Michael Ufford of No MMP signed an email two days ago that read, in part:
But there are still a lot of undecided voters out there. One survey indicates that there are more undecided women than men. I wonder if this is due to the cruel promise that a change in electoral system alone will automatically result in more women in the legislature?
From the Elections New Zealand (a country that uses MMP) website:
As the Royal Commission and pro-MMP campaigners had predicted, Parliament has become much more diverse and representative of modern New Zealand society – in 2006 39 women, 21 Maori, four Pacific Islanders, and two Asian MPs are among the 121 MPs.
No, there’s no guarantee that MMP would do the same here. All we have is overwhelming evidence that it would. Perhaps Michael could explain why he thinks that drawing attention to that evidence is cruel?
I had a good laugh on Wenesday afternoon at work while I was anxiously waiting for the polls to close. I posted a CBC discussion between Steve and an FPTP defender on an IRC channel
(13:32:27) jlam: http://www.cbc.ca/ontariovotes2007/features/features-reform.html
… to which another user of the channel responded:
(13:47:45) Strogg: ufford’s replies read like a MS (Microsoft) campaign
(13:48:07) Strogg: “if you vote yes MMP, babies will explode everywhere and patents violations will run amok!”