I feel it is clear that we must change the way we
vote. We must move forward; we must abandon a voting
method which has already been rejected by most of the democracies
in the world because it is unfair. With
first-past-the-post the resulting parliament does not represent the
wishes of all the voters, and the literature is full of
examples. It is also unfair because it wastes the votes
of a large portion of the voting public, in many cases, a majority
of the voting public, because their votes have no bearing on the
make-up of thr resulting legislature.
First-past-the-post often leads to a change in the governing
party, resulting in huge swings in government policy, as we have
seen recently in BC. However, this change is brought
about by a relatively small change in the popular vote.
These swings are not good for the economic well-being of the
province. With most forms of PR this would not happen,
because, in many cases, coalition governments are formed and a
small change in voter preference will not change the overall
make-up of that government.
When you come to consider the various forms of voting
procedures, and before you make your final choice, I would ask you
to consider the following three questions:
1. Is it fair? Does it use all the votes
to end up with a legislature made up proportionally?
2. Is it readily understood by the voters at
large? Is the process easy and is the mechanism to
generate the result clearly understood?
3. Does it end up with regional
representation? Do all British Columbians have a person
to whom they can express their concerns, with the expectation that
something will be done?
We have a wonderful opportunity to lead the way in electoral
reform in this country.
LET US SEIZE THAT OPPORTUNITY!
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