VANCOUVER – Shouting over the noise of a late-night powerwasher on Georgia Street, NO STV advocate Bill Tieleman held an impromptu, election night press conference to announce the demise of the latest plan for BC electoral reform.
“STV is dead, that much is clear,” he said, flanked by fellow NO STV operative Rick Dignard. “The change that was proposed was just plain wrong. You might even say, we cleaned up.”
It was 10:30 p.m., and with over half a million votes already counted, the NO forces in favour of keeping the existing electoral system had earned over 60 per cent of the popular vote. It was enough for No STV to announce that BC voters had rejected STV for the second consecutive time.
In the May 2005 election, just over 57 per cent of voters endorsed STV, falling just short of remaking the political system in BC.
Not far away at a Main Street bar, attendees to a party hosted by British Columbians for BC-STV – the official promoter of the STV system for the referendum – were putting a brave face on the results.
“It’s like women getting the vote or the battle for civil rights,” said Shoni Field, the spokesperson for BC-STV. “Electoral reform is not going away, but it’s clearly not going to happen first in BC, either.”
The first shock to the room came just after 9:30, when CBC News predicted that the pro-STV side, based on very early returns, would fail.
“I’m surprised,” said, Arjun Singh, an executive member of BC STV, staring into a giant TV screen. “This time around, people couldn’t get their heads around some of the nuances of STV. But we’ll keep working ..we have [established] such a huge grass roots group all across the province.”
Others were less philosophical.
“The other side lied a lot, and there was a lot of misinformation,” said Antony Hodgson, a director of Fair Voting BC, citing cases where the no side “cherry-picked” negative facts from STV analysis and research.
Tieleman attributed their success to the fact that this year – as opposed to in 2005 – the voting public got a lot more information, such as what the new and enlarged ridings would look like under STV.
“There were allegations that this was a back-room, political operative campaign, but what we were able to do was to give people a much closer look at STV, this time around.”
Christopher Pollon is a regular contributor to The Tyee.
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PepperGirl
3 years ago
There should have been a
There should have been a third option on the ballot: "some other form of proportional representation" - not everyone liked STV, but the FPTP system is failing BC voters. Far too many are disenfranchised and refusing to vote altogether. That makes the results of our elections a sham, when only 30-40% of the populace elects our government. (Which is then controlled by a leader who flip-flops on his promises and sells off his province, but that's a whole other comment...)
KevinC
3 years ago
Latest playoff results:
Fear 1 - Democracy 0
David Lewis
3 years ago
The Green Party killed STV
The best chance STV had was the first referendum four years ago. Adrianne Carr, then Leader of the BC Green Party, decided to oppose it. It wasn't good enough for her. She advanced a position held by a minority of feminists in Canada that STV somehow discriminated against women and ignored the interests of the party she was supposedly leading, which would have elected its first M.L.A.s, secured its first Cabinet posts, and held the balance of power in BC under STV, or any proportional system. Such was the razor thin margin of defeat last time that the confusion sown by Carr's opposition can be said to have defeated STV.
Last time STV was on the ballot, reasons people might have had to be interested in changing the system were fresher in their minds, i.e. the Clark government forming even though the Liberals got more popular vote that time. There is a moment when change is possible, after which the tide goes out.
Now that proportional representation has been defeated twice in BC, and the Greens were seen to be responsible for killing the best chance, its time for the Greens to get out of the arena. Every election its the same story, even last election: the Greens had the audacity to moan, as they defeated STV last time, if we only had PR, we could elect MLAs and votes for us would not be wasted.
FPTP tends to produce "big tent" parties, i.e. coalitions of disparate interests forced into the same party in the interest of getting some of their policy into legislation, whereas PR allows a lot of little parties to bloom which then are forced into a "big tent" coalition after the election if they want to get some of their policy into legislation. Its Tweedledum or Tweedledee.
KevinC
3 years ago
@David Lewis
You're losing me with your logic.
The Greens were in favour of STV this time. (See their platform.) How does their position (or at least their leader's position) from the last go round have any bearing on whether they should continue to exist?
Anyway, I hardly think that people who voted against STV in this election were taking the Greens' view of STV into consideration, except for those 8% who actually voted for them!
Perhaps you are conflating two issues: the NDP may well feel that they lost in part due to not having Green votes. I expect to see a lot of finger-pointing in the coming days and weeks about this.
Frank
3 years ago
The Green vote
Was too low for anyone to do any finger pointing. 8% can be written off as a protest vote, a "none of the above" selection.
David Lewis
3 years ago
STV history
2005 was a unique moment in BC electoral history. The two immediately previous elections had produced results that had caused people from all sides of the political spectrum to question the wisdom of staying with FPTP, the present system.
There was the 2001 election, which had given the Liberal party 77 of 79 seats in the Legislature even though they had only won around 58% of the vote. This left the 40% of the voters who had supported the NDP and the Greens with 2 seats in Victoria, both NDP. The Greens won more than 12% of the vote and got nothing.
Then there was the 1996 election, which had allowed the NDP and Glenn Clark to form a majority government with 39.45% of the vote. The Liberal Party had won the popular vote contest by getting 42.8%. Nevertheless, the NDP won 39 seats to the Liberal 33 and ruled the province.
So in 2005, you had all sides of the political spectrum with fairly fresh memories of the most extreme type of inequity that can occur under the present system. Plus, the Citizen's Assembly had an aura of respectability and their recommendation received very favourable coverage.
Move on to 2009, memories of 1996 and 2001 are fading, and the most recent electoral result, i.e. 2005, was a more normal expression of what FPTP provides. The Liberals got 45.8% of the popular vote and 46 seats, the NDP got 41.5% of the vote and 33 seats. Everyone has had time to think over what moving to proportional representation would mean.
Suddenly, the Greens are all in favour of STV. It took four years for it to dawn on them that STV was their ticket to their first MLAs and Cabinet posts. But the best before date for STV had passed them by. They could have been the difference in the 2005 STV referendum where if less than 1.15% of the NO vote had changed to YES, STV would have passed. Which is why I say the Greens killed STV. They did it in 2005, when STV could have passed.
By 2009, alot of people in right wing politics who might have supported STV in 2005 because of their memories of the Clark win in 1996 have been wondering if the right in BC would ever be in government again under STV. The Greens are holding their vote at roughly 10% or more, and the NDP can be counted on to get 40% or more. Some of that support once found among right wing types for STV would be evaporating.
Also, by 2009, a lot of NDP types would be heartened by their recovery from their low of 21.5% of the popular vote in 2001 to their more respectable 41.5% of 2005, and dreams of a majority government are dancing in their heads again. Even 41.5% can give you a majority government in BC under FPTP, if conditions are right. Only FPTP can deliver a majority government to the NDP: they have never gotten the 50% of the popular vote which they would require to govern with a majority under STV.
PR is toast in Canada for decades. Four recent referendums for various types of PR have been defeated: PEI, Ontario, and two in BC.
Wayne Smith
3 years ago
More of the same
So once again, one political party has all the power, even though most people voted against them.
Most of us voted for people who did not get elected. Most of us are "represented' by people we voted against. Most MLAs "represent" mostly people who voted against them.
And apparently, most people in BC think all of that is OK.
I don't think it's OK, and I'm not going to stop saying so.
deeby
3 years ago
Adrianne Carr's got a lot to answer for....
Her petulant whining that the Assembly had chosen the wrong system set the stage for this. Green support would've put this over the top 4 years ago.
The intervening time gave the vested interests on the 'No' side time to perfect their spin and misinformation, along with $$ to fund it. It's easy to argue against change if you sow enough fear....
The Greens will have lots of time to reflect on that, as they spend the next 40-50 years in the political wilderness waiting for the next referendum, sans seats or voice in Victoria.
Dan the socialist
3 years ago
We should of had a choice
This is how New Zealand did it when they decided to change their voting system and BC should of done the same:
***Those who rank proportionality as important in an electoral system frequently prefer mixed-member proportional systems (MMP). When New Zealand changed its electoral system it first held a nonbinding referendum asking whether their first past the post system (FPTP) should be replaced and, if so, which of four systems people preferred; MMP received 70% support, STV only 17%. Since a majority wanted change, a second binding referendum was held in 1993 between MMP and FPTP which resulted in the adoption of MMP. British Columbians won't be given the opportunity to vote on MMP, and STV is nothing like it.***
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_New_Zealand