Proportional representation on the German model would produce a more straight forward result. Where STV is used it sometimes takes months to know the results because of a very complicated tallying method.

STV is being used because other than the first-past-the-post system currently in place, this is the most likely to yield results favourable to the right-wing. It also allows rural areas to be over represented denying cities their voice.

THE #1 ISSUE IN THIS ELECTION

Ask yourself why not even 1 of the major parties is even whispering
about it.

What is it that all the major parties fear so much, that not even a whisper is made of it?
What could bring down any of these partys in the future, and return the power back to the people? What virtually guarantees free votes and not towing the party line?

STV is what... The Single Transferable Vote Referendum on this elections ballot.

This issue is so scary to the major parties they won't even mention it.
Why would any of these parties fear putting democracy back in the hands of the electorate?

They love the status quo, where they have all the power and you get shafted.

VOTE YES for the STV and make politicians accountable to the public that
elects them.

This is your 1 and only chance so don't screw it up.

Even if you dont vote for a candidate vote for STV

Mel....

Your mention of months is grossly misstated.
Perhaps in some situations a few days might be needed, so what! Are we all so driven by instant satisfaction that waiting a few days for real democracy is too long?

Personally I'd rather wait a day or two, to find out who's gonna screw me than give them the opportunity to start screwing me 2 hours after the election polls close.

If we had STV federally the NDP would have had about 55 seats in the last federal election. STV may not be perfect but its better than first past the post. Proportional Rep is not on the table and although I think its better than what we have I don't like the fact that the parties themselves pick which of their guys get elected.

Good point about neither the Libs nor NDP promoting it.

STV results are as fair as any system out there. Who cares what system may be the best, our current System just sucks royally.

STV will make it easier for coalition and minority governments, and will give a few seats to the Greens, and whatever other party runs good candidates.

If we had STV, we probably never would have sold off BC Rail. Built those stupid fast ferriers. Federally if we had STV, there would have been no way a minority government could have sent 10mil in contracts to their freinds at ad agencies.

Rafe - there are many things in your article to argue with but let me pick just two. You say the electoral riding boundaries are always re-drawn but you don't say that STV will likely mean reducing our existing 79 ridings down to just 18 ridings for the whole province! And we don't even know for sure how many ridings we'll have or what the boundaries are.

Fair Voting BC, which supports STV, has drawn up a projected map with only 18 giant ridings - that's going to dramatically reduce local accountability as the 2 to 7 MLAs elected won't have smaller defined ridings to represent.

Second, you say no one will be confused by an STV ballot - tell voters in New Zealand.

Here is part of a commentary in the New Zealand Herald by the National Party on the disastrous switch to STV for local elections - results delayed for a month, 100,000 spoiled ballots.

Nick Smith: Local body poll needs to be simple

03.11.2004
COMMENT

The shambles of the local body elections was aptly illustrated by Afghanistan's poll on the same day. This war-torn nation of 29 million people connected by donkey trails conducted its first poll in 5000 years more efficiently.

This humiliating debacle was the product of the Government's politically correct Local Electoral Act of 2001. It was meant to be the dawn of a new age of sophisticated democracy in which councils and voters would have more choice. Councils could now adopt STV, separate Maori seats or an MMP-type system.

STV was plainly the Government's preferred choice. All district health boards were required to switch to it. Local Government Minister Chris Carter was publicly advocating STV as a better system, saying it would increase fairness and voter participation. It has achieved the opposite.

Public anger has focused on the botched count. It is unbelievable that three weeks after the poll closed, 16 district health boards and four councils still did not have a result.

Delays are not the only serious problem. The election saw a record low turnout of just 46 per cent, down 5 per cent from 2001. The Matamata-Piako District Council had a 10 per cent decline in switching to STV. The Auckland District Health Board had 19,019 blank STV voting papers from people who voted in other elections.

Such a low turnout raises questions about the mandate of our elected representatives.

A further concern is the huge number of votes being rejected under STV. The Auckland District Health Board, one of the few counted, had only 850 invalid votes in 2001 but this year had 12,349 invalid votes. This 15-fold increase amounts to 11 per cent of votes cast and is mirrored in Northland, where 13 per cent of votes were invalid. It is scandalous that 100,000 STV votes are expected to be binned by the time counting has finished.

The Government has tried to avoid responsibility by blaming officials, councils, contracted companies and voters. The reality is that it created an overly complex system that was destined to fail.

* Dr Nick Smith is the National spokesman on local government.

Bill - I was a supporter of STV because the current FPP is so demonstrably undemocratic. After researching the examples in other jurisdictions , Ireland, Malta, New Zealand I realize that STV will not be good for BC.

The population density required to make STV functionally fair simply does not exist. Most if not all the ridings in the interior of BC that would be created by an unelected commission and would be larger than the state of Ireland which has a population roughly that of BC.
A Southeast BC riding, say with three MLA, would take 9 hours to drive across. This would ensure that representation would be weak at best and more likley done by party elite thus defeating the whole purpose of reform.

The citizens assembly was prevented from concidering MMP because the Government imposed the condition that the legislature remain the same size.
MMP as practiced in Germany and other states has a drawback in that they use lists of members that are brought forward by the parties.This could be overcome if the parties where required to conduct a primary election much like the US. This would ensure that more party supporters would be involved in the process which has come to be dominated by the central party.
Yes the number of MLA would increase. That is the price of a fairer and more respectful democracy.

hmm no mention is made of how in Northern Ireland the STV was re-voted in 3 times when the politicians tried to rid the country of it.

Curiously brew, you just seem to want to muddy the waters, you actually think what we have now functions fairly? You either want a better/fairer democracy or the status quo, you can't have both. We have a choice STV or the corrupt system we have now. Stop whining for still another choice.

Funny how all the opposing positions refer to MLA's having less power.
Uhm isn't that what we are desiring? An MLA that only gets 40% of the vote from 50% of the eligible voters really only has 20% support.

The last thing the electorate wants is to lose power. With STV we have the opportunity to really make our vote count, as we know that with STV, proportional representation will not disenfranchise voters from voting for only the couple main parties, who represent only a couple of main interests.
It's pretty obvious all the naysayers are either Liberal or NDP hacks.

It's like we put our current system on trial, not with 12 jurors, but with 160! And the verdict was abundantly clear -- first-past-the-post is guilty of being grossly inadequate.

The Citizens' Assembly studied voting systems intensively and conducted public hearings for a year. 80% concluded that STV would be the best system for BC, and 95% of them agreed that STV would be a significant improvement over what we have now.

Who would argue? STV will give proportional results, strong regional representation, and a broad range of choices from which voters can choose genuinely. This is what we want and need in BC.

On the other hand, Bill, incumbents won't have their nice safe party seats to fall back on if they don't do a good job of representing people in the region. STV makes them work for the people of their riding or be replaced by someone from their own party. Yes, the region is larger, but the motivation to represent the constituents is much stronger.

However voters in Australia didn't have any trouble switching over to STV when it was introduced. Maybe that's because it was for important Senate and state legislature elections rather than mostly just health boards in New Zealand.

That's not to say that BC won't benefit from New Zealand's experience. They didn't recognize an "X" as a valid 1st preference, and discarded the ballots of many people who thought they could vote just like in the old system. That's why BC-STV is designed to recognize those votes and count them just as they are counted today. They also had problems with their contracted-out counting software. That's why BC-STV uses a less-sophisticated counting system that can be done by hand, if necessary, in far less than six weeks.

... .... ....

Tieleman, Les Leyne published an apology in the TC on tuesday april 12 for his gross misrepresentation and misunderstanding of STV. (He used some of the same arguements you do in the previous column). Its kinda neat because my letter to the editor about his column was published beside his column.
You can put an x in ireland if you just want to put down one choice. In BCSTV you can do that too and it will prevent the new zealand experience. So, thanks for the red herring.
Also, as far as I know the people of new zealand voted for stv for local government. They didnt have to.
They probably chose it for the same reasons that the citizens assembly chose it.
You know, I can dig up articles from lazy politicians wanting first past the post in ireland. But I will leave it to you to do that and put your spin on it. It would free them from the onerous task of working so much for their constituents.
But, you know what, thats their real job! You put the politicos there to represent you and your interests. They aint there to represent the oil industry or the forest industry or the mining industry or whoever buys them a crate of beer. Get STV in BC, and I suggest that we will have a much healthier and wealthier BC.

Its my belief that in the long run STV will lead to the end of "big tent" parties. I'd be fine with the NDP and Libs breaking into their constituent parts. Federally I think a centre-left farmers party would recapture most of Saskatchewan and Manitoba for one thing, whereas the federal NDP has not done well there recently because the federal NDP is too different from the provincial NDP. A necessity in a big-tent party at the national level.

The same can be said for BC where there is no reason regional parties should not thrive once the big-tent parties have splintered.

Parties have to get back to being more representative. Our democracy is under a lot of stress and I think that's because people vote for the lesser of evils from a paltry few choices. Instead, a number of smaller parties can form alliances on an issue by issue basis.

With STV, you'll pick up the paper the next morning to see the results of the election, and even if some the candidates you voted for got in, you'll have no idea if you helped vote them in or not. For that, you'd need some in depth analysis and a good understanding of how STV transfers votes.

STV is a very poor way of electing political representation. It is misunderstood by a lot of people. The big article that the North Shore News did on it a while ago was so full of errors it was embarassing. The way of electing government needs to be easily understood and STV is not. Vote No on STV!

It doesn't matter if the mechanics of STV are misunderstood by half the population. Simplicity is not always best. If it was, "Campbell" would be the only name on the ballot and we would vote yea or nay.

Ranking your first 2 to 5 choices is not much harder than stopping after you pick the first one.

I love this discussion.
For the first time in my life (90% of which has been spent here in B.C.) I am hearing meaningful discussion about DEMOCRACY.
We have become pessimistic about the possibility of actually participating in government. Given the opportunity of action other than bitching, I can hardly believe naysayers exist for any but self-serving motives.
Are we so inured to the see-saw of B.C. politics that the adventure of seeing the will of the peeps enacted is scarier than the scripted dictatorship we live with now? Hope not. Is the possibility of a legislature filled with representatives instead of trembling pissants so distasteful? Hope not.
We are offered a chance to improve the way our government functions. It's a rare opportunity. Talk to your friends. Urge them to spend a little time getting to know the basics of STV and then shut up and allow their intelligence and good will to decide.

i have a real tough time finding one politician that doesn't disgust me. telling me to find several pious crooks to vote for is an impossibilty. if people think this new system will clean up the corruption in politics they should climb back on the turnip truck.

i'll be voting no.

If all politicians are that bad why don't we get rid of politicians altogether? If there is no difference then why vote at all?

I understand STV! You will not pick up the paper the next morning and know who won. It will be 2 or 3 days after (this might be discribed as due process to those of you that are weaned on instant gratification). And yes, you will know which candidates you helped elect. It is pretty straight forward actually, if you first, second, or 3rd choice or 4th choice got elected, you helped. You might have to go further down the preferences if you voted for someone really obscure.
As long as the rules are written down and understood by the officials of elections bc, there will be no problem. (And the procedeures for counting votes are very orderly).
You just got to do your part as a voter. As long as you can count without skipping a number, you are intelligent enought to take part in a stv election. In BC and in Ireland, you can even put an X if you cannot count. But only one x.
It aint hard and it aint rocket science.
commentor: Chris H
posted: Yesterday
With STV, you'll pick up the paper the next morning to see the results of the election, and even if some the candidates you voted for got in, you'll have no idea if you helped vote them in or not. For that, you'd need some in depth analysis and a good understanding of how STV transfers votes.

A new poll came out, that shows 27% of BC supports STV and 17% opposes it. So of decided voters, its looking like STV may pass. But only 10% can name the system. From talking to people on the street, as I'm actually out trying to increase awareness, most people don't care about the details of the system or the name, they want to know how it will change the system. And regardless of how much Bill Tieleman can swear to the strengths of our current system, he is out of touch with the vast majority of the province, who can't stand it.

STV is not confusing, though poor explanations of it are. STV is complicated, just as programming a VCR, using a microwave, or surfing the web is. Its complicated because its not what we are used to and has a strange acronym, not because of there being anything wrong with the way it works. A lot of the arguments against STV are really, really weak. Chris H is mistaken when he says he won't know where his vote went. I could show him that on the second count, his first choice was eliminated and his vote ended up getting his second choice elected, or that 30% of his vote was counted as surplus, and could show him where it went. Bill Tieleman's example in New Zealand had nothing to do with the voting system being problematic, they just did a poor job of implementing it, didn't test the counting systems, and had more than one system on their ballots.

My favorite comment is from Billy Pilgrim, who says politicians disgust him so he will be voting no. Huh? Turnip Truck? WTF? The STV ballot will likely have about 14 names on it opposed to 4 choices. If he can't find someone he likes on that list, then I've got a strange feeling that he just likes it to rain on other people's parades.

Here's my challenge to those who are opposed, stop using (FUD) fear, uncertainty, and doubt to prevent electoral reform. Its petty. I don't want to hear Bill T with his masters in political science tell me its confusing. And supporters of MMP, sit down and compare FPTP and STV, and make your decision between those two. If you prefer proportionality to plurality, the the choice is clear.

BrianWhite: Way to misrepresent how complex STV really is. What if your 3rd, 4th, and 5th choices got in? Did you have a hand in voting them in? Maybe or maybe not.

I'm sorry, but STV is a poor system because hardly anyone I know truly understands it, and they will be voting on it in about one month. When someone tells me that they are for it, I just ask them to explain how votes are transfered and when they goof it up, all I have to do is laugh at how they are so ready to vote for something they don't understand. Maybe you and I understand it, but like you, I have spent a fair number of hours analyzing it.

People like Rafe Mair, who have become proponents of STV, like it because they believe that they will like the results it will achieve and that they believe it will take the power away from political parties. I don't believe it for one second. STV will not necessarily produce results that are proportional to the percentage of votes given to a particular party (especially if that percentage is low) and STV will do away with locally nominated candidates as happened in Australia.

Is FPTP the best system in the world? I'm not sure of that. Is STV a good alternative? Absolutely not! If it ain't rocket science then I wonder why very few people truly understand it? And I mean understand what happens to their vote when it is counted.

Imagine the guy who's 3rd, 4th, and 5th choices get in and has no idea if his ballot had anything to do with them getting elected. I imagine he's happy that 3/5ths of his choices got in, but what makes him any different from the guy that stayed home and is happy with the result? There is a good chance that neither had any hand it voting them in. One of them might be under the mistaken belief that his ballot counted and wasn't "wasted" as STV proponents like to claim.

STV proponents should come clean and explain the system completely. It came as quite a shock to me to hear Assembly members that actually voted for STV to say publically that it was too complex for the average voter to understand how the results are achieved. That they don't think that the voter needs to understand that is completely condescending. The pamphlet that was mailed out to every household was so incomplete in explaining the system to make it almost useless. Additionally, the charts on what would have been the result of the last election if STV was used was complete fantasy and speculation.

Hey, if after looking at STV and truly understanding it you like it, then by all means vote for it! But I dislike the ridicule that STV proponents throw at people who point out its shortcomings. If you truly like the concept of STV then please explain how the entire system works to people that ask you about it. Don't they deserve that?

And to dangrice.com: What if I voted for the sixth place finisher as my first choice in a riding that is electing five representatives? When does my vote get counted? The answer is never. No matter what choices I put after that initial selection will make any difference to who gets elected. Because I picked the loser who got the most votes and didn't get elected as my first choice, I might as well of stayed home. My vote will be stuck on that sixth place finisher in every round. So much for every vote counting, eh?

I am inclined to agree with the claim that those supporting STV do so because they think that they will like the results better than with FPTP. However, B.C. has already experimented with a preferential ballot. It resulted in the election of the darndest collections of waccos and carpetbaggers we have ever had... lead by one W.A.C.Bennett, who promptly did away with the system. (If my memory serves, no Liberal then would choose CCF as their second choice, and no self respecting CCFer would do the same for a Liberal, so they all plumped for someone they knew absolutely nothing about.)

B.C. is polarized, and the STV will only serve to disenfranchise the minority in any given multi member riding. B.C. has also already suffered through multi member ridings. I do not recall many cases in which the voters actually split their choices between parties. In short, they voted for the party, which is exactly what one would expect in a polarized society. Thus, in a hypothetical eight member riding, which could be split 49% - 51%, there is an excellent chance that the forty-nine percent minority would have exactly no members of their first choice, while the 51% would have eight. How that is preferrable to having say 3 MLAs for the 49% and 5 for the 51%, or 4 for each, I cannot imagine.

I agree with the observation that this invalidates municiple elections. The minorities are disenfranchised, and the middle class, who tend to be more likely to vote, override the others.

We could get regional parties? Ah, like Canada as a whole! No thank you, I prefer two or three parties, because it balances the power of the party with the need to attract support and representation from all over. The disaster of Canadian politics over the last twenty years, with each region having it's own party which only exists in order to hold the rest of the country up to blackmail should be obvious to all, as is the American example, where there is really no need for anyone once elected to do more than bring pork into his or her own area in order to get re-elected, because the Senator or Congressman has no sword of Damocles hanging over him.

Yes, there are times when one party achieves a landslide. I prefer that chance to having a system in which there is no handle on elected officials, who can do whatever they wish with impunity. We have the British Parliamentary system, and we know it. It has it's failures and it's problems, but I suggest so does any other system, and there we won't know the problems, and they will be much more complicated. In short, better the Devil we know that the devil we don't.

I'm having trouble with is argument that we STV proponents only like it because we think we'll like the results better... Uh huh, and your point is...?

Its an electoral system isn't it? For elections? I don't know about you but I think its the result that is the important part of elections, not the lining up part. That's actually kind of boring. Marking an X may be a huge thrill for some as they bask in the sensation of their post-vote glow but me? I just want to go home.

When I go to Dairy Queen and order a chocolate sundae instead of a strawberry its because I think the chocolate gives better results. I know its crazy. It should be the process I look forward to.

It actually doesn't matter to me that I'm not 100% sure if I can explain how the whole iced milk thing is done. I'm basically willing to leave that up to the scientific wizards behind the DQ counter, I just want the result.

For what its worth, the NDP always lose in my riding. Usually by at least 5,000 votes. Somehow I'm able to accept the fact my vote didn't make a difference to the outcome.

ripponfall, you state that the preferential ballot is bad because we got WAC Bennett out of it? Breaking news just in but he also won each election for the next 20 years using first past the post.

How does it invalidate municipal elections? And how does it disenfranchise minority voters?

Regional parties are good. You may not like regions but they do exist and they tend to have concerns that may not be reflected at a national or provincial level. Currently the only regional party in Canada with seats is the Bloc. The NDP and Conservatives are national parties in spite of Liberal protests to the contrary.

As I stated above, the "Wheat Farmer's Party" may not poll well in East Van. Doesn't mean there shouldn't be regional parties. In a minority government, as STV would probably produce, the "Wheat Farmer's Party" might become very important. That is probably a better result if you're living in Kindersley Saskatchewan than if the NDP under (Toronto councillor) Jack Layton wins your riding.

Yes it produces division. But it also forces diverse parties to get along to get anything done. That's a lot better than what goes on now. You don't have to look to the US to find pork barrel politics. Just look around and see whose road gets paved right here in BC. Although I will miss the city employees responding so quickly around election time.

There are "times" when one party acheives a landslide? Considering that a 1 seat majority is just as good as a 75 seat one, I'd say all we get are landslides. The chances of it happening are pretty much over 90%.

ripponfall, also, in your example you state that 51% voting as a block would still get all 5 seats. Not true, they would probably only get 3 seats.

You only get one first choice, not 5.

5 seats would mean you need 20+% to get elected. So the 49% side would probably elect 2.

Again depends on the acual votes, but assuming consistency :

if it was 41% to 39% to 20% it would mean 2-2-1

Frank ... it is clear that you don't understand STV. In a five seat riding, you only need about 16.7% of the votes to be elected (or just over 1/6th of the vote). The last person to get in will undoubtedly have less than that since they will not be recalculating the droop quota as more and more voters drop off as they only ranked a few candidates. I suggest that you do some more research on how STV works before arguing your case.

ha, nice try Chris, you're saying that because I said around 20% instead of 16.7 we should toss STV?

Back to Dairy Queen for you my friend.

I note that you didn't have trouble with ripponfalls criticism of STV based on having 5 first place votes so that 51% would equal 5 seats for that party.

Here's one Chris, how many votes are required to be elected in West Van under first past the post? Hint, the answer is not 50% + 1.

Since there doesn't seem to be anything else going on, I'm back.

Please explain to me why the NDP won a majority government in 1996 and got to do whatever they liked in spite of the fact the Liberals got more votes.

Please explain why the NDP, who got more than 20% of the vote in the last election only got 2 seats. Does that seem fair?

Please explain why there are so many spoiled ballots in first-past-the-post elections when the only rule is to make an X and only do it once.

Please explain ministerial responsibility and why it rarely happens.

Please explain the separation of the legislative and executive branches.

More importantly does 100% of the voting public understand your answers?

Somehow I think not.

Once 100% of the population understand first-past-the-post and the parliamentary system, maybe we'll adopt it at some point in the future, god knows we wouldn't want to do that now though since not everybody understands it.

Maybe we should expand this questioning and also ask people if they can list what countries use systems like Canada? I bet some guy says Britain and that would mean that we would have to get rid of provincial governments.

And just to add, since I don't understand the difference between Dairy Queen ice cream and real ice cream do we have to get rid of Dairy Queen?

Frank: You didn't say around 20%. You said 20+%. It is a common misconception that every vote will "count" under STV, and those using the math that you supplied really have no idea how votes are transferred under STV. As to ripponfalls, I really don't get what he is talking about with his 51 - 49% example. He seems to be talking about first choices and not the end result. He'd have to explain further before I could comment.

Your Dairy Queen analogy, while cute, does not accurately reflect a voting process. When you go into DQ and order chocolate, there are no consequences. You like chocolote ice cream and eat it; that is it. Voting in a political representative is something else altogether.

Not knowing the process of how your electoral process works is kind of like using multiplication without having any idea what it is. I mean with your logic, what difference does it make if you don't understand how to multiply? You have calculators don't you? Hah! I just wouldn't want you building my deck or anything else. What if your finger slips and 40 x 30 comes out 800. You won't order enough wood to build my deck because you knew so little about what you were doing that you couldn't identify a false result.

What percentage of voters is needed to elect someone in WestVan under FPTP? Why, obviously, a bigger percentage than anyone else.

If you think that people don't understand FPTP, Frank, they'll be absolutely brain dead with STV. Is there a better system out there then FPTP? maybe, probably. But, STV, in my humble opinion, is not.

Believe me Chris you wouldn't want me building your deck even if I had two calculators and several accountants in tow.

As for the 20% thing. You jumped on me because all I did, at 1am mind you, was forget to add the +1 before dividing into 100. That's not quite the same as not understanding STV now is it?

Whereas ripponfall made the same mistake I made when I first heard about STV. How would that change anything having 5 seats in a riding I thought since people would probably just vote for their party 5 times. I had to check it out before I realized I was wrong. If STV passes people will have 4 years to figure the system out if they care to.

As for West Van, that's right. There is no %. it all depends on how many other parties there are and who gets what. Under STV you can actually point to a % and say that's what you need. Not that I see either way as having any inherent strength.

I say that people don't understand FPTP and the confederation and parliamentary system even now. But they know how to make an X and they don't complain, much. Marking a few numbers is not that much harder.

Chris, just to add, ordering a chocolate sundae is the same as electing a political rep. At least it is using FPTP. In fact I'm willing to bet many people think more about the choice on a menu than they do about who their rep should be. But that's beside the point. You want a result, you choose it.

Now if I was to say, I need to buy a whole dinner but only have $10 it would be more like STV. I would have to order my choices so I get my 1st choice for sure, then keep going till I run out of money, or choices in the STV case.

Frank, I like your dinner analogy. What about the poor guy who puts down his $10 and chooses the cheeseburger as his first choice. Unfortunately, the cheeseburger is the sixth favourite dish on the menu. Not only does the guy not get to have a cheeseburger, he isn't allowed to have any of his other choices either. That is STV for ya. Not everyone gets their first choice or anything under this electoral system. That is why I dislike STV so much. In a five candidate riding, you could have approximately 1/6th of the people not get their first choice or any other choice counted. So, no ... you don't get your first choice for sure. It is those kind of statements that lead me to believe that you don't understand how STV works.

Additionally, you can't point to a percentage and say that is what you need. The last person to get elected in a five candidate riding will have less than 16.7%. How much less one can only guess. So, maybe you only need 15 or 12% to win. Shrug ... but that is the system you like so much.

You're right Chris, it is possible you don't get any of your choices. But how is that different than me being in a riding that has never voted NDP in its history? Same with the riding next to me.

Gee Chris, are you sure you know how FPTP works???

The difference is that everyone in your riding has their ballot counted exactly the same number of times. Once! Under STV, some people will have a hand electing all five candidates (i.e. they get to participate in the election in every round of vote transferring) while some people are stuck with their first choice all the way through the vote transferring and end up electing no one. Atleast with FPTP, I can see where my vote went, where everyone elses went, and be fairly confident that even though I didn't elect my candidate, that one person meant one vote. My riding hasn't voted for who I wanted either under FPTP, but atleast it was fair to everyone. I was shocked when the riding I live in voted out Ted White and replaced him with a Liberal in the federal election. Maybe politicians need to work for everyone in their riding or they'll be toast sooner or later. With STV, I bet Ernie Crist could elected in North Vancouver. I'm sure he could get his 16.7%. There are enough older citizens that actually cheer him on to get that percentage I bet!

Yes, I know how FPTP works.

Are you sure? :) Because under FPTP most people's vote does not count towards electing a candidate. Either their candidate loses or their vote is one of about 5,000 surplus votes.

Therefore under FPTP voting is a waste of time for most people because the guy they want elected will either lose or be elected anyway.

Personally, I don't consider my vote "wasted" when my vote does not elect anyone. I do have a problem with one person's ballot having more power than mine though. You know how municipal councillors are voted in? Imagine if some people got to only vote for three people while others got to vote for six. You think some people would be pissed? For sure they would.

I do. When the guy I'm voting for loses by 5,000 votes I consider my vote wasted. Just as I would if the guy I was voting for won by 5,000 votes.

Under STV some people's votes are not being counted more times. A guy who needs 10 votes and gets 10 votes does not then see a fraction of those votes go to their 2nd place choices because there would be zero surplus. Once you have a surplus then you get a fraction of votes moving to the 2nd choice and so on. (This part depends on the actual implementation chosen)

You can't ignore the fractions. Its possible for half of a guy's vote going to get someone elected and half going to someone else but no one is getting 5 or 6 full votes from one ballot.

"...Atleast with FPTP, I can see where my vote went, where everyone elses went,..."

I also had this misunderstanding about STV. But it is a misunderstanding.

If you give me the outcome of a STV vote and what your ranked preferences are I can tell you exactlly where your vote went.

"... could have approximately 1/6th of the people not get their first choice or any other choice counted....is the sixth favourite dish on the menu. Not only does the guy not get to have a cheeseburger, he isn't allowed to have any of his other choices either..."

But under the current systems sometimes over 50% of the poeple don't get their choice counted. Wouldn't it be better to have only 1/6 of the people not having their choice counted instead of over 50%?

".. ballot having more power than mine though. ... to vote for six. You think some people would be pissed? For sure they would."

But no ballot has more power than another. Everyone gets to vote for six. Some people might have voted for the six people that happened to get elected but their ballot only counted for a percentage of the a vote for each one of those six. They did not get six full votes. They only got one full vote.

Yes, some people might be pissed. But only because they don't understand STV.

So, Frank, you don't think getting to split up your vote is more powerfull then having to stick it all to one candidate? Those that get their vote split up under the gregory system will undoubtedly be tickled about it, but those that are stuck on their first choice for the whole transfer process won't be. Hmmm ... seems like one vote per one person, eh ... NOT! While mathematically equal, they are not equal in effect.

OK, Rob, can you tell me what happened to my ballot when they publish the five winners? Absolutely not! If my first choice wasn't elected, you'd need to know when, and if, my first choice was dropped off the ballot. You think people understand STV enough to go to some government database to retrieve that kind of information? No, they actually might be under the mistaken impression that because their 2nd to 5th choices were elected that their ballot was counted for those choices because proponents of STV keep on saying, "every vote counts."

The fact of the matter is that proponents of STV don't want people to know how the system really works. They continually misrepresent it as a proportional representation system. You do realize that the result in the 1996 BC provincial election could happen under STV. A party could still get the higher % of the vote and still lose under STV.

Frank, who continues to push STV in everyone of his posts on the Tyee, didn't even know what percentage of the vote was needed in a five person riding to guarantee victory. You'd think that such a proponent of STV would know atleast that basic information.

The major reason that STV is so bad is because it is far too complex a system to be easily understood by the majority of voters. That admission comes from proponents like Don Phillips, Assembly member who supposedly voted for the thing.

So, continue to misrepresent what STV is. I'll continue to ask people thinking about voting yes to explain the vote transferring process, and when they screw it up, like Frank did, I'll ask them why the would vote for something they can't explain.

"OK, Rob, can you tell me what happened to my ballot when they publish the five winners? Absolutely not! "

Yes, if they publish how they the winners were chosen. You are right that people may not choose to get that information. But if the information is available you can easily figure out where your vote went. To say that you get determine how your vote was allocated is simply not accurate.

Here is an experiment to try. Go to:
http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/flash/bc-stv-full
and use the scenario that they give for a STV vote. Tell me how you voted for these example candidates and I will tell you how your vote was allocated using the scenario given.

Chris, you don't even understand FPTP. You didn't realize the huge percentage of wasted votes out there. Instead you tried to claim you don't consider your vote wasted.

You continue to push for a system that is supposedly simple yet even you don't understand it after all these years.

There are still people who think the Canadian system is like the British or the US. It isn't and yet we keep using it.

In the comments section here and across the media we still read people who aren't sure what powers are federal responsibility and which are provincial. Yet we continue to have provinces.

You say I don't understand STV yet its you who thought a vote could count 6 times. So you don't understand it. No problem. I really don't care that you don't understand either STV or FPTP. As long as you understand how to vote you can happily engage in the democratic process with the rest of us. I certainly am not one to stand outside polling stations asking people questions about the BNA Act and laughing at their answers.

If we refused to use anything that people didn't fully understand we'd still be riding horses and writing letters on paper.

The results of an STV election are fairer than FPTP in regards to the seat distribution being more equitable based on the popular vote. And that's where the rubber hits the road.

As for me bringing up STV, guilty as charged. This is a political site dealing with provincial issues on the eve of a provincial election where for the first time people will be able to say they want the STV system used in future elections. If that doesn't clear the way for me to raise the STV banner on here for a few days I don't know what would. Its not like anyone has to pay to read my comments.

ChrisH wrote: " While mathematically equal, they are not equal in effect."

WTF? What does this mean? Would you say that 1+1=2 mathematically but "in effect" 1+1 actually equals 3?

Frank, you'd better take a course in reading comprehension. Go back and read what I wrote. I was talking about municipal elections when I pointed out the six votes to three thing ... not STV in particular. I was making a point about the perception of fairness. It was lost on you ... shrug. I hope you know that municipal elections do not use STV to vote in council. I understand the FPTP system and STV. If you don't like what you consider "wasted" votes then why aren't jumping up and down that the Assembly didn't pick proportional representation since there are still "wasted" votes under STV? I stand by what I have written. Can you say the same? (i.e. 20+%) No one who really understood STV would have written that and continued down the merry path of telling us what the results would be linked to a percentage of the vote. Math geeks are laughing in their sleep!

And, Rob, have you ever heard of breaking a company apart and selling off its different pieces? Why not just sell off the entire company? Its parts are mathematically equal to its whole, are they not? You know why they do that don't you? They get a better return. By splitting up the company, they can maximize the sale value because although mathematically the parts are equal to the whole, the effect those parts play individually are more powerful (with a higher resale value) then they are all together. Would you rather have 10 votes that you have to give to only one candidate or 5 sets of 2 votes that you could distribute anyway you'd like? Hmmmm ... maybe that is a major flaw in the gregory method. That is why there are other ways that have been used to transfer votes under STV. Other methods transfer whole votes so that votes aren't split up with some people having a hand in electing many candidates while some have a hand in voting only a few or none. By transferring a whole vote, everyone only has a hand in voting in one or none. Alarmingly, depending on what method is chosen, different results take place when the voting is close between candidates. You hear that? The Assembly picked a system that has many different ways of transferring votes because they ALL have flaws!

Chris, tell me again how your vote isn't wasted under FPTP. Please, really, I want to hear how if your guy loses by 5,000 votes your vote isn't wasted. Waiting...

Oh and please tell me how having my vote split up into fractions makes it more powerful than a vote that isn't. I want to hear the math on that one. Always good for a few yuks.

And while you're at it let's hear again that voting in an STV type election is so hard that most people can't handle it because it involves making a list which somehow is beyond their comprehension.

How many of the voting population turned out to vote last election? I saw 55% somewhere. People are voting with their feet Chris. They think the current system is a sham.

I don't think someone who is having trouble understanding FPTP should be regaling us with a lecture on how STV is too complex.

"have you ever heard of breaking a company apart and selling off its different pieces? Why not just sell off the entire company? Its parts are mathematically equal to its whole, are they not?"

No, they're not. Value depends on what someone is willing to pay for it. Someone may want to buy the restaurant division of a company without also buying the logging division.

Its why in neighbourhood garage sales or on ebay people sell their stuff one piece at a time instead of in one big lump.

So your analogy is simply wrong. Parts of a company are not equal in value and therefore there is no relation to a vote which no matter how many fractions it might be divided into always adds up to one.

Actually being as this conversation has degenerated into something that has little to do with the pro and cons of STV perhaps we should just hit the reset button.

Here you go Frank ... this will end the debate.

I believe that it is possible in a riding that will elect 7 candidates that if 50% of the voters vote strictly Liberal and 50% of the voters vote strictly NDP, that it is possible for the Liberals to win 6 out of 7 of the seats. Prove to me that I am wrong and not only will I never try to convince anyone to not vote STV, but I promise you I will vote for it myself!

You don't like my company analogy? Let me try something that doesn't involve money that a 6 year old would understand. You have two scoops of icecream. You could put the two scoops together (1+1=2) and eat them yourself, or you could split them up (still 1+1=2) and eat one while offering the other one to a potential new friend. Which way is more powerfull, gives you more influence, and has a greater positive effect? Splitting things up is way more effective. Sorry.

Additionally, my vote wasn't "wasted" under FPTP whether I voted for a winner that got "excess" votes or a loser who didn't get elected because all the ballots participated in the count exactly the same number of times. Once. That is fair. Under STV that will not be the case. Some people's ballots will participate more often than others. That is unfair.

Chris, you can't end the debate by making another attack.

And your ice cream analogy is different than your company analogy. I won't call you a 6 year old over it, however, stick with the ice cream analogy, it works for me and illustrates one of the reasons I support STV.

You said above the following :

"What if I voted for the sixth place finisher as my first choice in a riding that is electing five representatives? When does my vote get counted? The answer is never. No matter what choices I put after that initial selection will make any difference to who gets elected. Because I picked the loser who got the most votes and didn't get elected as my first choice, I might as well of stayed home. My vote will be stuck on that sixth place finisher in every round. So much for every vote counting"

As you can see you clearly know what a wasted vote is under STV but refuse to admit when it happens under FPTP. Far more often under FPTP too but that's beside the point.

Also, no retort to the fact that only 55% voted last time? Nothing about laughing at people who get the terms of the BNA act wrong?

Now about your 50% thingie. I can't see that happening and I'm off to the Tyee argument at the Our Town Cafe in 5 so I don't have time to work it out.

But basically you're saying that somehow both sides could get the same vote in a riding with 7 candidates and one party would only get 1 seat?

Let's assume that's possible, in other words I'll take your word for it for the sake of argument even though I don't believe it. Would that not be a very rare occurrence? And, would you say such a possible scenario invalidates STV? Why?

Because I know for a fact you can get less votes than another party and still win a majority government under FPTP.

You know, there is a really big downside to STV that hasn't been mentioned. As a computer expert, I can tell you that any computer can be hacked and many are. STV will result in votes being counted and the results tabulated by computer. It will be just like the Diebold machines in the US. A lot of Americans are very upset by the use of the machines, and many believe they have already been used to manipulate elections.

You will never again be able to trust that a vote was fair and legally counted. It may not seem like much right now, but when you begin to distrust the results, and you will, you will come to understand that there is more to this than you are considering now.

Oh, and Rafe, what's up with the excellent column on fish farming last week and having a link right beside it to a website that's title was about "Fishfarmers are being slandered". I think the last thing this excellent online news source needs is to fall into the "we must give equivalent time to opponents of everything, regardless of how whacko they are". We have enough of that in the Sun and Province.

Fact: The countries that have the highest voter turnout generally vote using a proportional representation system... not STV.

Fact: The concept of a "wasted" vote is only out there because proponents of STV use this as a selling point to STV, and try to claim that every votes counts ... which under STV it clearly does not if "every vote counts" means that STV doesn't have "wasted" votes. I have actually spoiled my ballot when there were no candidates worth voting for. I showed up. They had to count my vote and put it in some column. I don't feel that it was a waste of my time. I actually wish they would put "none of the above" on the ballot.

Fact: It is indeed possible for 50% of voters to vote strictly Liberal and 50% of voters to vote strictly NDP and have one of those parties take 6/7ths of the seats in that riding. The fact that you don't know how this is possible tells me that you don't understand STV. It really proves my point. Someone with as much passion for it as you doesn't understand it? Would it be rare? I have no idea how voters in BC would vote under STV, therefore, I have no idea how rare a result it would be. It's rarity is speculation at best. It doesn't invalidate it, but how can you vote for something you can't fully explain? That I have to shake my head at.

Fact: I have a lot of respect for you Frank. You atleast are thinking about our electoral system and how important it is. If you think that STV is better than FPTP then you are entitled to that opinion. But, I am continually frustrated by the STV proponents that ... well ... either outright lie about the mechanics of STV or are ignorant of them. I believe that voters should not be ignorant of how an electoral system calculates its results. It isn't the inner workings of a computer, and its not a flavour of icecream at Dairy Queen. This is a fundamental aspect of society that determines how we can live our lives. When someone asks how it works, they get, "it's easy as 1, 2, 3." That is condescending. The Assembly members knew that they would lose people if they tried to explain it fully because of its complexity, so instead they ridicule people and tell them that the "experts" know how to tally the votes; you don't need to worry your little brain now.

I wish everybody the best in figuring out whether to vote "No" or "Yes" on STV. Personally, I hope it fails and they go back to the drawing board. There may be a better system out there than FPTP, but like I've said many times, it is definitely not STV.

abidCow said:

Actually it won't be. The Diebold machines in the U.S. usually don't have a Voter-Verified Paper Trail(VVPT).

The Citizens Assembly requires that there is a VVPT with BC-STV.

The computers will do the counts to get quick results but representatives from each party will have a chance to verify that all votes were counted and allocated properly.

Okay all you Tyee'ers, how come you didn't show up for the book launch of Liberalized? I bought a copy and the wife has already borrowed it. Enjoyable evening but I would have liked to have seen more of you. Now buy the book and support this site.

Now Chris, don't you think you're being a little dismissive. I racked my brain on the way into town tonight trying to think of how two parties could split the vote 50-50 and one side win 85% of the seats but I can't. I assume you've got a scenario in mind where only the first choice of people is for party B and the subsequent selections are for party A?

What about the fact you can come in second in popular vote and win a majority government with 39% of the vote under FPTP?

Now on to your facts. First, the concept of wasted vote is not out there as a red herring. People in this country have been complaining about wasted votes as far back as the Progressive party of the 20's and probably before that. At the federal level the PC's and Alliance merged because they figured 2 parties meant wasted votes. Its a real, not manufactured, problem.

Next fact, voters should not be ignorant of their electoral system. Okay, in a perfect world I would agree. But I stand by my earlier comments. Why is a voting system any different than all the other things related to politics in this country. Isn't the reason we have provinces important? Isn't understanding the British North America act important? The division of powers? The role of cities? All of these things are left to "wiser" heads. Why not the intricacies of vote transfer under STV? Why does that have to be 100% knowable by everyone? You may think its more important than what I mention and that's fine, but I don't believe it is.

Your first fact was PR is better. Hey, I was calling for PR when this whole Assembly thing started. But the party list thing always bothered me as well as the fact that I think regions sort of get the shaft. But my main thing against PR is that its not on the table. My first comment here mentioned this. We only have a choice of STV or FPTP. PR is not on the list so I don't see why we should bother about it.

Even STV has little chance of being accepted as it requires 60% and 50%+1 in 60% of ridings etc or something like that. Sounds pretty tough to me. Just glad it wasn't 60% of eligible voters as that would have been impossible.

And we all know there won't be a next time. This is our one kick at the can to change the system.

If anyone wants to "try out" BC-STV check out this webiste: http://bc.demochoice.org/

There are other websites with examples but this one lets you vote for actual candidates running in the current election.

It also shows you exactly how the votes are distributed in each "round" and shows you which of your picks ended up counting.

Good try Frank, but you'd better keep thinking. Oh ... and it's possible to come second in popular vote and win a majority government with 39% of the vote under STV as well as FPTP. If you can't figure it out then you either do not understand STV or have very limited math skills. Sorry.

I have just been through the simulation at the Citizens' Assembly website. It seems to me that some votes count more than others. Only the second choices of some of the candidates were redistributed. The second choices on Amanda Apple's ballots are counted (at a proportional value). The second choices on Bill Banana's surplus ballots are counted (at a proportional value). The second choices on Celine Cherry's ballots are counted (at full value). If you voted for Eric Elderberry or Danielle Durian, however, your second choices are not redistributed. In addition, what happens to the third, fourth, et al choices? What is their value?

Also, let's say that Amanda Apple is a Conservative. The second choices on those ballots are also likely to be Conservative. Those ballots get counted, in a way, twice, favouring, it seems to me, the Conservative voters in the riding. On the other hand, let's say that Danielle Durian and Eric Elderberry are running for the NDP, and assume that their second choice votes are also left-leaning. Their second choice ballots appear to be ignored. Is this truly proportional?

I also worry that the complexities of the system will inevitably lead to computerized voting. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I don't like the sound of that, given the somewhat questionable results in recent elections south of the 49th.

Let me help Frank out. Frank, nowhere does it say that in a riding with seven members (for example) that you must place seven or more choices on your ballot. Party A's supporters place all their first picks for one candidate, and no others. Party B's supporters split their first picks at least six ways, or have at least six people from their party in amongst their picks (and no picks from A). End result: one from A, six from B.

STV has so many possible oddball results I cannot see why anyone would seriously consider it. Can you elect a candidate with exactly one vote, no matter how many candidates are on the slate or how many people vote? Yes! Can you, with that seven person riding mentioned above, get any result between 6 for A, 1 for B and 1 for A, 6 for B while still getting the same 50-50 split of the popular vote? Yes! Can you have someone named on 20000 ballots lose to someone named on only 10000 ballots? Sure can! Can you have an election where the majority of seats aren't even filled? Absolutely! It's almost like a game to see how counter-intuitive a result STV can produce.

As for claims that STV wastes fewer ballots, if I can take part in an election I don't consider my vote wasted unless it is written off as spoiled. STV has a much higher proportion, in practice, of spoiled ballots than FPTP.

Thanks, James! You understand STV!!!

Best quote on STV so far:

Angus Reid: "I have a PhD in stats and I can't even explain it."

That one made me laugh.

I’m impressed that BC is engaged in a valuable discussion about DEMOCRACY. In a world where Iraqis, Ukranians, Afghans so clearly value voting, it is great that we are working to improve ours! However, I’m disappointed with persistent misperceptions about STV: concerns about changes to the ridings and concerns about complications in voting.

Redistricting: this happens regularly under the direction of Elections BC. There is no reason to doubt that they won’t continue to do a good job when redistricting as required for STV.

It is also worth recognizing that our current system is not perfectly democratic. The vote of each British Columbian is not equal. Vancouver-Burrard has approximately 64,000 voters, whereas the North Coast has only 28,000. Are these ridings equal? Clearly not. Each voter in the North is worth at least twice that of someone in Vancouver. Is this fair? Arguably.

A variation on the criticism is that STV will create ‘super-ridings’ of enormous size. But large ridings in the south will be no bigger than the current ridings in northern BC. Likewise, the large ridings in the north will be no bigger than those they use in federal elections.

Anyway, is Vancouver really ‘better served’ by their MLAs than those in Bulkley Valley just because some Vancouver ridings are less than 20 blocks wide, whereas the northern riding is 177,000 square kilometers? Arguably, a voter is better represented by an MLA who shares the voter’s beliefs rather than an MLA who is simply ‘close by’. STV aims to do just this through greater proportional representation in multi-MLA ridings.

Further, our methods of communicating with each other are changing—many rural people embrace the internet as a way to stay ‘connected’ to the greater world. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that our electoral system should change along with these advances?

Critics also claim that voters will be unable to differentiate between the candidates in multi-MLA ridings. This dramatically underestimates the wisdom of British Columbians. Voters in Vancouver cope with large ballots in municipal elections.

The second major argument is that STV is too complicated. Surely no-one argues that British Columbians can’t rank candidates. Suggesting otherwise is ludicrous and insulting.

Although voting may be easy, counting the votes IS more complicated. The important thing to note, however, is that the public doesn’t have to count the votes—Elections BC does. Not to say that British Columbians shouldn’t be able to understand the mechanics of STV, provided they make an honest effort.

It’s also worth noting that any voting system can produce complex results. Even our winner-take-all system, which seems simple, has created some wild outcomes. In 1972, the NDP won a landslide with 39.6% of the vote; three years later, the NDP lost in a landslide when they got 39.2% of the vote.

This isn't to say that STV can't produce complex results. Just mathematically it is far less likely because STV is far more likely to provide proportional representation that our current winner-take-all system.

Watching the animation at the Citizens’ Assembly website (citizensassembly.bc.ca) is the best way to understand STV.

Following the video you can see where all the votes go, and you can even track how each vote was counted. Total transparency.

The Irish have been using STV since they got independence. They like it so much that they twice rejected referendums to change to winner-take-all elections. Indeed, like the citizens in the Assembly, when most people learn of the benefits of STV, they recognize that it is a considerable improvement over winner-take-all.

Voters are alienated by adversarial politics, where candidates must curry favor with parties before constituents. Voters dislike the system that fails to represent significant minority parties that gain votes but never a voice in power.

The over-riding message the Citizens’ Assembly received was: limit party influence and introduce more representation!

The Citizens’ Assembly didn’t like straight ‘proportional representation’ because it perpetuates party politics, radicalizing debate by allowing the extreme parties to become power-brokers. Furthermore, the parties get to make the list of the MLAs -- STV puts that power in the people -- even more than in a winner-take-all election where the parties get to nominate the single candidate that will run in the riding.

Predictably the political parties don’t like STV. The system dramatically reduces their control over candidates.

But it is hard for the parties to figure out how to defeat the STV referendum. They can’t attack the Citizens’ Assembly. You can hardly call a group of earnest, randomly selected individuals a ‘special interest group’. Instead, the parties are simply ignoring the whole thing.

And, inexplicably, so are the media. On the rare occasion when something gets in the paper/radio/tv, opponents claim that STV is too complicated. It amazes me that these people think a system that has worked – and indeed has been loved – for nearly a century in Ireland is too complicated for BC. Let’s hope that British Columbians aren’t really that stupid.

First:

Thanks to Chris and Frank for the debate. Believe it or not, it helps; but the rudeness isn't necessary.
I am still confused. In the first instance, I have always said to myself that I will vote for anything more proportional no matter what. But on the other hand I am sensitive to local representation.
I was struck by the 50% and 50% equal 6 seats for party B and 1 for party A. After puzzling about for a while, I have decided that it is a non-starter of an argument.
First, if party A supporters all only put down ONE choice, then they ALL KNOW that the most they will help elect is one candidate. The chances of this happening are null.
So I put old fashioned pen to paper and tried to figure out how this would work changing your argument only slightly.
I assumed that there was a 1000 person riding with 7 seats. I still assumed that party A had one super-strong candidate that garnered ALL the first place votes (50% of total). But instead of assuming that they voted for noone else, I assumed that they put their second place votes to their second candidate (A2) and so forth. For party B, I spread out their first place votes evenly, and similarily spread their second and third place votes evenly as well.
Now; according my neophyte level of understanding, the results would be as follows. 126 votes would be needed to be ellected. Candidate A1 got 500 (50%) and all the other party A candidates got no first place votes. All the party B candidates would get 500/7 = 71 votes.
Thus, on first count; only A1 gets elected. He would then tranfer 358 to the clear second choice (using my assumption) and only A2 would be elected on the next count. He would tranfer 232 votes on the next ballet and A3 would get elected. He would transfer 106 votes.
So..after 3 rounds, 3 party A candidates have been elected. So at this stage the count is A4=106, and A5,6,and 7 have none. All party B candidates have 71.
At this points A5,6,7 would be dropped with nothing to transfer. And we move to party B. I have to make a tiny alteration at this point. Of course, having all party B having the exact same doesn't work, so for the sake of math (and reality; the chances of a 7 way tie are trillions to one), we'll assume that they are only apart by one vote (or .00000001 of a vote if it were possible.) At that point the one with the least; and I'll again say that instead of getting 71 votes he/she got 70.9999999999. they would be split. Again sticking to my initial assumptions that the party B second choices are evenly split (save for a minute statistical difference required), that would be roughly 10 votes transfered to each of the remaining party B. Now all party B (and there are only 6 now) would have about 81. Again the bottom one would drop and the five remaining party B would get 81/5 = 16.2 more votes. that would bring the 5 to 97.2. [recall, A4 still has 106 but no more votes coming to him). Another B would be dropped and the 4 remaining would get 97.2/4 = 24.3 more votes = 121.5 votes. At this round the final party A guy (106 votes) would be dropped. Then one more B would be dropped and each of the 3 would get 121.5/3 = 40.5 for each having 162. Those three party B would be elected and each party would get three seats.
Now I do not know much; but the example of 50% each ending up with party A getting one and party B getting 6 is ludicrous. Using a more practicle example; let's assume that party A is the NDP and party B is the Liberals. Your split as argued would only happen if ALL the NDP'ers voted for ONLY one candidate. That would NOT happen. And as I have shown, whether they are evenly split or hierarchically (strategically) alloted would not necessarily end up with a difference.
The one scenario where ONLY one candidate would get all the votes would be if there was only one candidate for that party. Let's say one green. He/she would be elected. Beyond that, the Green voters have a choice: not place as any second place votes (as you suggest), and live with the consecuences. Or, place 2nd place votes for the lesser of the evils. It would be their choice.
So again; I myself will not claim to understand it. But going through that exercise actually reduced my anxiety about the system and showed your hypothetical to be nonsense. Only fools would place only one choice. But if they did (for example, only one green candidate), the person would be elected if they had enough votes; and by not placing 2nd and third place choices they are clearly saying that they only are voting for one candidate and will let the other 6 be elected as they are.
I am going to take a chance on the system and vote for STV.

I'm also disappointed in the way STV is portrayed, Art_B. I'm disappointed in how the pro-STV side has distorted the truth in order to make the case for STV look better.

It started in the copy of the Final Report, on page seven. On that page is a pie chart that supposedly shows how the seats would have been split under BC-STV. Can you explain to me how one could create such a chart without knowing what the ridings would be or what the second, third etc. choices of people would be? The pie chart shows what the seats would have looked like under Proportional Representation, NOT STV. This is the lie that the pro-STV side repeats over and over, that STV is a proportional representation system. IT IS NOT. It is closer to PR than FPTP in a statistical sense, nothing more. In the last election, barring some very favourable second choice support, you wouldn't see a single Unity or Marijuana party seat - unlike what the pie chart suggests.

The pro-STV side likes to claim that the system is easy to understand. It is true that the mechanics of filling in a ballot are simple. But what makes FPTP easy to understand is that the consequences of a ballot are easy to understand. In FPTP, if you are strongly for one candidate, your interests are best served by voting for that candidate. If you are strongly against one candidate, your interests are best served by voting for another candidate who you feel has the most support in the riding. That's it - a very simple process. If you are voting with a STV system, though, it's not so simple. Suppose you have two favourite candidates in a two-member riding. How do you vote to get them both in? You now have to consider not only who will get what percent of the first choice ballots, but also how the second choices of each candidate will look. In our example, you could be for one left-wing and one moderate candidate. If you rank the moderate first, and the moderate wins but the vast majority of his second votes are for the right-wing candidate, you may have helped give the second seat to someone other than your second choice. This is a simple example. Imagine how this will play out in a seven member riding! In such a situation, I doubt many, if any, people will understand how to best cast their vote to achieve the results they desire. It isn't about British Columbians being "stupid", as you say, but more about them not being geniuses.

Counting the votes is also an issue. One of the ways that people decide who to vote for is prior results. If my riding has been solidly for one party or one side of the political spectrum for decades, I will have a much different view of who could win than if I lived in a riding that always had close votes. How do you propose to reveal the results of an election, and will those results give people the information they need heading into next election? Will the Vancouver Sun report all the different elimination rounds in each riding, or will they just show the winners and mention which round they finally achieved victory on? How exciting will elections be when the results will be announced the next day, with no useful intermediate results available? What will happen in ridings where not enough members are elected, or in close ridings where the much larger number of spoiled ballots STV generates comes into play?

Every pro-STV article quotes the results of the '72 and '75 elections as being counter-intuitive. Yet if you look in any given riding during those elections, you can see exactly why a given candidate won or lost - and local representation is important to people. Will you be able to say the same thing after a STV election?

Under STV, politicians are even more tied to their party structure than under FPTP. Why? One word - funding. The ridings are much larger under STV, so the individual politician has to reach many more voters with his/her media campaign than in FPTP. And who holds the purse strings? The party. Look at the results in Malta using STV - no independent members since 1950. FPTP British Columbia has had independent members as recently as 1996.

Cosmo, it's not just fools who would vote for less than the number of members. If, as the pro-STV side claims, STV encourages people to think beyond parties, people will be encouraged to not vote for anyone they don't like. Also, look at your example. In a seven person riding, you elected six people because you didn't change your Droop quota when people's votes stopped. That's the way the proposed system would work, so it's accurate. What happens to the final seat? Will we need to run a second election for the seat, costing taxpayers more money and time? Who will be allowed to run? If Party C ran seven candidates in the last election, do they get to run seven in this one? Also note that this result isn't an artifact of the perfect 50-50 split in the popular vote. Add another 15 votes to A from B and the result is the same. Do we want a system where close races produce frequent runoffs, as opposed to FPTP where the top candidates must tie exactly (much rarer)? STV creates more problems than it solves, which is why come election day I'm voting against it.

James G asks: "Suppose you have two favourite candidates in a two-member riding. How do you vote to get them both in?"

Answer: You vote first for the person you prefer most, and second for your next favorite.

why? You answered it yourself: STV "is closer to PR than FPTP in a statistical sense, nothing more."

That is the WHOLE point of STV!

Between 'winner-take-all and STV, STV is the system that LEAST distorts the voting process: ie, the MLAs that win are MOST similar to the voters' preference.

Surely that IS a good thing.

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About publicizing results. The bc.demochoice.org/ website has a pretty good demonstration of how you would provide the results, the final, and elimination stages.

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With respect to funding and size of ridings... is there any data on the relationship between the two? I haven't seen any, but it would be very interesting, and would serve to end the debate about the relevance to the importance of the size of the riding...

If anyone has any data please post it!

Thanks

gee, this looks like fun. can i play?

there are many ideas here i'd like to tackle, but time dictates i focus on just two:

Chris H keeps criticizing any proponent of BC-STV who doesn't display perfect encyclopedic knowledge of the system. that's silly -- please stop. is there anything in the world that you need perfect knowledge of to use properly? telephone? car? our bodies? relationships? these things are enjoyed and used everyday by millions who know very little about their inner dynamics. knowing the details of the electoral system may be a fun intellectual challenge for the geeks among us, but it doesn't make anyone a "better voter". and chris, laughing at people because they choose a Mac over a PC* without knowing all the inner workings of Macs would make one look nerdy AND unpleasant.

actually casting a vote under BC-STV is no more difficult than counting to seven (and you don't even need to go that high if you get tired.) and though tallying the final results may be complicated, or at least difficult to explain to a sound-bite-addicted electorate, it is well defined and repeatable.

that said, there are flaws to the proposed system i'd like to discuss in another post...

my second comment relates to "possible oddball results" of BC-STV:

er, what's so odd? A's supporters wanted one candidate and got that candidate -- they had the numbers. B's supporters also got what they wanted -- a bunch o' B's. sounds right to me.

what James G dismisses as counter-intuitive results i see as manifestations of the many permutations of the will of thousands of individuals. under the current system, every time i hear a commentator say "the people have spoken", i want to scream. more than half FPTP votes don't elect anyone, and we have no way of knowing how many voters are really saying "my 1st choice, A, doesn't stand a chance, so i'll vote for B because i can't stand C." quite clearly, an "X" is less expressive and conveys less meaning than "1, 2, 3, 4". under BC-STV i would not have to hold my nose while i vote.

no, BC-STV’s final tally is not simple, but i'd say that no system that aims to represent the collective will of 4 million people on everything from fiscal policy to transportation infrastucture could be.

*Mac/PC analogy reflects no preference on the author's part.

James, STV is listed in any political science text as proportional. It is not a lie. While it wasn't designed just for the sake of proportion, its results have proven to be highly proportional over and over again. Even better than MMP with a 5% threshhold.

Does it give parties seats that correspond exactly to their first place votes. No. Does it give seats proportionate to the support they receive yes.

There are other ways in that it will deliver proportion. It encourages a legislative demographics more proportional to the demographics of a society. It delivers proportionate geographic representation, in rural areas. (How, because Rural areas will be more likely to vote across the spectrum for local candidates rather than on strict party lines.)

I personally think that STV is the only real proportional system and that most other systems are gimmicks. (except perhaps open list, pro rep) Systems where parties submit a party list, and the seats are allocated proportionately make no sense to me as voters have no connection between any of them. In such case, I'd say give the leader 30 votes and skip the rest of the legislature.

The question should never be how to give parties their share of the seats, but to give voters their desired share of representation. I for one can see a number of NDPers, and Liberals who I like (though none in my riding) , but would hate to have to join or support a specific party.

hey, Billy Pilgrim, you sure got that right. STV means an ascending (or descending) scale of political opportunists and fakers to vote for. It's tempting to hope that a weakening of the party system will improve representation, but it's a fairly shaky proposition. That damn Rousseau got us thinking that it's the systems that cause all the trouble but, sadly, realists like Billy Pilgrim and I figured out that it's the people who invent the systems. Incidentally, Billy, what's your name? That's important for a realist--as it is for all these other nomsdeplumes around here--especially the would-be stand-up guys and girls. Anonymity is the kukluxification of political and social commentary. Congrats, Tieleman and Spectre for giving your names, eh.

Please talk a bit more about after the election: who would be counting the STV choices ... how many counters would be needed ... how they'd be trained to do this work ... and about the process.

Then tell me how I proceed if there are 5 elected M.L.A.s in my enlarged riding, and I want to protest off-shore oil drilling, for example. Which of the 5 M.L.A.s should I contact? And does that M.L.A. become "my" contact for all else ... or does my file get shuffled amongst all 5 M.L.A.s in some way?

Elections BC would count the votes -- just as they do now. The bc.demochoice.org/ website has a pretty good demonstration of how you could provide the results, the final, and elimination stages.

If you were in a 5 MLA riding -- all 5 would be 'your' representative. Of course you'd probably want to contact the MLA that best 'represents' you -- but of course you could contact all 5 if you wanted.

They'd all want your first choice (and if not, your second, third, etc choice) vote in the next election!

BC Mary said: "Please talk a bit about after the election." Yeah, these are the kind of questions that bother me about STV and why I don't support it. We used to call this kind of nonsense a "dog's breakfast" although I can't remember why.

The Citizens' Assembly thought carefully about the 'aftermath of an election'. Given the ability of Ireland, Australia, etc. to run an efficient election, BC will be completely capable. NZ did have problems with spoiled ballots, but the consensus is that there was poor voter education prior to the first use of STV. BC can learn from this experience to ensure it doesn't happen here.

The bc.demochoice.org/ website has a pretty good demonstration of how you would provide the results, the final, and elimination stages.

The important thing is that the process to count STV votes is well defined, repeatable, and transparent. Therefore there should be little problem with the vote counting.

This is my first provincial election being just a youngster... therefore I find all the debate on here quite helpful, so thanks. I'm leaning towards voting for STV, after doing a bit of research. The only thing that worried me about it was the thought that if your first choice was one of the lower ranked candidates, then you wouldn't get to transfer any of your votes. And please correct me if I'm wrong in any of this.(Though if you were for the lowest ranked candidate and they were dropped, then your second choice would count.) I was wondering, then, if you were trying to have your second choice count and you knew one of the candidates would win by a large margin, would it be strategic to vote for them, in order to have your vote transferred? Okay, I admit this all makes my head spin a little, but I don't know if we're going to get another chance to change the system. Maybe (probably) STV isn't perfect, but it's an improvement in my view. Or at least it would be an interesting experiment to see what happens. I'm trying not to be too cynical at 21 years of age!