[This submission was revised on 10 May 2004. To view
the revised submission in its original format, see the linked
document below.]
Can British Columbia Have It All?
“Interactive representation” (IR)
is a proportional election system in which:
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Each voter gets a local representative on his or her own part
of the political spectrum, a representative more aligned with the
voter than under any other method.
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Each representative is directly accountable to his or her
voters and reports to them regularly.
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To report as much progress as possible, each representative
strives to reach agreements with politicians from other camps.
Interactive representation would, in effect, make politics less
adversarial than other election methods. IR would, in fact, achieve
all of the Citizens’ Assembly’s stated
goals more fully than other approaches can.
Overview
What might be the ideal relationship between MLAs and
voters?
What if every British Columbian could point to some member of
the BC Legislature and say: “I trust that person to
speak for me on the important issues. He or she truly represents my
values. He or she champions the causes that matter most to me. And
he keeps me informed about what he’s doing in the
Legislature.”
With that kind of relationship to their MLA, most citizens would
likely feel empowered, truly invested in the political process.
How would that relationship affect MLAs? If each one had
constituents who all shared his or her political agenda and he
reported to them often, each MLA would want to report progress. The
only practical way to have good news to report would be to work
with MLAs from other political camps.
If that sounds too optimistic, just consider other situations in
which representatives for opposing groups meet face-to-face. For
instance, whenever a dispute erupts over publicly owned land in
British Columbia, the government brings together representatives
for all the groups that will be affected: environmentalists,
developers, logging companies, First Nations, fisheries, and local
communities in that particular region. In short, a potentially
explosive mix of representatives. Yet, they often reach unanimous
agreements.
How does that happen?
Each of these representatives — for the
environmentalists, logging companies, and so on —
speaks for a group of people who share a set of interests or set of
values. Each representative knows what the people in his or her
camp want. He knows that to move their agenda forward, he has to
sit down with their adversaries and negotiate a deal. Each
representative also knows that his constituents think about the
issue much the same way he does, so if he strikes a deal that makes
sense to him, he can sell it to people in his camp.
Imagine, then, if each MLA had a similar relationship with his
or her voters, all of them backing his or her political agenda.
They would be counting on him to advance their cause. If he wanted
to do his constituents any good, if he wanted to do himself any
good, he would need to make progress on the platform that he and
his constituents shared.
To make any progress in a Legislature where his party was just
one of several, he would need to sit down with both his political
allies and his adversaries. They would need to figure out solutions
that gave each side what it needed most. Then, each MLA could
explain to his or her constituents how the deals he had made would
advance their cause more than other alternatives would.
Practical Application
To create this substantive relationship between MLAs and
citizens, what kind of elections would we need?
We can get our arms around that task most easily if we shrink it
down in size. Imagine a very small town that wants to form a town
council in which each member is connected to his or her
constituents as strongly as possible. For that purpose, the whole
town meets in a large hall. Each person who wants to be on the town
council hands out copies of his or her platform. The crowd
questions the candidates. When that’s over, the person
running the meeting asks each candidate to move to a different
point in the room. The moderator then asks every other person
present to gather around their favorite candidate. When everyone
has gotten to their first choice, the moderator turns to the
candidate with the smallest group around him and says:
“Joe, since you have the fewest backers,
I’m going to ask you to drop out of the race. Then,
would you and each of the five people gathered around you please
make a second choice.” When each of those six people
get to their second choices, the moderator turns to the next
candidate with the fewest backers and asks her to drop out. She and
each of her supporters go to their next choices. This process
continues until the number of candidates left equals the number of
council seats.
By this method, each person in the town would end up with a
representative closer to him or her politically than he could get
under any other election method.
An IR Election
Next, we need to translate this story into an election for the
BC Legislature. The scenario above is in fact equivalent to using a
preferential ballot to elect several MLAs (three or more) in a
riding. In other words, we can get the same result as the scenario
above if:
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Each voter gets a ballot that lists all the candidates in his
or her riding.
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Each voter picks a first choice candidate, a second choice, and
so on.
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When ballots are counted, the candidate picked as first choice
by the fewest voters is out of the running.
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The votes for that candidate go to his voters’
second choices.
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Then, the next lowest drawing candidate is dropped.
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The votes for her go to her voters’ next
choices.
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And so on, until the number of candidates left equals the
number of MLAs in the riding.
Next, to connect each MLA with his or her constituents as
strongly as possible, we need two more steps.
First, each MLA needs to stay in regular contact with the people
who elected him, so he can explain to them everything he does in
office. For that purpose, a day after the election, every voter is
mailed a card that lists the election winners. Each voter is asked
(but not required) to check off the name of the person they want to
represent them and, then, mail the card to that representative.
Each MLA thus gets his or her constituents’ names and
addresses. He can then send them regular reports about what he does
in the Legislature.
Second, we need to tweak this election process to account for
the fact that each winner will end up with a different number of
voters. In the small town scenario, for instance —
after the people who backed the least popular candidates moved to
other choices — one council member could end up with 50
people supporting him, another could have 35, another 25. So, each
representative should get voting power on the council equal to the
number of citizens who voted for him. This arrangement, while
unusual, is necessary to create a meaningful relationship between
each representative and his or her constituents. That is, if each
citizen is to get the ideal representative, each representative
will inevitably draw a different number of voters.
To recap, the Citizens’ Assembly can come as close
as practical to creating an ideal relationship between MLAs and
citizens by recommending the following election process:
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form ridings with at least three MLAs in each;
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use a preferential ballot;
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when counting ballots, eliminate the least popular candidates
one by one;
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create a direct line of communication between each MLA and his
or her constituents;
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give each MLA voting power in proportion to the number of his
or her voters.
If the BC Legislature were elected in this way:
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Every citizen would get a local representative closer to him or
her politically than in other systems.
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Every citizen’s vote would count.
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Each MLA would be directly accountable to his or her
voters.
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Each MLA would thus want to resolve political differences with
the rest of the Legislature.
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn’t it idealistic to expect members of all
political parties to cooperate?
In an IR environment, MLAs would work together for practical
reasons. First, each candidate would be seeking voters from his or
her own part of the political spectrum. As a result, during the
election campaign, each candidate would compete mostly with
candidates from his part of the spectrum. Therefore, candidates and
MLAs would have less reason than now to attack parties
ideologically distant from their own.
Second, with many candidates competing in each riding, a
candidate who campaigned negatively would drive voters to other
candidates. The surest way to win votes would be to offer a
positive vision.
Third, and perhaps most important, since each MLA could
communicate directly with his or her constituents, the surest way
to win votes at the next election would be to trumpet his
achievements. From the first day in office, each MLA would look for
successes to write about. And each one would achieve many more
successes by negotiating with ideological opponents than by
verbally abusing them.
Doesn’t STV create a similar relationship
between MLAs and citizens?
No. While STV also uses preferential ballots, the ballots are
counted very differently than with IR. With STV, the votes for the
most popular candidates are redistributed to voters’
lower choices. As a result, many citizens end up uncertain just who
their representative is. Each representative, in turn, has no idea
who his or her constituents are. What’s more, under
STV, 15 to 20 percent of voters may not have their votes counted at
all. For all of these reasons, STV fails to create a strong
relationship between citizens and MLAs.
With interactive representation (IR), however, each citizen
knows exactly who his or her representative is, and each
representative knows who his constituents are. Plus, with IR, the
maximum number of citizens get their first choice of a
representative. And, with IR, if a citizen ranks all the
candidates, his or her vote is guaranteed to count.
How does IR compare to a Mixed Member Proportional
system?
With MMP, each citizen is represented by several people. There
is no one person that the voter can hold to account. In fact, Prof.
David Farrell pointed out to the Citizens’ Assembly
that New Zealanders living under MMP are dissatisfied and confused
about the roles of the local representatives versus the party list
representatives. IR, on the other hand, creates the tightest
possible linkage between each citizen and his or her one
representative.
IR would in fact achieve all the goals that the
Citizens’ Assembly articulated in its Preliminary
Statement, more so than any other approaches would.