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Submission RESTON-0749 (Online)

Submission By Laura Reston
AddressRichmond, BC,
Organization
Date20040625
CategoryCitizens' Assembly process, Electoral system change
Abstract
My preference for a new electoral system is the Single Transferable Vote with districts of at least five seats. Electoral change must include some proportionality so that more points of view are represented in the legislature. [2 pages]

Submission Content
The currently used single member plurality method of transforming votes into seats is past its time. It was adequate for a small, fairly homogeneous society but cannot reflect the diversity of opinion, culture or needs in modern socity.

Before the middle of April my opinion was there should be proportional representation:there should be more positions voiced in the Legislature. I had only the vaguest idea of what PR was much less the complexity of the number of ways there are to turn votes in to seats. Since then I have spent many hours reading texts from the reading list and submissions to the Assembly. I watched the broadcasts of the Assembly winter sessions and attended the local puplic meeting. It has been a most interesting process.

Over the last few months I have talked to my family and co-workers about the Assembly and electoral reform. I was suprised and disappointed when only one of the about twenty people has expressed any interest in following up on the subject. I work in public health care and most of my family are educators so public/governmental policys are not armslength relationships. I expected a higher level of interest. More than one person said that once a government was elected they didn't feel the general population had any real influence over decisions the government went on to make. I think before the election next spring there will have to be fairly massive education/publicity on any referendum.

My preference for a new electoral system would be the Single Transferable Vote with districts of at least five seats. While it might not be strictly proportional it has aspects I like.

  1. All the sucessfull candidates are associated to a geographical riding and so are directly respnsible to the voters in those areas for their seats.  Since the candidates of the same party compete somewhat with each other as well as candidates of opposing parties it would seem to loosen the bonds of the polictcal party to some degree while strengthening the relationship with the constituents. I beleive political parties have a place but dampening their influence will make an eiser job of changing legistature/government roles so they work more like the ideal.
  2. I like the idea of having several MLAs as "my" representives.  I would like as many people as possible with a conection to me as a constituent if I were trying to get a response from government to an issue or solve a problem. Multiple seat ridings increase the chance that I would have a MLA on the same side of the issue.
  3. Independant candidates have a simular chance with STV as with the current system.  A candidate who wishes to run outside the party structure has a didicult enough time to get elected now. The more proportional systems increase that disavantage.
Mr. Loenen (Loenen 0035) outlines a version of STV where the northern portion of the province retain single seat ridings with a majority preferential ballot(AV)while the central and southern portion are multi member STV ridings. He feels many constituents who already say there are problems with MLAs servicing the widely spaced populations in large area ridings would not vote for a system which increases the riding size to whole north end of the province. It would seem to me that my earlier point about being able to claim the attention of more that one MLA as a constituent would be of even greater advantage in such areas. What could be considered is how several MLAs elected in a district form a natural block which would better represent an issue specific to an area in the north more effectively that a singleton who is the only representive of a minor corner of the province.

The bottome line is that electoral change is necessary and that change must include some fair amount of proportionality so that more points of view are represented in the legislature, even if it isn't my exact preference. Thank you all for taking on the task of creating the referendum.

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