Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in Canada and Elsewhere

The leader of the party that secures the largest number of seats in the House, and can therefore hold its confidence, is generally invited by the Governor General to be the prime minister and form government. [...] For example, section 313(1) states that after the validation of voting results, a returning officer “shall declare elected the candidate who obtained the largest number of votes.” Parts of the Canadian electoral process are also provided for in numerous other statutes, including the Constitution Act, 1867, the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, the Broadcasting Act, the Parliament of Canada Ac [...] Electors can vote “above the line” or “below the line.” Voting above the line requires voters to rank at least six political parties by placing numbers 1 to 6 in the corresponding boxes.22 Voter preferences above the line are distributed in the order that the candidates appear below the line for the party chosen. [...] In the event that no single candidate wins more the 50% of the votes after the first preferences are counted, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and his or her votes are redistributed among the other candidates (see the description of the AV process in section 3.1). [...] It has been suggested that the reforms were brought about by idealism, the seeking of political advantage, or the need to deal with faulty electoral system arrangements.25 The Australian Electoral Commission notes, for example, that the 1918 reform was: in response to the rise of the Country Party in the aftermath of the First World War, and the consequent prospect of loss of seats to Labor throug