STV for BC - Vote Yes!

Sunday, February 06, 2005

STV and B.C. on the web

So I wanted to fill out my link section for this site, which of course meant doing a google search on 'STV B.C. (or BC)' and I figured while I was at it, I might as well briefly summarize everything I found (in order of search rank).

#1,#2: The Citizens' Assembly

Tons of information on the Assembly itself and how it came to it's decision, downloadable copies of their final report as well as lots of info on how STV works including a great list of resources and a number of animations which demonstrate how STV and the old system work.

#3: The Yes campaign website, stvforbc.com. Not as comprehensive as the Citizens Website but still pretty good. The most interesting part of the site is probably the forum which has commentary on media articles on STV, Questions and Answers and more.

#4,#5: The Citizens' Assembly Alumni site. This site is dedicated (I think) to explaining the system and has information on how to get one of the assembly members to come for public speaking events to help explain how STV will work.

(Note #6 is a link for Stop the Violence [against women], a group which must be annoyed that the assembly's recommendation is destroying their search rank. (any other numbers I skip will also be non-relevant links (or duplicates), I'm not going to exclude anything relevant).

#7,#8: Essays on why to Vote No to STV from David Schreck's 'Strategic Thoughts' Blog. Mainly he seems annoyed that MMP wasn't chosen because it is more purely proportional than STV and he is also worried about the complexity of STV. A pretty good reply to one of his essays can be found here.

#9: Deep Cove BC has a pretty good collection of all the Vote No voices out there so far. Their general point seems to be that although STV is better than the status quo, by rejecting STV we are more likely to eventually get to a point where we can have MMP as our electoral system which is what they want.

#10: The Thompson Greens are supporting STV, and the page which comes up in Google is one which has some links to explanations of how STV works, and includes a flow chart of how people are elected under STV.

#11: The B.C. Green Party has managed to swallow a few of their sour grapes over the Assembly not recommending MMP and in this early November letter, their leader Adrienne Carr explains that on second thought she won't recommend that the Green Party campaign against STV, an electoral system which could be the best thing that's ever happened to the Green Party in Canada.

#12: A link to the Assembly's animation on STV, from a Blog promoting Instant Runoff elections in Austin.


#13: A list of links from the Kootenay Cuts mailing list archives.

#14: A thread at Babble.Ca (left-leaning discussion forums) linking to other discussion forums on STV. Note: there are lots of long threads on STV at babble.ca including this one and this one.

#15: Over at his blog: Gauntlet.ca Jason Morris has some good thoughts on how STV will make government more accountable.

#16: A subset of the higher ranked (#9) Deep Cove page.

#17,#18: An article from Canadian Democratic Movement setting up the Assembly's vote (on October 24) to recommend STV. Note: Canadian Democratic Movement has lots of articles on electoral reform in general.

#20: This Magazine has an article with a pro-STV point of view based on a conversation with someone from Ireland (where they've used STV since before WWII). Interesting comments as well.

#21: STV opposing columnist Bill Tieleman posts one of his anti-STV columns to the Kootenay Cuts mailing list (archive). His main points seem to be that STV is bad because people in Ontario will make fun of us if we vote for it and because people in Malta (which uses STV) still just vote for the two main parties rather than voting for independents and smaller parties.

#22: Fair voting BC has a list of links related to STV. As an organization dedicating to making the voting results fairer (more representative of the actual vote), they are unsurprisingly strongly in favour of STV as can be seen by visiting their homepage, here. Lots of good stuff on the site including a pretty thorough discussion of the changes we can expect to see if STV is adopted and a good FAQ as well.

#23: The NAV reprints a news release from the Citizens' Assembly.

#24: Norman Spector has a copy of his anti-STV globe article on STV from Jan 10, 2005 on his website. I responded to his article at length here.

#25: The Civic Education Society has a decent list of links on STV.

#26: This site reprints the Law Commission of Canada's somewhat pro-MMP biased chart comparing different electoral systems.

#27: Indo-Canadian Voice reprints a feature provided by the Citizens' Assembly which asserts that the referendum is about values.

#28: Ryan, at his Practical Metaphors blog has a number of posts on STV, including this one providing general information, and this one responding to one of Bill Tieleman's columns.

#29: Vive le Canada, a generally pro proportional representation group blog, has a couple of brief posts on STV, including this one which came up in the search.

#30: At his blog, Doug's Dynamic Drivel, Doug has a brief pro-STV post with some interesting comments.

#34: Ian King at his self-titled Blog, has a pretty good non-partisan but pro-STV leaning post.

#35: A column by Bill Tieleman in the Georgia Straight which suggests reasons why the Assembly voted for STV and not MMP.

#38: A pro-STV column by Assembly chair Jack Blaney on the SFU site. (Jack Blaney is an SFU president emeritus, which although I don't really know what it means, suggests he's affiliated with the University in some way.)

#41: Another column against STV by Bill Tieleman in the Georgia Straight.

#47: A pro-STV column from FairVote.org.

#48: An informative article on the Assembly process from what looks like a Blog generated by Northern Blue publishing (but it's not really clear).

#51: An old (Nov, 2001) letter written by Andrew Petter Acting Dean (at the time) at the UVic faculty of law in which he explains why, although he agrees that STV is better than the old FPTP system, he prefers MMP to STV.

#52: A poll on electoral reforms needed in B.C. with a bit of a low response rate.

#54: Alcoyne news has a long list of articles on the Assembly process. Including this one which comes up highest in the search.

#57: An article from CTV on the wrap-up of the Assembly.

#58: This is a reprint of the Citizen Assembly's fact sheet on STV, posted at the UBC election stock market site.

From here on, it's mostly repeats and marginally relevant stuff, so I'll just highlight a few links I found that were worthwhile:

#64: A presentation from the Green Party to the Assembly on electoral reform.

#75: Andrew Coyne may not post to his blog anymore but it still exists and contains a number of good articles on electoral reform including this one on the Citizen's Assembly, not to mention here, here, here, here

#80: The Western Standard group blog has a couple of fairly neutral posts on STV, here and here

#83: Proud to be Canadian has a forum and a poll on STV vs. FPTP.

#130: Dave Pollard at How to Save the World has an excellent pro-STV post which is worth reading.

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Some stuff which didn't come up in the search but is worth a look:

Maple Leaf web has a good summary of the issues.

The Blogs Canada e-group had an interesting discussion on the topic.

The Law Commission of Canada did a report on electoral system options for Canada.

Update: (March 25):

Here are some 'No' sites:

Know STV
No2stv.ca
Single Transferable Vote in B.C.

Update (May 12): Understanding STV is great site for learning about how BC-STV works.