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Hume's criticisms wide of the mark10th November, 2004 :
Vancouver (Internal)
Response by an Assembly
member
The following appeared as a "SOUNDOFF"
feature in The Vancouver Sun on Wednesday 10 November
2004. It was written in response to a column in the Sun of Saturday
06 November by Stephen Hume.
By EDITH DAVIDSON
The Vancouver Sun, Wednesday 10 November
2004
As a member of the Citizens’
Assembly, I was disappointed with Stephen Hume's Nov. 6
column "Democratic? Anything but."
Hume does not think the process was democratic;
the members were not elected, etc. That we were selected and not
elected is true. That we will disappear after the referendum is
also true.
That another process would have been more
democratic may or may not be true, depending on whether your
definition of democracy is limited to elected officials or includes
participatory decisions. That this has any bearing on the
alternative system we are proposing is false.
Our mandate, from the current, elected
government, was twofold: One – recommend whether the
current model for elections should be retained; two –
if we decided no to the first question then recommend the adoption
of an alternative model for electing members of the legislative
assembly.
One alternative, that was our mandate. We also
had no input on how the members were selected or any other part of
the process. The time to discuss the process is past and has no
relevance to the debate on the recommended alternative electoral
model.
The true democracy of the Citizens’
Assembly will occur with the referendum on May 17, 2005. The people
of British Columbia will then make a choice of retaining the
current system or deciding to change to the STV system.
Hume gave no defence of the current system other
than it was achieved at great cost. (What cost? We are not
recommending abolishing democracy, no wars were fought to defend
plurality voting). The current system, with only one member elected
in every district, has only been in effect since 1991.
Hume has expressed only one fault with the
recommended system. He does not consider the counting system
"straightforward" because it requires a formula.
On the one hand he feels that the assembly is
"elitist" and that we felt that if we offered him more than one
choice it would be "intellectually overwhelming" for him; on the
other hand, he does seem to find a simple equation "beyond his
basic math skills".
There is no need for a computer to count ballots.
Ireland has used STV since 1922 and managed for many decades to
elect a government without the use of either a computer or a
calculator.
Hume wants choice and we are offering him an
electoral system that will give him that choice. His vote will
never go to someone he did not select, and there has been no
discussion of non-paper ballots.
Let us have an open debate on the merits of the
two choices instead of rhetoric to hide the real issues.
Edith Davidson lives in Delta
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