DELIBERATION PHASE, Weekend 2

Members of the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform began on the weekend of September 25-26, 2004, in Vancouver to design "ideal models" of potential new electoral systems that they thought could suit British Columbia — at least in theory.

Members brainstormed a Single Transferable Vote (STV) model, based on a system used in Ireland. They planned to shift in their next meetings (in Vancouver October 16-17) to mixed systems, of which several varieties are used throughout the world.

While they discussed details of a potential STV model, they did not expect to reach a decision on whether to recommend any new model (or to stay with the current electoral system) until the weekend of October 23-24.

And, as chair Jack Blaney put it: "Nothing is decided until everything is decided."

Here is some reference material from the September 25-26 weekend:

During the first deliberation weekend (September 11-12) Assembly members gave written questions to seven of the nine invited public presenters. The presenters later provided written responses, which were given to members, during the September 25-26 weekend, as follows: Katherine Gordon, Bruce Hallsor, Tom Hoenisch, Nick Loenen, Ian McKinnon, Chris Morey, Julian West.  (The documents are all PDFs.)

» INFO ON OTHER MEETINGS

Info on other meetings in the members' Deliberation Phase: