Neal Hall, The Vancouver Sun

The legislature takes shape

[The following story ran in The Vancouver Sun, on pages B2 and B3, on Saturday 16 October 2004. It was accompanied by graphics of sample ballots. You can see the full pages in PDF format here: Page B2, Page B3. We, too, have a couple of sample ballots online, from New Zealand and Finland.]  

By Neal Hall

In the next few weeks, the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform will get down to the nitty-gritty details of what kind of election system would be best for B.C.

One of the key details to be decided: If a new electoral system is chosen, how would the ballot be structured?

The assembly must decide whether the party names should be listed on the ballot alphabetically, or in random order.

Assembly members face the same issue in deciding how candidates' names should be listed -- alphabetically or by random selection.

The 160 randomly selected members of the assembly like the concept of random selection.

In an earlier meeting last month, members decided that the names of candidates should be "rotated" on ballots so that those listed first do not get an unfair advantage.

This would mean that a number of different ballots would have to be printed for each constituency. Political scientists call it the Robson Rotation.

But it's still possible the assembly could scrap that idea when it comes down to the final decision. As assembly chair Jack Blaney says: "Nothing is decided until everything is decided."

The assembly, however, has already decided that three key values for a better election system are that it should be more proportional, which would correct some of the voting distortions of our current system; it should allow more voter choice, and it should provide local representation.

During its deliberation phase, the assembly has decided to build two "ideal models" of potential new electoral systems.

Last time it met, it designed a model Single Transferable Vote system (STV). The other system, to be designed this weekend, is a Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP).

During its next weekend session of Oct. 23 and 24 at Vancouver's Wall Centre for Dialogue, the assembly will narrow the choice down to one potential new electoral system, then compare it with our current First Past the Post system (FPTP) before deciding whether to retain FPTP or recommend a new system.

The assembly must deliver its final report to government by Dec. 15. If it recommends a change, a referendum will be held during the next provincial election on May 17, 2005. If approved, it is expected to be implemented by the following election, in 2009.

Here's a rundown on the two alternative election systems now under consideration:

Mixed Member Proportional combines a single-member plurality system (our current electoral system) with a proportional representation list system to achieve a legislature whose party composition roughly reflects the proportion of votes cast for each party.

This means that if a party wins 35 per cent of the popular vote, it gets 35 per cent of the seats. Once votes are counted, the number of constituency seats won is subtracted from the total share of seats won by each party. If necessary, the number of seats then is "topped up" from a list of candidates.

Most lists are ranked by the party, which allow parties to promote more women and ethnic minorities being elected.

In practice, it works like this: If a party wins 40 per cent of the total 100 seats but only elects 25 candidates at the constituency level, 15 more party members are added to the legislature from a party list, resulting in the top 15 being selected from that list.

Under MMP, voters are required to vote for both their choice of local member and preferred party, although this is sometimes combined into a single choice for a candidate and party.

In New Zealand, which adopted an MMP system in the mid 1990s, voters get two votes -- one for the local candidate and one for the party.

This system also has been adopted for the German lower house, the Bundestag.

The other type of proportional representation system is Single Transferable Vote. One of two families of proportional representation, STV is based on the idea that the range of political opinion in the community should be mirrored in the legislative assembly.

STV aims to make the legislature more proportional by giving each party a share of seats that roughly reflects its share of the popular vote. If STV were adopted in B.C., electoral districts would be combined to create larger ridings of two or more MLAs.

STV uses a preferential ballot that allows voters to choose more than one candidate by ranking candidates according to preference -- 1, 2, 3, and so on. Ballots are counted in a way that ensures the candidates with the highest preferences are elected.

The vote-counting procedure may be more complicated than the current system but the principle is straightforward -- that a variety of minority as well as majority opinions are represented in the assembly, provided the minorities have a large enough proportion of votes to cross the threshold for representation.

This threshold is set by the quota of votes needed for representation and can vary widely, depending on the particular STV system to be used. The purpose of the threshold -- which could be set at five per cent of the popular vote -- is to reduce the number of smaller, "fringe" parties.

The STV system, used in Ireland since 1922, requires no list candidates and allows voters to elect candidates, sometimes from rival parties, within multi-member districts. Malta and Tasmania have also adopted STV.

David Farrell, author of Electoral Systems -- a book used by the citizens' assembly -- says STV systems are more candidate-based while MMP systems are more party-based, which leads to centralized, top-down political campaigns, with tighter controls imposed on candidates.

Farrell says ballot structure can influence the behaviour of voters and politicians, noting that under an STV system, political campaigns are more decentralized and there can be more faction-fighting between candidates of the same party running in the same riding.

"In party-based electoral systems," Farrell writes, "where the voter is choosing between parties and not candidates, there is little hope of mandating the politicians (apart, that is, from the mandate given to the parties) and therefore we can expect a greater tendency for politicians to act as trustees."

In such systems, the author adds, the principal "voting constituency" of individual politicians is not the voters -- the electorate -- "but rather the 'selectorates' who determine whether the politician will appear on the list and in which position."

[© Copyright 2004 The Vancouver Sun . Reproduced here by permission of The Vancouver Sun.]