Supporters of a 'yes' vote in the referendum to change the voting system are asking whether the 'no' side misspent its public education money on a telephone poll. The 'no' side says it checked with Elections B.C. and its spending is within the rules.
Each side has $500,000 from the government to educate the public on the referendum that could see the province adopting the B.C. Single Transferable Vote form of proportional representation.
“Both sides were given some guidelines when they received the money,” said Bruce Hallsor, president of Fair Voting B.C. and a lawyer working on the 'yes' campaign organized through British Columbians for BC-STV. “We're being very careful to stick to the letter of that. I think it's important to spend the money in the way it was intended.”
Public Eye reported yesterday No STV is using the polling firm Ipsos-Reid to ask questions about whether people would support STV more or less if they knew “only two small countries in the world used it”, women would be less likely to get elected, MLAs would be less accountable, small towns would be less represented, politicians would have less power and the results would be less proportional.
Those are all misrepresentations of what would happen with STV, said Hallsor.
It appears the no side is either preparing for an advertising campaign by testing negative messages to see what best resonates with the public or conducting a “push poll” that plants negative ideas, he said. Either way, he said, it's a misuse of public education money.
“It breaks the spirit of the law and I think taxpayers should be outraged by that,” he said. “That's contrary to the spirit of the law, if not to the letter of it. I haven't looked at that, but I probably will be soon.”
A spokesperson for No STV, former NDP MLA David Schreck, confirmed the campaign is conducting a poll and that it is being paid for with the group's public money. It's within the law, he said.
“We checked with Elections B.C. and they thought that is a legitimate use of the money,” said Schreck. “We wouldn't have done it otherwise.”
Polling, which would have cost around $18,000, is part of any advertising campaign, he said. “If you're going to design an advertising campaign, part of the cost in designing that campaign is polling and production costs for the ads.”
The campaign even checked the particular questions they planned to use with Elections B.C., he said. “It wasn't a casual thing. We were very specific.”
Group members are personally liable to repay any of the public grant money that is found to be inappropriately spent, he said. “It focuses the mind on doing things right.”
He defended the group's approach of attacking STV instead of defending the current first-past-the-post system. “Most people are familiar with the current system,” he said.
"We don't have any concerns about their polling," said Nola Western, the Elections B.C. director responsible for electoral finance.
"What they ask is up to them," she said. "The use of the public funds is essentially to get the message out . . . They have to use the public money to oppose STV." The polling is part of that, she said.
"I think it's offensive to suggest we're doing push polling," said Bill Tieleman, a spokesperson for the No STV campaign. "We're using a reputable national polling firm that would not allow itself to be used for push polling. It's a ridiculous and offensive charge on the part of Mr. Hallsor."
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
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Frank
3 years ago
Push polling
"women would be less likely to get elected"
How so?
"MLAs would be less accountable"
Nice try. Actually they'd be more accountable as there would no longer be any such thing as a safe seat since you'd have people in your own party running against you.
"small towns would be less represented"
How so?
"politicians would have less power"
They say this like its a bad thing.
"the results would be less proportional"
Wow. Less proportional than zero? I find that hard to believe.
slim
3 years ago
The pro-First Past the Post side is using deceit
Those who favour the antiquated First Past the Post voting system want to deceive the public about STV. They have nothing good to say about their antiquated system. Therefore, they must attack STV.
First, I will defend STV. Australia's Senators are elected by statewide STV. Approximately 35% of the senators are women. That's far better than the 20% we get in the provincial legislatures and federal House of Commons.
Next, Schreck supports the antiquated First Past the Post voting system because he wants a system that wastes more people's votes and contributes to false majority governments where one person--the premier--gets 100% of the power. The legislature becomes irrelevant, the voters become irrelevant between elections. Democracy becomes irrelevant because one person, the premier, gets to be the dictator for all practical purposes. This is what First Past the Post supporters like Schreck and Tieleman want. They want power for the elite like themselves, not for the average British Columbians.
David Marley
3 years ago
Fear & Loathing
In 2005 STV came within 2% points of passing the %60 yes needed.
When you can't win an arguement on its merits, and most of the people are in favour of it, what recourse is left to you (other than, God forbid, changing your mind or conceding to the will of the people)?
Fear-mongering and being ,as was once famously said, "economical with the truth."
The fact is that %60 of Canadians have never been in favour of anything, and it should be a wake-up call to the political class of this province how deep-seated is the spirit of small d democratic small r reform amongst the people.
Tony
3 years ago
Opposing Isn't a License to Lie
I'm all for the pro-status-quo group doing the polling they need to to figure out what arguments would be the most effective for them, but a public obligation to oppose STV is not a license to lie. While all the statements they've been quoted on in this poll are at the very least arguable (small town representation, accountability, politicians' power were all things the Citizens' Assembly decided would be enhanced by STV), three of the anti-STV side's statements are demonstrably false:
1. "STV is less proportional." Incorrect. STV is far less disproportional than FPTP - the noted political scientist Arend Lijphart reported in 1999 on 50 years' experience in 36 western democracies with a wide variety of voting systems. STV turned in a 'disproportionality score' of 2.5-3.5%, comparable with many other countries using MMP and list PR, while all the FPTP countries had scores ranging from about 11-20%.
2. "STV is used in two small countries. Incorrect." STV is used in at least seven countries, including some rather large ones like Australia, India and the US. Without the qualifier of "at the national level in the lower house", their statement is false. The correct statement is "STV is used in about 100 jurisdictions at the national and subnational level in seven countries around the world."
3. "STV will decrease women's representation." Incorrect. Scholarly opinion is that STV gives women the opening they need to win greater representation. In particular, the Australian experience shows that when women run in both STV and single member elections held on the same day with the same levels of partisan support, women do 50% better with STV.
In particular, Kaminsky (2007, ‘Electoral Systems and Women's Representation in Australia', Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 45:2, 185–201) says: “This article tests the hypothesis that multi-member single transferable vote systems elect more women than single-member district systems by analysing the two houses of the Australian Parliament. The data regarding the number of female members of the Australian Parliament has been collected since the first woman was elected 61 years ago. The Senate, which utilises an STV voting system, has averaged more than two and a half times the percentage of women elected than the SMD House. The data confirms that multi-member district electoral systems using STV elect more women than single-member districts.” See also a longer discussion at http://www.straight.com/article-201581/single-transferable-vote-would-break-down-political-barriers-bc.
frenchy mcswede
3 years ago
Isn't bruce hallsor a noted consevative, and
a supporter of gary lunn? I am no fan of first past the post but have alaways deeply mistrusted stv, especially given gordon campbell's support for it. I have always maintained stv is highly tweakable, will lead to the party with the most money dominating, especially in rural ridings. I have always wondered why stv was so quickly seized on when there seems to be so many other better proportional systems. Was not arch conservative gordon gibson a primary architect in the choice of stv over more just proportional representation systems??