BC electoral reform gets a second chance

A Second BC Referendum on Electoral Reform

On May 12, 2009, BC voters will go to the polls to answer for the second time a referendum question asking whether we want to change the way we elect our Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs): do we want to use the existing electoral system (First-Past-the-Post, or FPTP) or the single transferable vote electoral system (BC-STV) proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform? I consider this referendum far more important than the actual election results because, while the winning party will govern for four years, how we answer the referendum question will affect the quality of our political life far into the future.

Our Existing System: First Past the Post

Our existing system is well-known to us – the province is divided into a number of ridings and the candidate in each riding with the greatest number of votes is elected as the MLA for that riding. There are many critiques of this system which CPJ has highlighted over the years (disproportionate outcomes, exaggerated regional differences, lack of diversity, etc), but the essence of all these critiques is that FPTP forces many voters to accept representation by someone they did not voted for. In the 2005 BC election, which produced what many considered to be one of the most balanced outcomes in many years, only 52% of voters were represented by the person they voted for.

Because of these problems, and because the BC Liberal party itself suffered from one of FPTP’s inconsistencies in losing the 1996 election despite winning more of the popular vote than the NDP, in 2004 Premier Gordon Campbell took the innovative step of charging a Citizens’ Assembly (a kind of citizens’ jury consisting of 80 men and 80 women randomly invited from every riding in BC) with reviewing our current voting system and recommending an alternative that was guaranteed to be put to referendum if FPTP was found wanting.

The Single Transferable Vote (STV)

The Single Transferable Vote (or STV) the assembly proposed is perhaps unfamiliar to many of us, though it  is currently used for various bodies in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, India and the US. The fundamental goal of STV is to ensure that almost all voters have an MLA who they have personally chosen to represent them. It does this by merging several current ridings and allowing candidates to collect votes across the resulting mini-region or district. If a candidate collects a single riding’s worth of votes, they are elected. Typically, each major party will put forward several candidates in each district, so voters can choose between candidates as well as parties.

To prevent vote-wasting, voters can also indicate more than one choice using a ‘1’ to indicate their first choice, a ‘2’ to indicate their second, and so on, for as many candidates as they wish to. If a voter’s first choice doesn’t have enough support to be elected, their ballot is transferred to their second choice.

Public Justice Implications

Apart from the novelty of STV, did the Citizens’ Assembly make a wise choice? That is, did they in fact choose a system that is likely to produce a healthier democracy and a more just society? I believe that the answer is emphatically ‘Yes’ for at least three key reasons:

• STV will dramatically improve the accuracy of our democratic representation. If we believe that the purpose of our legislature is not to rule, but to deliberate and seek consensus, then it is crucial that all substantial perspectives be heard in our public deliberative processes. By having 90% or more of our voters represented by an MLA they have chosen, compared with just 50% now, a more diverse group of MLAs (diverse in gender, ethnic background and political perspectives) will be represented in the legislature and their varied concerns will be reflected in the resulting legislation.
• Accountability of our MLAs will be enhanced because all of them will need the active support of those who voted for them to be re-elected. If MLAs fail to adequately serve the interests of the voters who supported them, those voters are free to give their votes to other candidates of the same or different parties. STV has in fact been criticized by party loyalists as forcing representatives to be more attentive to their constituents than to their party, which the loyalists sometimes interpret as disloyalty to the party. Most non-partisan citizens do not see public responsiveness of their representatives as a significant problem.
• Since representation will be more accurate (or proportional), a party will be unlikely to win an outright majority of seats unless they actually have majority support. The opposition parties will therefore be stronger and will play a larger role both in legislative committees and in scrutinizing the government. When no party has an outright majority, they will have to negotiate with possible partners in order to pass key legislation. This will likely produce more conciliatory and civil attitudes both during the election campaign (when candidates hope to benefit from transfers from their opponents’ supporters) and during the term of office.

A Call to Action

The coming campaign in BC will present an excellent opportunity for CPJ supporters to raise questions about how our electoral and governance processes work for all Canadians. We encourage you to learn more about these issues by visiting our website at stv.ca.

Antony Hodgson is a professor of mechanical engineering at UBC and volunteers as a director of Fair Voting BC. He also coordinates the educational website, Demochoice BC (demochoice.ca), which runs virtual versions of real elections as if they were being run under STV.

the Catalyst, Summer 2008, Vol. 31 No. 3