What is electoral reform and why are Yukoners talking about it?

The close race in Yukon's territorial election has some wondering if the territory should revisit electoral reform.

On Monday afternoon, Yukon NDP's Annie Blake was announced as the winner of the Vuntut Gwitchin riding after a tie between the NDP and Liberal candidates led to the winner being selected by random draw.

Currently the territory uses single-member plurality voting, more commonly known as the first-past-the-post system, where people cast their vote for a candidate of their choice and whoever gets the most votes wins. 

Some benefits from the system are that it is easy to understand, and there is direct accountability between individual politicians and voters in their district.

However, it isn't very proportional to the number of votes.

"So although you might have a party who wins the majority of the seats, they don't necessarily do that with the number of votes," said Sara McPhee-Knowles, an instructor at Yukon University.

For example, in the most recent territorial election, the Yukon Party won the popular vote with about 39 per cent of votes, but it's the Liberals — who got 32 per cent of the vote share — who will likely have the first chance to form government.

Meanwhile the NDP, who were not far off from the Liberals in the popular vote at 28 per cent — will hang onto its third-party status with three seats.

This can leave some people feeling like their votes don't matter.

"That's one of the issues with a single member plurality system, is that you get that vote-splitting where people start to vote strategically … That can discourage voter turnout, which is a problem," said McPhee-Knowles.

"And it can also over-represent candidates that are viewed most broadly as very electable, which is often white men."

This year, the Green Party didn't even run in the election, saying that the first-past-the-post voting system does not serve smaller parties well.

What is proportional representation?

The Yukon NDP's platform promised electoral reform and moving to a proportional representation system  — where parties gain seats in proportion to the number of votes cast for them  — in an attempt to address some of these issues. 

NDP Leader Kate White even used her election night speech to advocate for change.

"I suppose this might be an excellent argument for electoral reform, so I welcome others to this conversation," said White.

Some advantages of the system are that there is no need to vote strategically, and it can encourage voter participation. 

"But then a downside is you don't have that regional representation," said McPhee-Knowles.

"And in a country as diverse as Canada or in the Yukon, where different communities have very different needs compared to Whitehorse, that can also be a problem." 

This system can also lead to a bit of instability, she said. Minority and coalition governments are increasingly likely, potentially resulting in more frequent elections, and allowing fringe parties to hold the balance of power.

But McPhee-Knowles said that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Because we have such strong party discipline here in Canada, when we have a majority government there's not a lot of compromise in the House because there doesn't need to be," she said.

"I think what we need to see going forward with the next government that's formed here, after this election, is a lot more compromise and collaboration in order to get things done."

In 2015, Justin Trudeau vowed that the federal election of that year would be the last conducted under the first-past-the-post system. In February 2017, as prime minister, he decided to walk away from that commitment.

There have been referendums on changing to a proportional voting system in different parts of Canada including British Columbia, Ontario and P.E.I.  — but none of them have passed.