Submission PATTISON-1144 (Online)

In the end, if you choose to change our voting system which I hope that you'll do, you'll have to sell it to the people of BC. I'm a business woman. I know I can sell MMP, but I can't sell STV. [2 pages]

Thank you for all your hard work in considering and designing a fairer voting system for BC.

There is one thing that I ask you to do before your final decision. Please take a couple of hours away from your comfortable seats in the Wosk Center for Dialogue, go out on the streets and test out your ideas to see if the public can understand and want the system you may propose.

I am sure that if you try to explain an STV system with some parts of BC getting large multi-member ridings with more of a chance that peoples' votes will count than other areas where voters may get the same old ridings and the same big chance their vote won't count, people will tell you that's not fair. Be clear that even if their vote counts, it might not be their first choice, but their second or third choice that counts toward electing someone. Then try to explain how the votes get counted under STV, or try saying to people that "you don't need to understand, a computer or experts who know how the vote-transfers work will do all the counting". Try to get people to sign a petition saying they support an STV system and I think you'll find that people will not sign.

Then ask them if they would support an MMP system where they would get two votes, one for a local representative elected exactly the same way they elect an MLA today and a second vote for the political party of their choice, with over a 90 percent chance that their party vote will count. Explain that they'll have a bigger riding but, in exchange, they'll get both a local MLA and party MLAs and that they can choose who they'll go to for help. Explain that the party MLAs are filled from lists prepared by parties before the election, just as candidates are nominated by parties today, and that countries that use this system end up electing many more women and minority group representatives because party lists are balanced. Tell them that MMP ends up with more diversity in the legislature and more coalition governments where parties have to work together. You'll find people eager to sign up to support MMP.

In the end, if you choose to change our voting system which I hope that you'll do, you'll have to sell it to the people of BC. I'm a business woman. I know I can sell MMP, but I can't sell STV.