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Submission MALLET-0814 (Online)

Submission By Patrick Mallet
AddressKaslo, BC,
Organization
Date20040709
CategoryElectoral system change
Abstract
By giving each voter two votes (1 for their local electoral district representative and 1 for the political party of their choice) MMP retains local representation while allowing greater proportional representation. [2 pages]

Submission Content
Please register my support for a Mixed Member Proportional electoral system for British Columbia. I have read with interest your Preliminary Statement to the People of BC and would like to say thank you for taking your mandate so seriously and putting such effort into your deliberations.

There are numerous problems with our current system of “First past the post”. I am tired and frustrated by having my vote not count, when I vote for a party that does not get representation in the legislature. I have seen amongst my friends and community that the need for “strategic” voting that is favored by this system (voting for a party you don’t support in the hopes that they will defeat a party you support even less) leads to apathy and low voter turnout. Large parties are favored over smaller ones, leading to inadequate representation of the diversity of BC’s communities. “Why bother voting?” I hear friends say, “the two main parties are practically the same and if I vote for anyone else my vote probably won’t count.” Fundamentally this system is unfair, as the number of seats elected don’t reflect the number of votes a party receives.

I suggest implementing a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system, which combines single member electoral districts with a party vote list system. By giving each voter two votes (1 for their local electoral district representative and the other for the political party of their choice) this system retains the important local representation of our current system while allowing greater proportional representation. MMP encourages fairness by ensuring that the number of votes a party receives relates directly to their number of seats.  Personally I would like to see more women, more people of colour and a wider range of people from different social classes making up our legislature. Making public the party lists of candidates prior to elections will encourage greater gender, cultural and geographic diversity in all parties and promote governments that are more representative of BC’s great diversity.

A MMP system will lead to more effective governments: coalition governments that need to cooperate and negotiate, resulting in legislation that is more representative of wider interests and therefore more likely to last beyond the mandate of a single government. This in turn will facilitate more effective implementation of policy by civil servants. Finally, a MMP electoral system will encourage me as a young voter to be more interested and involved in the politics of this province. The thought of greater voter turnout and more involved citizens gives me hope for democracy in BC.

Please recommend changing BC’s current electoral system to a Mixed Member Proportional system.

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