Voting and Consensus Government
Northwest Territories elects members to the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories under a non-partisan system known as consensus government. The election only decides who represents each district. The newly elected members of the assembly convene after the election to vote amongst themselves to decide which members become part of the Executive Council. This system of government has evolved in the Northwest Territories since 1870.
The voting method to elect members is the First Past the Post electoral system. Voters under this system pick the top candidate by the number of votes cast regardless of the percent of votes earned by a candidate. With a few historical exceptions all electoral districts in the Northwest Territories are represented by a single member. First Past the Post has been used since the first election in 1881. Elections NWT is the independent regulatory body in charge of overseeing elections.
Read more about this topic: List Of Northwest Territories General Elections
Famous quotes containing the words voting, consensus and/or government:
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.”
—Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925)
“Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society cannot remain ... that being as impossible, as for the frame of a house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered and dissipated by a whirlwind, or jumbled into a confused heap by an earthquake.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)