I have previously made an initial submission to the Citizens'
Assembly (
Dawson
0810), however what may be an alarming occurrance has only
recently come to the public's attention with reference to the
forthcoming final presenters to the Assembly.
I understand that, from over a thousand people who made submissions
and presentations, a committee of the Citizen's Assemby has chosen
9 people as final presenters to the entire Assembly. Despite the
fact that only 4% of the total respondants spoke in favour of STV,
three of the 9 final presenters are STV advocates as well as being
members of an organized advocacy group. Whereas only two people are
being permitted to speak for mixed member proportional
representation while 70% of all submission favoured mixed
proportional or MMP. Also, only 2 of the nine presenters are women.
This situation highlights an abnormal bias and undermines the
integrity of the Assembly. How is this possible?
The STV voting system is only used by two small countries, Malta
and Ireland and is complicated in terms of vote-counting, ranking
many candidates in order of preference which leads to more
competitive politics especially within parties. It also maintains
the bias in favour of men in politics. It is a difficult to
understand system. Why would British Columbians want such a system?
There are enough problems with getting people out to vote without
further complicating the process through STV.
If the Assembly is to be fair all the way around there should be,
at the very least, equal representation proportional to the
submissions in support of each voting system. Don't drop the ball
now! Otherwise it looks like the deck is being stacked in favour of
one system over the other.
levelCMS