are cast would leak information about who voted for who, compromising the secrecy of voting. Maybe a party sees things aren't going well for them at a specific polling station and start doing some sort of voter suppression there. Or even maybe they see they are doing pretty well at a specific polling station and increase GOTV efforts in that area.

A compromised machine might display, print and report the correct tallies to local election officials but send modified tallies to Elections Canada. This might be caught with paper backups but then you'd just get a bunch of headlines about the election being hacked which would be a huge drag on people's faith in the system and enormously damaging on it's own. And of course the paper copy isn't fool-proof either. What happens if the party that won the electronic vote starts trying to discredit the paper ballots to hold onto victory?

Ultimately you'd end up relying on the paper ballots anyway, so you might as well just do that from the start. In a best case you save a little bit of time, and even then it probably doesn't really take that long to tally up the ballots at a single polling station anyway. In a worst case you get an incongruence between the electronic and paper results, which at that point shakes faith in the election at best, or causes a partisan split on which result is legitimate at worst.

"But remember: the fact you are not paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you or compromise your system." - Cryptography Engineering

I wasn't talking about a machine tallying in real time. That would be stupid for all the reasons you mentioned. What I spoke of would have been say a separate counting machine specifically for counting after the polls closed. Those you could secure easily using all the methods I listed above.

But in what I listed its not the digital files that would get sent to elections Canada, it would be the paper slips and actual ballots, or the totals using the same tools and procedures they send to Elections Canada today to report the state of their polls when all is said and done.

In this scenario the machine is purely for counting and requires manual reporting. The properly designed UI and functionality so that they can automate the counting while being able to see at a glance the moment something goes wrong (if it goes wrong). This mixed with that final printout which would be matched with what was on the machine when the print button was clicked.

Mr.Mike · Jan 13, 2018

Seattle-area rents drop significantly for first time this decade as new apartments sit empty

Rents are dropping significantly across the Seattle area for the first time this decade, as a flood of new construction has left apartments sitting empty in Seattle's hottest neighborhoods.

The average rent across King and Snohomish counties dipped 2.9 percent in December compared with the prior quarter, according to a new quarterly landlord survey by Apartment Insights/RealData.

Rents sometimes drop by a few bucks this time of year. But the latest quarterly drop is the biggest this decade by far, and amounted to a savings of about $50 a month for the average renter across the region.

In neighborhoods in and around downtown Seattle, the dip equates to an average of $100 in monthly savings for renters signing new leases.

The biggest rent decreases were mostly in the popular Seattle neighborhoods that are getting the most new apartments. Rents dipped more than 6 percent compared with the prior quarter in First Hill, downtown Seattle, Belltown, South Lake Union and Ballard, along with Redmond and the Sammamish/Issaquah area.

Compared with a year earlier, rents still increased 4.5 percent regionwide, but that was the slowest year-over-year growth since 2011 and down from the double-digit increases that became common over the last few years.

The slowdown comes as the number of new apartments opening across the area has hit record levels and has begun to significantly outpace the number of new renters.

More apartments are sitting empty — particularly throughout downtown Seattle — giving renters more negotiating power over landlords. And even more new apartments are set to open in 2018, leading analysts to suggest the rental market will keep cooling.

Who could have foreseen this.

Tiktaalik · Jan 13, 2018

The relationship between supply and demand has never been in doubt. The dynamics of housing markets though are significantly more complex than a first year economics course.

Seattle and Vancouver share similarities in being pacific rim cities with hot job markets, but dig deeper and the similarities end there.

For example almost no one builds condos in Seattle, but the situation is reversed in Vancouver. The implications of this is that it is a much better situation for renters in Seattle than Vancouver.

When it comes to condominium development, Cascadia's two largest cities couldn't be more different. Last year nearly 60 percent of new housing starts in the city of Vancouver, BC, were condominiums; meanwhile, Seattle saw no new condominium buildings open. And that's not changing anytime soon: less than 10 percent of all building slated for downtown Seattle in the next three years will be condos. What's the difference—why the blossoming of condominium construction in one city and the almost complete dearth in the other?

The short answer is economics. In Vancouver, apartments are saddled with an unfavorable tax code, making condos the more lucrative multi-family housing investment even despite high rental demand. In Seattle's skyrocketing rental market, one that's climbed even faster than the condo market in recent years, apartment buildings are much more financially attractive, while condos come with bigger risks and, typically, lower returns.

Adding onto this of course the issue of foreign capital. With less condos available in Seattle this seems like less of an issue in Seattle than it is in Vancouver. In Seattle the housing market is on fire because a tech fueled economic boom is putting heaps of cash in locals' pockets. In Vancouver people are still relatively low paid by Canadian standards, and the housing market has detached from local incomes due to the influence of foreign capital. So in Vancouver, which is building plenty of condos (~33k), you have the issue where 20% of new condos are being purchased by non-residents, and the rate of unoccupied housing has been steadily rising for years.

The impact of all these factors has lead to the current situation in Vancouver, where the rate of new multi-unit construction is at unprecedented all time highs, and yet the vacancy rate is sub zero. Meanwhile in Seattle where they mostly build apartments there is a healthy vacancy rate of 5.4.

gutter_trash · Jan 13, 2018

hey Vancouver GAF, if I were to move to Vancouver, how much would a one bedroom apartment go for and how much take home pay to need?

Tiktaalik · Jan 13, 2018

It's a pretty fuzzy number but I think the consensus is that the range would be around $1600-2500ish for a one bedroom in City of Vancouver proper depending on the neighbourhood and how new the building is. I'm pretty sure Vancouver is the most expensive place to rent in Canada? Here's a relatively recent article about rents in Vancouver.

Morrigan · Jan 13, 2018

Tiktaalik said:
It's a pretty fuzzy number but I think the consensus is that the range would be around $1600-2500ish for a one bedroom in City of Vancouver proper

lol. Utterly insane.

Mr.Mike · Jan 13, 2018

gutter_trash said:
hey Vancouver GAF, if I were to move to Vancouver, how much would a one bedroom apartment go for and how much take home pay to need?

Gutter, we need to stay strong through the winter. We can make it.

gutter_trash · Jan 13, 2018

Tiktaalik said:
It's a pretty fuzzy number but I think the consensus is that the range would be around $1600-2500ish for a one bedroom in City of Vancouver proper depending on the neighbourhood and how new the building is. I'm pretty sure Vancouver is the most expensive place to rent in Canada? Here's a relatively recent article about rents in Vancouver.

that is like 3x my monthly mortgage payments

Mr.Mike said:
Gutter, we need to stay strong through the winter. We can make it.

for real! this is one shitty ass winter

Tiktaalik · Jan 13, 2018

Morrigan said:
lol. Utterly insane.

For perspective when I first moved to Vancouver in the mid 2000s and lived in a pretty average late 70s era three story walk up apartment my rent was $750 a month.

We haven't even talked about house prices! The 2017 property assessments just came out and the old "million dollar line" which used to divide expensive west side of Vancouver from affordable East Van has been completely obliterated. Every detached home in Vancouver now costs more than $1 million and resultantly the prices of "relatively affordable" condos are rapidly rising. The assessed value of my condo went up 13% this year.

Almost three-quarters of the single, detached homes in Metro Vancouver are now assessed at $1 million or higher, a 50-per-cent increase from 2014. And the "million-dollar line" has spread deep into the suburbs.

"(What used to be) the top crust of residential real estate in Metropolitan Vancouver has now become the whole loaf," said Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University.

Yan analyzed data from B.C. Assessment for 2018 and found 73 per cent of single-family homes in the region now top $1 million, including over 99 per cent of the homes in Vancouver, West Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver and the University Endowment Lands.

There's a reason that Mayor Gregor Robertson, along with two other councillors of his Vision municipal political party, is declining to run again in the upcoming 2018 municipal election. The housing affordability issue has become a huge political liability for incumbents. This was a significant contributing issue to why the BC Liberals got pretty much wiped out of Metro Vancouver ridings in the recent provincial election despite BC having the best economy in Canada.

The new NDP government promised action on housing in their first budget, coming in February and people's expectations are sky high and probably impossible to meet. It will be very interesting to see what happens.

It remains to be seen whether Federal Liberals and local MPs will ever be negatively impacted by the situation. Vancouver's housing issues are largely due to Federal and Provincial policies, and yet most people blame Gregor Robertson and the old BC Liberal provincial government. Somehow the Federal government has managed to elude criticism so far.

The Federal government has required increased scrutiny on mortgages to try to prevent people from over extending themselves, which is a great move IMO, but compared to what they could be doing, the Federal government's actions to date, including their National Housing Strategy, are pretty much:

Tiktaalik · Jan 13, 2018

You gotta love this frankness from Robertson:

Robertson placed much of the blame for the housing crisis on the provincial and federal governments.

"I'm hopeful that the new Horgan and Trudeau governments take more action next year," he said.

"But we need to see much more action on this, and for many it's too late. The prices went through the roof for houses and many apartments, so unfortunately the ship sailed for Vancouverites who don't own property and are on lower incomes."

"All levels of government did nothing for years so now an entire generation of young people will never be able to own property in this region, but on the bright side I think the feds are allocating a some money to the issue after the 2019 election."

Well I'm sure that makes plenty of people feel better.

Terrell · Jan 14, 2018

Tiktaalik said:
According to Trudeau proportional representation is a "potential threat to the country."

If by "the country", he means "the Liberal Party of Canada", then absolutely.

If he wanted instant runoff (AV), he should have just arbitrarily implemented that, because LITERALLY ANY voting system is better than worst-past-the-post.

AuthenticM said:
How he handled the situation is shitty, but it's true that (pure) proportional representation could be damaging to the country, as it allows fringe parties to get a seat or two at the House, giving them exponentially more exposure and normalization than they'd get if they had stayed on the bench.

Any type of proportional representation that we'd want to implement would have to be set up in a way to avoid helping extremist parties get seats.

I mean, sure, it's not like formerly-fringe political viewpoints have infiltrated/infected the current establishment parties over the decades or anything.

Even if you quintupled the current fringe party vote right now, it wouldn't amount to more than a single seat, which isn't enough to get their most whackadoo campaign ambitions into law.

firehawk12 said:
I'm hoping it's Quebec-style, 50+1, and none of that crap in the last BC electoral reform referendum.
And honestly, I don't mind the fringe parties getting in because it means the fringe left parties also have a chance. It'd also formalize the regionalism that already exists in our public poltiics and would potentially break up the Ontario/Quebec power bloc that basically defines who wins an election. Presumably they would also keep some form of party minimum so that any fringe parties would have to work with a mainstream party for speaking privileges, budgets, and all that stuff and I can't imagine the CPC would want to directly enter a coalition with someone on the far right anyway.

Yes, the NDP has committed to a 50+1 vote and are still determining the parameters for campaigning. At this point, they could decide that no negative campaigning is permitted, meaning FPTP would have to be campaigned for *snicker* on its merits, which would make for a dramatically different campaign from the last one.

Mr.Mike said:
I oppose any voting system with complicated ballots on the basis that it would encourage the use of voting machines. Ballots should be paper and hand counted.

Mr.Mike said:
It is possible to do a more complicated voting system without electronic voting, and I'd be fine with that.

There are a lot of things someone might try to achieve by attacking a voting system. They might try to change the results of the election. Maybe they'd be satisfied casting doubt on the legitimacy of an election. Or maybe they'd just like to steal away some more detailed voter data than is intended to be public.

A machine updating and displaying tallies in real time as votes are cast would leak information about who voted for who, compromising the secrecy of voting. Maybe a party sees things aren't going well for them at a specific polling station and start doing some sort of voter suppression there. Or even maybe they see they are doing pretty well at a specific polling station and increase GOTV efforts in that area.

A compromised machine might display, print and report the correct tallies to local election officials but send modified tallies to Elections Canada. This might be caught with paper backups but then you'd just get a bunch of headlines about the election being hacked which would be a huge drag on people's faith in the system and enormously damaging on it's own. And of course the paper copy isn't fool-proof either. What happens if the party that won the electronic vote starts trying to discredit the paper ballots to hold onto victory?

Ultimately you'd end up relying on the paper ballots anyway, so you might as well just do that from the start. In a best case you save a little bit of time, and even then it probably doesn't really take that long to tally up the ballots at a single polling station anyway. In a worst case you get an incongruence between the electronic and paper results, which at that point shakes faith in the election at best, or causes a partisan split on which result is legitimate at worst.

"But remember: the fact you are not paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you or compromise your system." - Cryptography Engineering

Very few voting systems mandate electronic voting except for the most complicated of them. And even then, electronic voting isn't inherently bad if it's not collecting and distributing the ballot information.

I advocate for electronic voting that produces an anonymous paper voting record as the primary record with the electronic result simply used as a secondary failsafe and a comparison tool. This way, a voter can confirm their vote was recorded as intended every time a ballot is cast at an electronic voting booth, it reduces spoiled ballots due to outside circumstances and it would simplify and improve counting speed through better visual uniformity, especially if you introduced robotic counting.

It sounds like networked electronic voting is what you likely take issue with, and to an extent, rightfully so.

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