DELIBERATION PHASE, Weekend 5

Members of B.C.'s Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform gave a name on Sunday 14 November 2004 to the new electoral system they are proposing for the province: BC-STV, short for British Columbia Single Transferable Vote.

Under the BC-STV system, voters rank candidates by numbers on the ballot paper. BC-STV is designed to make every vote count, and to reflect voters' support for candidates and parties as fairly as possible.

Now it's up to the voters of B.C., who will cast ballots on BC-STV in a referendum in the next provincial election, on May 17, 2005.

Assembly members drafted a simple question they propose for the referendum:  "Do you agree that British Columbia should change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly in its final report? Yes/No."

That draft question then was sent to lawyers in the B.C. attorney general's ministry, to ensure it would meet constitutional and other legal standards. It was to come back to the Assembly November 27-28 for approval.

Meeting in Vancouver on the weekend, members also began to work on their final report to the people of B.C., and will sign off on a draft on November 27-28.  The target date for release of the report was set for the afternoon of 10 December 2004. (By mandate, the report must be delivered no later than December 15.)

(Note: The final report was, in the end, submitted on the morning of 10 December.)

» WEEKEND INFO

» RELATED INFO

» STV IN ACTION

Pending preparation of our own animations, that animated Australian look at how a generic proportional STV system works now has a B.C. flavour. The Electoral Office of South Australia has kindly adapted the animation for us. Watch an STV counting system in action. See how the voters' "1, 2, 3, etc." ballots are counted and processed.

And there now are two animations: The STV system. And the First Past the Post system that B.C. uses now.  To view them, you'll need a Macromedia Flash plug-in. It can be downloaded free from this page. 

» INFO ON OTHER MEETINGS

Info on other meetings in the members' fall Deliberation Phase: