Submission PELLETIER-0618 (Online)

Allow me to mark YES for any number of candidates (or parties), and NO for the rest. The candidate with the most votes wins. Or, if we're using a proportional system, then the YES votes get counted for each party. [1 page]

I greatly admire the task and goals of the Citizens' Assembly. I have a suggestion for improving BC's electoral process which I hope you will consider.

In an election blessed with many candidates and parties to chose from (more is better if our electoral system is designed right), it is totally frustrating to me, and probably most voters, that we must select only one. In most elections, I find that several candidates on the ballot are acceptable to me and the rest are not. I would like the opportunity to express this precisely on my ballot.

Accommodating this is very simple. Allow me to mark YES for any number of candidates (or parties), and NO for the rest. (The NO marks are important to prevent tampering with my ballot after I drop it in the box.) The candidate with the most votes wins. Or, if we're using a proportional system, then the YES votes get counted for each party.

Note the difference between this suggestion and the Alternative Vote scheme used in BC in 1952 and 1953. From what I read in your fact sheet, AV forces me to rank every candidate. But for those candidates that I am against, I clearly don't want to give them any ranking.

Think of the massive improvement this change would make to our democracy. It would eliminate the stigma of vote splitting when new parties join the process. Each voter would have a mechanism for expressing his particular concern in each election such as voting for an issue (i.e., all candidates that support the issue), voting against a particular candidate or party (i.e., YES for everybody but Joe), or even the traditional single YES vote.

With this change, the doors of our democratic process would become open to new parties and candidates in a way that they have never been before.