A Single Transferable Vote system is highly recommended for BC
since it has the highly desireable attribute in that there is no
safe seat into which an unelectable candidate can be parachuted by
a party.
New Zealand has approved a Single Transferable Vote using Meek's
method for the local authority elections in 2004. Meek's method has
not, to their knowledge, been used in a public election anywhere in
the world and they cannot call on prior experience to assist in the
implementation of New Zealand STV. Meek's method requires the use
of specialised computer software hand-counting of votes is not
feasible. See:
Also Meek's algorithm sometimes violates the criterion of
repeatability in that in the case of a rare tie and a rare recount,
identical results may not be replicated. This is because a tie is
broken by a pseudo-random device (e.g., a flip of a coin if done
manually). This minor shortcoming may be overcome by using
Gregory's method to transfer the surplus - but this needs to be
confirmed.
A STV using Meek's or Gregory's method makes sense for BC and
the rest of Canada. It will help to eliminate situations were the
provincial / federal party leader undemocratically overrides the
local choice of a candidate to represent the party in a given
constituency.
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