Towards a Fair Voting System for BC
Submitted by John Vegt
January 2004
Introduction
The current first past the post electoral voting system in BC is
outdated, unrepresentative and most of the time does not result in
a government for which voters voted. Not a single country in the
last century has chosen this system; not even the eastern European
countries in the last decade choosing a new voting system.
If I vote and my vote does not count towards electing anyone, my
vote is wasted. I believe British Columbians want their votes to
count.
Goals for BC
There are five goals I believe that should guide the Citizens
Assembly deliberations:
Broad proportionality
1. Every vote should count equally no matter where
you reside in BC
2. The government; whether in coalition or not, must be
voted in by a majority of votes
3. A new voting system should avoid legislatures which
result in a large majority without have a large majority of the
votes
4. Within practical parameters, the number of seat in
the legislature should approximate the share of the provincial
vote
Voter choice should become more a meaningful exercise
1. The new system should encourage positive voting
rather than voting against someone so that someone else does not
get in.
2. There should be an opportunity to hold referendums on
significant issues at the time of voting members of the
legislature
More stability in government
1. There should be a reasonable number of parties
with significant overall support
2. Coalitions created by the voting system should be
stable
3. There should be less turnover of members of the
legislature
Better government
1. The new voting system should reduce extreme
polarization experiences of the past
2. There should be a decrease of extreme changes to
legislation because of changes of governments which result in
uncertainty and instability for government, labour, business and
other sectors
3. There should be more accountability to the
legislature by the premier
4. Power should be spread more to the legislative
members and less to the premier
5. Members of the legislature need to have a more
significant role
There needs to be a meaningful link between geographic
representation and the member in the legislative assembly
1. A member of the legislative assembly should be
identified geographically with voters
2. A member of the legislative assembly needs to be
available for local issues
Based on the above broad guidelines I believe there needs to be
a mix of both proportional representation and geographic
representation. There are a number of voting systems that could
achieve both. However, giving the large geographic area of BC and
relative small areas of high population concentration there are not
many systems that can achieve the five goals reviewed above.
Recommendations
My recommendation to the Citizens Assembly for a made in BC
model is similar to the one already recommended by Nick
Loenen: Preferential Plus [See submission 0035].
Under this system the province is divided into geographic
clusters in which a voter ranks candidates. These multi-seat
districts ensure that the number of seats allocated to parties
approximates the party’s popular vote. The
geographically very large and mainly northern BC ridings are to
continue as single seat ridings. This voting system is not
dissimilar to the preferential ballot model used in the 1952 BC
Election. The clusters should be large enough (at least five seats)
to achieve proportional
representation.
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