News release

Citizens' Assembly probes voting systems

Members of B.C's Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform began on the weekend to look into alternative voting systems, and at some past experiments with "preferential ballot" systems in B.C. and Alberta.

And in their next round of meetings, February 7 and 8 in Vancouver, Assembly members will be digging more deeply into the details and workings of these and other electoral systems that are in use around the world.

"You'll really be getting into the glue," joked UBC political science professor Ken Carty, research director for the Assembly and a leader of the members' education program. "The devil is in the details."

B.C. used a preferential ballot in the 1952 and 1953 provincial elections. Instead of the current system of marking one X on the ballot for one candidate, voters ranked candidates in order of preference: 1, 2, 3, 4. If one candidate got 50%+1 of the vote on the first count, he or she won the seat. If no candidate thus won, the last-placed candidate was eliminated, and his second-choice votes were distributed among the other candidates. This process continued until one candidate got 50%+1 and was declared the majority winner.

The system was introduced by a collapsing Liberal-Conservative coalition government in 1952, and resulted in the election of a Social Credit minority government. In the next provincial election, in 1953, the Socreds won a majority — and then changed the voting system back to the old first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system that we still use today.

Alberta, meanwhile, used various forms of preferential balloting from 1926 to 1955.

Members began their weekend discussing such questions as: What are the pluses and minuses of majority governments? Of minority governments? Of coalitions? Does it matter how many political parties we have? Is multi-party or two-party competition better for B.C.?

Among members' comments in debate:

This was the second of six full weekends in which the members learn about electoral systems. Then in May and June, the Assembly will hold more than 40 public hearings up and down B.C. Members will then hold five full weekends of deliberation in the fall. They must decide by Dec. 15 if they will propose a change to B.C.’s current system of translating votes into seats in the Legislature.

If they recommend a change, it will be the subject of a referendum for all voters in the 2005 provincial election. Any change approved by the voters would take effect with the 2009 B.C. election.

The February 7-8 sessions will be at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at 580 West Hastings Street in downtown Vancouver. They are open to the public, but space is limited and pre-registration is recommended. You can do that by way of the Assembly website at The Assembly's 160 members come from all over B.C. – one man and one woman from each of the 79 provincial electoral districts, plus two Aboriginal members.