BC-STV, or “BC—ingle transferable vote” was recommended overwhelmingly by the BC Citizens’ Assembly in 2005 as the best method for electing politicians here in BC. The Citizens’ Assembly was a group of randomly chosen ordinary voters (politicians and party organisers were excluded) who spent a year studying systems from around the world and touring BC to listen to their fellow citizens. In choosing the best system, they focused on 3 key values:

1. fairness in representation (if a party gets 24% of the vote, it should get that many seats);
2. local representation (every voter should have an MLA who represents their views); and
3. more voter choice (voters should have more than one candidate from each party to choose from).

It’s clear that values 1 and 3 are not delivered by “First-Past-the-Post”, our current system. Even #2 is only partly fulfilled: right now, MLAs typically win with 40-50% of the vote. This means that 50-60% of the voters do not have a local MLA who supports their values—they are not represented.

BC-STV fixes this using the following features:

1. multi-member ridings—more than one MLA per electoral riding
2. a preferential ballot—voters rank the candidates using 1, 2, 3...instead of marking “x”s;
3. a counting system that makes as many votes as possible go to electing an MLA.

Multi-member ridings mean proportional results and better local representation. In a 4-MLA riding, if 50% of the voters support a particular party, they will elect only 2 MLAs. The other 2 MLAs will be from other parties. So, many more voters get an MLA from a party they support. (Under BC-STV, there is no increase in the number of MLAs, so to have multi-member ridings, the ridings must be bigger.) Having more than a single MLA gives voters more choice as well as more accountable government.

Because more MLAs are elected in a riding, the ballot will be longer, resembling a municipal election ballot. Larger parties will run 2 or 3 candidates per riding. Voters rank as many candidates as they please. This means that there is open competition among candidates of the same party, and underperforming MLAs can be voted out even if their party is popular. The counting system makes sure that every vote counts. It takes the same number of votes to elect every MLA in every riding – about 20,000. If you vote for a candidate who does not win, your vote transfers to your second choice. If you vote for a candidate who wins 25,000 votes, the extra votes are divided evenly among the supported candidates, and these “partial votes” transferred to supporters’ second choices to help elect someone else. The counting system may sound complex, but can be done by hand in a few hours (in seconds, by computer). Most importantly, the counting system removes the need for “strategic voting”.

The STV voting system has been in use for over 100 years. It is used in Ireland, Scotland, Australia, and elsewhere around the world.

BC-STV will change provincial politics. It is a very fair system, chosen by citizens, for citizens.

For more information visit the following web sites:
www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public
www.bcstv.tv
www.bcstv.blogspot.com
www.stv.ca

Raging Grannies’ interpretation of STV

(use the tune of “Darling Clementine“)

Do you feel unrepresented
when the vote count is complete,
and your party lost by inches
and is left without a seat?

Try a new way, for the old way
doesn’t give an equal voice
to the voters disenfranchised
who had made a different choice.

If the seats were in proportion
to percentage of the vote,
there would be an opposition
and the winners couldn’t gloat.

All would have to work together
on the passage of each bill.
No more trampling of opinion;
build a democratic will.

In proportion, in proportion,
in proportion to the vote—
we would all be represented;
keep democracy afloat.