Electoral Reform for British Columbia
That the candidates in a constituency, being given the number of
votes cast for each of them in an election, form an 'Electoral
College' to select one of such candidates as the Elected
Representative for the constituency.
The procedure could be that the candidate having the lowest
number of votes assigns such votes to another candidate and then
withdraws, until a winner is selected. In case of a
tie, each candidate would have one personal vote to break the
tie. Should a tie still exist, the elected
representative prior to the current election should have an
additional vote.
This system could be extended so that the elected representative
reports to the Electoral College each month, and that should the
majority of such Electoral College consider that the elected
representative is not representing the constituency in the way that
they consider to be correct then they may give notice that the
Electoral College will be 'in session' to elect a new elected
representative, and so hold the Electoral College the next
month.
Advantages:
The candidate so elected will be more representative of the will
of the voters than when there are more than two candidates with the
one having the largest number of votes being less than a simple
majority.
The number of candidates will increase to represent more
variations of policies, thus giving the voters a greater choice and
reducing the importance of the major political parties.
The reports to the Electoral College and the ability to change
the elected representative provide a simple, cheap, and effective
way of implementing 'recall'. To avoid misuse of this
system there should be a minimum requirement for recall, such as
66% of the Electoral College votes.
The implementation of 'recall' in this way will emphasize that
the responsibility of the elected representative is to the voters
of the constituency, not to a political party. Thus a co-operative,
non-adversarial system in government would be encouraged.
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