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Submission BEDNARSKI-0104 (Online)

Submission ByMr. Michael Bednarski
AddressNorth York, Ontario, Canada
Organization
Date20040309
CategoryElectoral system change, Regional representation
Abstract
Whatever voting system or seat distribution method BC chooses, it should be the same across the province; urban and rural ridings should not have different voting systems or single member and multimember ridings.  [1 page]

Submission Content
I would advise the Citizens' Assembly not to differentiate urban and rural ridings with different voting systems or that have urban-multi or rural-single MLAs.

In theory, if a province were split 50% urban and 50% rural, and if there were two parties--Red and Blue, and if the urban ridings were multi-seat and the rural ridings were single-seat; then if in the urban area 51% of the people voted Red and 49% Blue, the distribution of urban seats would be about 50% Red and 50% Blue. In the single-member rural areas, if 51% of the people voted Blue in each riding and 49% voted Red, then Blue would win 100% of the ridings.

With each party receiving about 50 percent of the vote, the Blue party would receive about 75% of the seats if urban and rural areas were treated differently. Is that fair?

In my opinion, once a multi-seat riding goes below three members, then the vote-to-seat percent distortions greatly increase.

Whatever voting system or seat distribution method BC chooses, it should be the same across the province.

Good Luck!

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