Supposedly, if you want to attract a better mouse, you have to build a better mouse trap.
But what happens if you build a better ballot?Members of a new initiative called Better Ballots hope you end up with a better city council.They are launching citywide public consultations aimed at changing Toronto's election system with the hopes of attracting more voters to cast ballots in municipal elections and changing the face of council to reflect greater diversity and creating more turnover of councillors.Leader Dave Meslin acknowledged any recommendations that come out of the consultations couldn't be implemented in time for November's municipal elections."At the risk of sounding like a downer, I think we're pretty much (going to) have the same council we have now," he said."We're focused on the long term. This is a three- or four-year project. It will have no impact on 2010. The earliest this can come into play is 2014."But Meslin said he is hoping Toronto residents will use the results of the 2010 elections to prove the existing system is broken and needs fixing.Better Ballots is being undertaken by a working group of the Emerging Leaders Network, which is an initiative of the Toronto City Summit Alliance. The alliance is a coalition of civic leaders formed to address challenges to the future of Toronto. At a conference Tuesday, Dec. 15 at the MaRS Discovery District building on College Street east of University Avenue, Meslin and other members of the Better Ballots initiative spoke about the project.They said there are many problems with the present system, such as voter turnout of less than 40 per cent, candidates winning seats with as little as 20 per cent of the vote and a stagnant council where councillors are almost guaranteed jobs for life.Although Toronto's motto is "Diversity Our Strength," council fails to adequately reflect women and visible minorities."We want to identify the weaknesses and make the system better in Toronto," Meslin said."The first obstacle is to get people to care. The perception is that federal and provincial politicians deal with important issues. City politicians just deal with stop signs."The working group threw out a number of ways for changing Toronto's system including allowing residents to vote on weekends and holidays or giving everyone a half-day off work to vote, changing the rules so non-Canadian citizens or teenagers as young as 16 are allowed to vote, creating a party system so voters have a better idea of the platform of their local councillors, and introducing a ranked choice voting system, which allows voters to indicate their top picks of candidates.Over the next six months, the group will be holding public discussions on the issue."We think Toronto is ready for this discussion. We think the timing is right," Meslin said."We've built an unprecedented consensus that there is a problem and the current system is not working well."Visit www.betterballots.to for details.