The Hook

It figures -

A lot of people have probably studied election systems and realized that STV is only fourth on the list in achieving proportionality. So they think, if we have to change the system, why saddle ourselves with something lame that isn't top grade. Why not do it all the way and get the Sainte-Laguë method or Webster, in place? Oh, they are 'more difficult to understand for the average voter'! How about quitting talking down to the average voter and assume we know a good thing when we see it. Under STV, we will still have as much as 16% of votes ending up in the trash, not good enough for our BC!

One of the places they use the Sainte-Laguë method is in Denmark, where supposedly the 'happiest people on Earth' live. Maybe that could have something to do with the election system, eh? Not like here, where the Maitre d' himself has to tell us how good we have it. This may be the best place on Earth, but we're still talking potential here...

"Sainte-Lague method"

Dorothy, I can just about guarantee you that BC voters are not thinking "oh, if only we could have the Sainte-Lague voting method". Why am I so sure? Because the Sainte-Lague method isn't a voting system. What you mean is, "we should be using a *List-PR* voting system, and while we are at it, we should use the Sainte-Lague method to allocate the seats".

But BC voters wouldn't want to use Danish-style List-PR. It does away with geographic ridings almost entirely. And there would no longer be votes for individual candidates, only for parties.

That's why electoral reformers in Canada have focussed not on party-list systems, but on candidate-centred systems like STV.

STV is *not* a second-best option. It's the *best* option. Who says so? The BC Citizens Assembly -- yes, only made up of 160 ordinary British Columbians, but they backed STV so overwhelmingly that you can be almost 100% sure that if you took a different set of 160 British Columbians and asked them the same question, you'd get the same answer.

"What's the best voting system for BC?" "BC-STV."

'what' may be right in this

'what' may be right in this election--the talk on the street may be worth more than the polls---it's always nice to have a few snapshots --but I am bias on that.

Bison, why are you

talking to me as if I am not one of them, as in:

"..I can just about guarantee you that BC voters are not thinking.."

Well I am one of them, and I am thinking. So have all those of my colleagues been, whom I have taken the trouble to explain that there are better options than the BC-STV. It is just not offered as an option. Besides, you are completely wrong when you say:

"But BC voters wouldn't want to use Danish-style List-PR. It does away with geographic ridings almost entirely. And there would no longer be votes for individual candidates, only for parties."

That is just plain misinformation. You and other interested parties can find the goods on this page:

http://www.folketinget.dk/BAGGRUND/00000048/00232623.htm#E32E19

Particularly this section:

13. selection of the elected candidates for each party in each multi-member constituency.

This doesn't quite sound as if you are right, does it? In your version, there wouldn't be constituencies, and there woulkdn't be 'selection of candidates' within them, eh?

With all due respect, The BC Citizens Assembly was a representation of the ctizens of BC, which is not necessarily the same as a common denominator. For one thing, they must have all been people who could take the time off to do the work, which would automatically have excluded wide sections of the people, ergo selection was a factor. I am not saying their findings were invalid within their framework, but I am saying that there might certainly be other permutations of people out there, who might reach different conclusions.

Denmark

In Denmark you vote for a party list of candidates in your electoral district. You do not have the choice of candidates that BC-STV offers you, nor can you selectively vote out an MLA who has not been representing you well, or for some other reason, if the party places that person high on its list.
Were BC to use the Danish system local representation would disappear in the northern half of the province and other sparsely populated regions. The members of the BC Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform found that this kind of system would fail to be approved in the north because local representation was so important to the people there.
The members of the Citizens' Assembly all have listed occupations on the web site. Ones I have met held full-time positions in government service and teaching. There did result a bias to people who do volunteer work, and I see nothing amiss with that. None of the members stood to gain personally from the decisions they made. This is why politicians were excluded from being members as for them there was a conflict of interest.

STV is good enough for me

Promise me a system that has the faintest chance of ending the current blind allegiance to the party that elected officials display and that's all I need to hear.

Tell me they'll get nothing done without working together and I'll pay for the privilege to cast a ballot.

I bet there's better systems, but I'll take this one (STV) for now. Please vote for STV.

David Huntley

More about Denmark:

There are indeed party lists with a ranking, but the ranking is not unbreakable, as it says in the following excerpt from my previous reference, in 1.2.6. Step Six: Candidate Selection

http://www.folketinget.dk/BAGGRUND/00000048/00232623.htm#E31E2

"… 17 multi-member constituencies. …

. “In most cases, candidates with the largest numbers of personal votes also have the largest numbers of total votes. There are, however, exceptions to this general observation since party votes are allotted for each nomination district separately, not for the entire multi-member constituency, and there might be considerable variation between the different nomination districts within a multi-member constituency as regards the number of party votes to be shared.
. If the party has used the "party list" form of list organisation, candidates are selected in the party list order, unless they have obtained enough votes (personal votes and allotted party votes combined) to pass a special threshold, which corresponds to the Droop quota. Substitutes are appointed in list order.”

“Folketinget” means the thing of the people i.e. “The lover Chamber” and now the only chamber.

Table. 4 in 1.3. Some Effects of the Electoral System: One party gains 61.507 votes from all over the county but get no seats but 32.668 votes get an independent 1 seat in an multi seat riding. The text to the table explains why.

1.2.5. Step Five: Allocating Compensatory Seats to Constituencies
… all the seats (135+40) have been allocated to parties and multi-member constituencies. …"

In practice, when a candidate has not previously represented his constituents well, and the party still puts him or her high on the list, it will cost the party, sometimes even cost it the governing majority. I wonder why it is feared in Canada, that a political party would be dumb enough to try to cram an unpopular candidate down the throats of disgruntled constituents.

I would also like to understand better, why the local representation in remote and northern areas would be ruined. Denmark has not had a problem with making separate arrangements for Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, which are remote and thinly populated. Why do you believe the same cannot be done here?

It is a fact the Danish system provides very great political stability, as well as a high rate of participation in elections, normally around 84%. It is obviously a system that encourages interest in politics as well as makes people think their opinion counts.

I think we should at least have been offered a similar system as an option in BC, instead of a system that has already been rejected once by the electorate.

The reference I am providing is on the web site of the Danish Parliament and should therefore give the most solid information available. Where have you got your information, which appears to be at odds?

The Working Folk of the Citizen's Assembly

Dorothy,

Your comments infer that the CA members had more leisure time than "wide sections of the people." Though there were certainly retirees on the Assembly (they are, last I checked, a demographically representative group in BC), most of us were worked, parented, studied or some combination of these.

We gave every other weekend for 10 months for official CA business and many of our evenings and other days off to study and go to public hearings. So though were not, as you say the "common denominator," there was nothing extraordinary about us that would have excluded other ordinary British Columbians.

STV is *not* a second-best

STV is *not* a second-best option. It's the *best* option. Who says so? The BC Citizens Assembly -- yes, only made up of 160 ordinary British Columbians, but they backed STV so overwhelmingly that you can be almost 100% sure that if you took a different set of 160 British Columbians and asked them the same question, you'd get the same answer.
------------------

Really then why is it only used in Ireland, Malta, Australian senate and a few municipalities around the world then if it is so good?

We need an MMP system like NZ...

I voted No yesterday for this. We should have an option to vote for STV, MMP, List Pro Rep etc and not have it decided by 160 people what we vote on. STV failed last time and will fail again, so next time it should be mmp, list pr and FPTP on the ballot and let all the people who vote decide.

Dan

You voted no to STV and you also voted no to electoral change.

There will be no ballot with mmp or list pr next election nor the one after that nor the one after that.

nmboudin

It was completely un-anticipated on my part, that I would hit such a sensitive spot on the ‘working’ thing. Obviously, I cannot know and would therefore not say, how much total free time anyone has. What I was pointing out was the fact that themembers of the assembly were in a flexible enough situation to be available, and that takes some work to put oneself there. I, for instance, am a grunt on the factory floor, who gets time off subject to ‘operational needs’ as per my contract with the employer, which happens to be the public health care system. In fact, I can practically be conscripted in an emergency, so, no discretionary sabbatical or any such thing for me.

This, however, was only one thing among many, that I could have taken out of the grab bag. Another one was that no one in the assembly was likely to come from the thirty percent or so of Canadians, who manage with a degree of functional illiteracy. Or, no one would be of the type not one iota interested in politics, etc., etc.

Peace, man. All I sad was that the assembly was not from ‘all walks of life’ here in BC, hence contesting your claim, that any other 160 people would have reached the same result – unless,, of course, they would have been selected by the already selected in some incestuous fashion.

Frank

“You voted no to STV and you also voted no to electoral change. “

No, but it certainly was carefully engineered so that that claim could be made, mendacious as it will be, as there was no other choice, as in ‘those who are not with me are against me’.

Whenever people take biblically based attitudes into places where they have no business being invoked, it makes me very suspicious. What is it about the STV that the politicos are so keen on? It cannot be its fairness, since it still leaves 16% of voters un-represented, and we know it can be done better.

I suppose one could have handed in a blank ballot, but, as we know, these are not considered, since we cannot let people get away with being naughty and still count for something.

I haven’t figured it out yet, but one of these days I will.

And now this somehow vindictive wording :

“There will be no ballot with mmp or list pr next election nor the one after that nor the one after that.”

What? We are being punished for not showing ourselves compliant? I feel better and better about not buying. There is something fishy here. Last time, Campbell, the great guru, said ‘the people of BC have indicated that they want to see change, but not this’ (STV). Then 160 good men and women went into a room and came out with their only proposal being THIS (STV).

My question is: What happened to them in there??