That’s not a coincidence. These systems push governments to serve everyone, not just swing ridings.
It’s time to make every vote count here too.
Seems like having a specific flag is a huge plus
Sure it’s good in sweden, but swedes are also taught since early childhood to not complain. Consensus is to be reached instead. This consensus is almost mandatory at all times.
In France you learn how to complain since early childhood, and a healthy verbal jute is to share what differences there are, not specifically to solve them at all costs.
I know both systems very well, and I think those reports based on what people say (are you happy? A swede almost cannot say no, a french wont say totally yes, ever) are indicators but bollocks for ranking.
I’d love Proportional in france BTW.
But the reports aren’t specifically “are you happy?” Are they?
Like WHR uses specific quantifiable questions. Like about how much corruption in a part of government, do you typically help strangers, etc.
I definitely think it’s highly subjective of course, and as a US ex pat who lives in Scandinavia the willingness to complain is so low here. But some parts of this are just a bit objectively better, so I don’t think it’s wildly off base that Scandinavia has high happiness
I’d love Proportional in france BTW.
They had it until that military coup. But hey at least the second round system blows block voting, alternative vote and first-past-the-post out of the water.
A big thing missing from this post is the size of the countries and their population. Canada and the USA are huge, and better described as a collection of independent states than a single country. The current systems are a result of compromises done to keep the countries together, by giving regions with small populations a say. I’m not saying these compromises turned out well, but you need to acknowledge them to understand the current mess.
Our voting system is effectively a hand-me-down from the UK (where it is likewise bad and contributing to a number of issues). Your comment is moreso about different levels of government, but whether municipal, provincial, or federal, they all use the same voting system, and they all could use proportional systems (yes, including municipal – across the board the problem stems from single-member ridings causing distortions when they are used to populate larger chambers. STV maps very cleanly onto municipal politics by just eliminating wards and keeping the same top voted # of councillors).
Canada’s federal and provincial elections use first-past-the-post.
The report: https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2026/
New Zealand 🇳🇿 11th
Australia 🇦🇺 15th
The alternative vote is really screwing up Australia good. Thank god New Zealand ditched first-past-the-post in 1997.
As New Zealand’s healthcare system languished in 41th place according to the 1997 WHO index due to the sucessive irresponsible governments formed under first-past-the-post.
Is alternative vote not what you are advocating for? Genuine question
“Alternative Vote” is what you get when you slap a ranked ballot on a first-past-the-post system. The defining features of FPTP that lead to issues decried by PR advocates are single-member ridings which form larger chambers, which leads to highly disproportionate results (e.g. if you have an A/B/C split of 40%/30%/30% across 10 ridings, all 10 will elect “A”). leading to a gradual consolidation into two parties, increased polarization, reduced democratic choice, reduced democratic participation (because your voice actually doesn’t matter), etc.
The ranked ballot component of “Alternative Vote” does not meaningfully change any factors of that equation, and can actually exacerbate it – effectively funneling those few non-major party votes back toward major parties as “false choices”. In the all-party special committee on electoral reform in 2016, their report highlights Alternative Vote/Preferential Voting/Instant Run-Off Voting/“Ranked Ballot” (all the same thing) as the single option which would result in even more distorted outcomes than our own First-past-the-post [1]. Australia is the only country to use this at the federal level.
This doesn’t mean that ranking choices / a ranked ballot is fundamentally bad, but that it is a feature of a voting system is neither necessary nor sufficient to fix the problems attached to FPTP. A PR system which leverages ranked ballots to great effect is Single Transferrable Vote, which is basically the same but with multi-member districts rather than single-member, keeping top X winners of the district. That said, there are non-ranked ballot PR options which have been demonstrated to have high degrees of democratic success, so its a bit of a red herring.
[1]: Special Committee on Electoral Reform report 3 (2016): https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/42-1/ERRE/report-3/page-177#50 ERRE report 3 p177. See the diagram under subheading “Proportional Electoral Systems” about the Gallagher index
Interesting Aussie was above NZ last year.
I’m surprised that we are ranked so high as our current government isn’t doing us any favours, especially our health care which they are aggressively trying to privatise.
Our Vote (Mixed Member Proportional) is a good system, but I think it could still be tweaked a little. It still favours the larger parties to the point we have a main centre left and centre right party with smaller parties either side. The problem being if a party doesn’t reach 5% of the vote or win an electoral seat, they’re not represented.
