SUBMISSION TO CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY
PREFERENTIAL BALLOTING – THE
SOLUTION TO THE “SPLIT THE VOTE”
PROBLEM
The Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform in British
Columbia has no doubt received many submissions in favour of
introducing Proportional Representation for the election of
MLA’s in British Columbia. The concept of Proportional
Representation has one very big advantage for the voters of British
Columbia –- It ensures that the voters are represented
by the various political parties in the same proportion as the
voter support for those parties as reflected by the voting totals
in a General Election. This is a particular advantage to the
smaller political parties in British Columbia which seldom elect
members to the Legislature under the current “First
Past the Post System”
Unfortunately, this system has several drawbacks. The most noted
drawback is the fact that majority governments are very rare. The
Province is then governed by a minority government or a coalition
that has trouble getting anything accomplished and is often short
lived. A couple of examples are Israel and Italy, in which
governments fall and new elections are called on an extremely
frequent basis. It also results in the appointment of unelected
MLA’s to the Legislature.
In addition, the Proportional Representation System unlike the
Preferential Balloting System, does nothing to address the biggest
single problem in British Columbia elections for the last 50 years
or more – The “split the vote”
problem.
With the current “First Past the Post”
system of voting, the successful candidate in a field of three or
more is the one with the most votes, even though his or her total
is usually less than a 50% + 1 majority of the votes cast. Majority
governments have been elected in BC even when as many as 63% of the
population voted against the winning party and as few as 37% voted
in favour of the winning party. This occurs when the majority (in
this case - 63%) is divided between two or more similar
parties.
As a result, people on each side of the political spectrum are
generally encouraged to not “split the
vote” by voting for the party with the best policies
and candidates, and instead vote for the party with the best
perceived chance of defeating the party on the other side of the
political spectrum.
The Preferential Balloting [AV] system of voting would eliminate
this problem entirely. Under this system, every voter is allowed to
vote for all of the candidates (or as many as he or she wishes), in
their order of preference. Instead of an
“X”, a number is placed beside each
candidate on the ballot, starting with a
“1” for the voter’s first
choice, a “2” for the voter’s
second choice, etc.
When the ballots are counted the first time, only the
voters’ number “1” choices are
counted. If a candidate receives over 50% of the number
“1” choices, that candidate is declared
elected. If no candidate receives at least 50% of the votes cast,
the candidate with the fewest number “1”
choices is dropped from the ballot. Only those ballots are then
examined to determine the voter’s number
“2” choice. These are then added to the
number “1” choices for the remaining
candidates and the totals are tabulated again to determine if any
one candidate has obtained the support of more than 50% of the
votes cast. This process is repeated until one candidate has
received the support of over 50% of the votes cast. That candidate
is then declared elected
The voters would be able to cast their number
“1” vote for the candidate they like the
best, and use their number “2” as the
strategic vote for the party that is higher in the polls and
against the party they want defeated. This system of balloting
would therefore provide a much more accurate picture of the wishes
of the voters in British Columbia.
The Preferential Balloting System has been used successfully in
Australia for many years. Variations of this system are currently
used by most political parties in Canada when choosing a new
Leader.
Some people raise an objection to this system by pointing out
that counting the ballots is complicated and time consuming. With
the advance of computers, this argument is no longer valid. In
fact, the Canadian Alliance Party and the Reform Party before it
used a computer program that was invented by Patrick Burke of
Fernie, B.C. and have had tremendous success with it.
Preferential Balloting alone, without incorporating any aspects
of Proportional Representation, allows voters to openly indicate
their real preferences at the ballot box, without fear of
accidentally electing the wrong party with only a minority of the
votes cast. As a stand alone system, “Preferential
Balloting” is by far the best system of elections for
British Columbia.
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