Pros and cons of secret ballot
MLAs to meet Dec. 16 at legislative assembly to select premier, speaker and cabinet
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Monday, November 30, 2015
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
There is absolutely nothing preventing the voting by MLAs for premier, cabinet and speaker from being done publicly.
That is according to Tim Mercer, clerk of the legislative assembly. Customarily, the positions are decided by secret ballots.
"It is entirely a decision the members make for themselves. There is nothing in law or procedure that dictates that it be a secret ballot vote. It's an agreement that the 19 members must come to among themselves," Mercer said. "Even if they decide that they don't want to change that process, there is nothing preventing individual MLAs from revealing how they voted."
Mercer said there are positives and negatives to both options and added that the process is more transparent now than it once was.
"It is public. There was a time when all of these discussions including the voting was done behind closed doors. It was like a papal enclave, almost with smoke coming out of a chimney. They would all go into a room and come out with a premier and cabinet," Mercer said.
"It's televised. The speeches are public, the questions and answers are public. The only thing that remains not public is the way each MLA votes."
Mercer said he personally has no opinion on whether a public vote would be a better process than a private vote.
"All changes have repercussions. There are often unintended and sometimes negative repercussions to changes. It's very easy to say that making that vote public is across the board good. It opens the door to intimidation," he said.
"The potential exists for members to succumb to pressure from their colleagues to vote a certain way as opposed to being guided by their own preferences ... What that does is it prevents there from being a series of classes of ministers. Once cabinet is selected they all go in as equals and there is nobody saying, 'You just squeaked by with 10 votes. I got 18 votes. I am more of a legitimate cabinet minister than you are.'"
The voting process will begin on Dec. 16 and it could happen quickly or it could be a long, drawn out process, according to Mercer.
"You need a majority of votes. You need to have more votes than all your competitors put together, 50 per cent plus one. If there is only two names on the ballot it will be achieved on the first ballot. If there are three names on the ballot it may not be achieved," Mercer said.
"In the event that one comes out of the first round of balloting with a majority, the name of the person who received the least amount of votes is taken off the ballot for the second round of voting. They keep doing that until one person emerges with the majority of the votes."
Mercer said that those MLAs seeking to be speaker, premier or a cabinet minister can be nominated by another MLA of they can self-nominate.
Each candidate for speaker has an opportunity to give a five minute speech in public and then a vote is held, Mercer said.
"If there is more than one candidate for premier then there is a series of 20 minute speeches. When the speeches are completed all of the remaining 18 members are provided an opportunity to ask up to four questions of the candidate," Mercer said.
"Then there are then a series of three votes for cabinet. This is all custom and practice. It's not written in law anywhere. But since division (from Nunavut), what they've decided is that there would be two ministers from constituencies from north of Great Slave Lake, two from Yellowknife and two from south of Great Slave Lake."
The rub this year, according to Mercer, is where the new riding of Tu Nedhe-Wilideh will be, as it is mostly southeast of Yellowknife, including Ndilo and Dettah.
