STV for BC - Vote Yes!

STV Referendum Post (not-so) Mortem

2005-05-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

Note: cross-posted to Crawl Across the Ocean

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Where do we go from here?
The battle's done,
And we kind of won
So we sound our victory cheer

Where do we go from here?
Why is the path unclear?¹

After thinking it over for a couple of days, I have to say I'm pretty positive about the outcome of the referendum on Tuesday. True, STV getting 60% and passing would have been ideal, but I think when you consider that 60% is a pretty high bar to begin with, it was always going to be tough to reach that level, especially when trying to explain a complicated system like STV to the entire population - especially with no real budget for educating the voters and in competition with an election going on simultaneously.

Another complicating factor was that the process was designed so that elections BC would design the electoral boundaries only after the referendum. This allowed people to rightfully ask how they could vote on an electoral system when they wouldn't even know how it would affect the riding they would vote in.

A final factor was that, undeniably, some of the people who argued and voted against STV did so not because they preferred the current system to STV but because they wanted to have a chance to vote for a third system, the Mixed Member Proportional system, which was the second choice of the Citizen's Assembly. One of the reasons the Citizen's Assembly did not choose STV was that they were constrained by their mandate to not increase the number of MLA's elected in B.C., an arbitrary and unnecessary restriction.

So the real question now is, what next? The rule of 60%, while I think it is overly high², was set before hand so it would not be right for the government to take the 57.39% Yes vote and treat it as close enough and go ahead with STV. But on the other hand, given the 57-43 vote in favour, as well as the fact that a majority voted in favour of STV in 77 of the province's 79 ridings, clearly the population of B.C. has an interest in reforming the electoral system.

Under the circumstances, the course I recommend to the B.C. government would be as follows.

1) The Assembly should be reconvened, freed from the no new MLA's restriction and allowed to present two complete systems.
2) Elections BC should be directed to draw up suitable electoral boundaries and voting rules for each of the proposed systems so that voters would know exactly what they are voting on.
3) There should be a second referendum which would allow voters a choice between the 2 systems recommended.
4) This referendum should be held on its own without being linked to another election going on simultaneously.
5) Funding should be provided to mount a campaign for both options presented as well as a 'No' campaign.
6) The ballot should ask voters two questions: The first would be: 'Which of the two electoral options presented do you prefer?' ('Neither' would be an option here). The second would be 'Do you believe B.C. should change it's electoral system to whichever of the options in question 1 gets the most votes? Possible answers would be, "No", "Yes", "Yes, but only if the preferred system is option 1", and "Yes but only if the preferred system is option 2"

Then whichever system got more votes in question 1 would have to get 50% Yes (or at most 55%) on question 2 (adding up the unconditional 'yes' votes and the 'yes' votes conditional on that system being chosen).

There's probably a simpler way to accomplish this (I'm no political scientist), but you get my point. Given the expressed desire for change among B.C. voters, they should be given a second chance to vote for electoral change, in a properly funded referendum, one which gives citizens a choice between the two systems which have a strong base of support in the province.
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Note: Rafe Mair articulately makes some similar points to mine over at the Tyee.

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¹ From the song "Where Do We Go From Here", from the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Season 6, Episode 7).

² See Wikipedia for some interesting history on referendums. Following from there to the article on Canadian referendums it seems we've only ever had 3 (at the federal level): One on prohibition, one on conscription and one for the Charlottetown Accord. So in the history of the federal government only 3 questions have been deemed to be of enough significance to warrant having a referendum at all. And *no* question was ever been deemed important enough to require a super-majority from a referendum vote, not even the government forcing the nation's youth to fight and possibly die in a foreign country or changing the nation's constitution.

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Similar commentary from a "Yes" campaign press release:

No other province, or country we know of requires such a high threshold for approving a referendum on electoral reform.

PEI's referendum on electoral reform requires a simple majority.

New Zealands referendum on electoral reform passed with 54%.

The two Irish referendums to replace STV with First Past the Post used a simple majority

The BC Referendum Act stipulates a simple majority for any other referendum.

The recent BC Referendums on Aboriginal Issues, and on Initiative and Recall all passed based on a simple majority of votes

No former BC referendum has ever required more than a simple majority.

The two referendums on Quebec separation required a simple majority

The Charlottetown Accord referendum concerned very significant constitutional issues, yet required no more than a simple majority.

Nearly all governments in British Columbia are themselves elected with considerably less than 50% support.

Archive Note / Signing Off (for the most part anyway)

2005-05-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

My next post here (the Post not-so Mortem) could well be my last one on this blog (depending on how things go) - I will of course keep blogging about politics in general and electoral reform in particular over at Crawl Across the Ocean.

I'm leaving this site online as an archive and resource for people looking for links on electoral reform and wondering what bloggers had to say about the referendum. Speaking of archiving, Dean from 'dean rushes the vote' has a good list of election/referendum related links (from his usual left-leaning, MMP preferring perspective) on his own archive post here ~~(it's in the May 20 post, he uses that Blogger template where I never know how to find the permalink)~~.

Anyway, I appreciate everyone who visited and commented and especially those who linked here. I remain optimistic that by the time the next referendum rolls around, all B.C. residents will have discovered the magic of google and will simply do a quick online search for information instead of complaining about being uninformed by the mainstream media. The mainstream media isn't going to change between now and then, but the world of blogs and independent informational sites is getting stronger by leaps and bounds with each passing day and month.

Final (almost ) results

2005-05-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

With the vast majority of the votes counted, the 'Yes' vote is sitting at 57.38%, 2.62% or about 40,000 votes short of the required 60%. 77 of the 79 ridings in the province voted in favour (with the 2 Kamloops ridings being the exceptions).

I expect to get irritated with newspaper stories about how voters "turned down" electoral reform in the next few days, hopefully the media will prove my cynicism wrong.

Referendum Results Update

2005-05-17T23:42:00.000-07:00

Well it's 11:45 pm, I'm watching the STV results on the Vancouver Sun (Canada.com)'s election tracker (link via here). So far the 'Yes' side is at 56.7% although that figure has been slowly climbing over the last half hour so maybe there is (slim) hope yet.

Either way, it sure looks like a strong vote for change and a strong vote against the status quo. It will be kind of amusing if STV gets the same level of support (57%) that the Liberals got in 2001. I guess 57% is good enough to give a party 77 out of 79 seats in the legislature which runs the province for 4 years but it's not enough to change the electoral system. I'll say this, as long as our archaic First-Past-the-Post system clings to life, I'll keep pushing for us to leave it in the past where it belongs and I hope you'll do the same.

Last Word Before the Referendum...

2005-05-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

Yes!

How to Use This Site

2005-05-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

In case you are here for the first time, I thought I would explain the layout of this blog.

The main column down the centre includes all my various thoughts (posts) about STV over the last few months. It includes links to useful sites, interesting essays, various stuff which has occurred to me, rebuttals of some 'no' arguments and so on. Posts are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first and then going back in time). Older posts can be accessed by the monthly archive links down near the bottom of the siebar on the right. You can also search the blog using the search field in the upper left corner.

The sidebar on the right contains a lot of links. The first 4 under 'The Basics' explain in my own words how we've come to this point, what STV is and why I am going to vote 'Yes'. Under 'Essential Links' I picked a few sites which I feel have the most information to offer (most of these, with the exception of 'Understanding STV' are tilted in favour of a 'Yes' vote).

Below that I have a list of links to any blog posts I found which discuss STV in B.C. They vary from one line assessments to thorough and eloquent analyses. Click and see for yourself.

Anyway you get the picture, continuing on down I have links to some FAQ's on STV as well as some links to lists of links on STV (there's just too many links to put them all in the sidebar).

The aim is to help people make an informed decision and also to explain why I support a 'Yes' vote. Hope it helps!

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Note: I will be out of town for the weekend so if you email me and I don't get back to you until Sunday night, that's why. Have a good weekend all.

The Blogs Have Spoken

2005-05-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

The way I figure, one factor to consider in making a decision on whether to vote yes or not is to consider what decision other, ordinary people have come to after thinking about the problem. Of course one such group of people was the Citizen's Assembly itself, a group of 160 randomly selected B.C. residents who studied electoral systems for over a year and at the end of their work held 3 votes:

October 23, 2004: Which of the two alternatives would best serve British Columbia?
MMP - 31, STV - 123.

October 24, 2004: Do we recommend retaining the current First-Past-the-Post electoral system in British Columbia?
YES - 11, NO 142.

October 24, 2004: Do we recommend the STV (BC-STV) system to the people in a referendum on May 17, 2005
YES 146, NO 7.

Another group of people who probably pay a little more attention to politics than the average citizen are bloggers. I've been keeping a running count of blogs in favour / neutral / opposed (as you can see on the sidebar on the right). I've just added links for any blogs I came across or saw linked anywhere, supplemented by regular google searches for 'STV' + 'blog' and so on as well as technorati searches for 'STV' and 'Single Transferable Vote'. As far as I know, there wasn't any inherent bias in my method, at least not a significant one.

Anyway, as you can tell by my sidebar, bloggers are overwhelmingly in favour of a 'yes' vote with 49 in favour, 13 opposed and 13 neutral (the neutral includes some group blogs which can't really be said to have a position one way or the other since members of the blog may disagree).

Just one more piece of evidence that when you sit down and think about the alternatives, STV - with fairer results and more choice for voters - just makes a lot more sense than keeping the old First Past the Post system.

Support for STV from Sea to Shining Sea...

2005-05-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

...metaphorically that is. Here's a recent quote from Jamie Lee Hamilton, East side activist and author of the 'Downtown Eastside' blog,

"if we elect to change our system to Single Transferable Vote (STV) our vote will have greater impact and provides for greater representation.

How so you ask?

Well for starters, it will make our candidates more responsive to our needs as citizens of this province. In short, it returns Democracy to the People.

STV will ensure broader democracy and greater representation for the people. More women and minorities will be elected. Smaller parties will have a better chance of electing their candidates. Independent minded citizens can run and actually have a chance of winning seats in STV elections. Citizens will be heard and politicians will have no choice but to be accountable to us, the people. Make no mistake Representation Makes a Difference."

and here's a quote from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) (via Joel Johannesen on 'ConservativeGroundswell.com'),

"Since 1997 your CTF has been pushing for a referendum on voting change. This came in the wake of the 1996 election where the party receiving the most votes actually lost the election! A BC supporter survey in 2003 revealed 56% of you wanted the CTF to make voting reform our number one democratic reform issue.

After helping found the Electoral Change Coalition of BC in 1997 the CTF presented to the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform in May 2004. In April 2005, director Troy Lanigan embarked on an Interior speaking and media tour in support of a YES vote for the Single Transferable Vote (STV) on May 17th. (Click here for video on STV).

The CTF argues a change in the voting system will provide greater government accountability, provide more choice, strengthen local representation and weaken party discipline."

My (obvious) point is that support for STV stretches pretty broadly across the entire political spectrum. It also stretches across borders: the following is an editorial from former Nirvana bassist, turned activist Krist Novoselic:

"On May 17th, British Columbians will vote on a matter of resounding importance.

Your province will decide whether to upgrade its electoral system by adopting the Single Transferable Vote method.

A yes vote is important for the province. Its important for Canada. And as a citizen of the USA, I want to tell you how important it is for all of North America.

The United States House of Representatives is an important institution. But if we judge it by competitive races, media coverage and voter participation, the US House falls off the radar. Out of 435 House races, less than 20 were competitive in 2004. The position of House Speaker and majority party were a done deal before any votes were cast and the resulting lack of media coverage confirmed this. In 2002, a scant 37% of Americans turned out for uncompetitive House races. And 2006 doesnt fare much better

The root of this problem is the single member riding (or district, as its called here) with the first-past-the-post electoral system.

The actions of Tom Delay, our controversial Republican House majority leader, are one example of why so many races are uncompetitive. He led the effort to redistrict his home state of Texas to the benefit of his party. (He basically undid the craft of Democrats who tilted things in their favor when they enjoyed the majority.) Using sophisticated demographics, he drew political boundaries that made most Texas Republican voters winners. As a result, many Texas Democrats do not have any representation in their Federal government. And lets not forget Independents, Greens, Libertarians and others handicapped by skewed single member districts.

The US House is lead by the ethic of pay to play politics where special interests buy access to the levers of power. Never mind the democratic principals of fairness and inclusion, redistricting in Texas was nothing less than keeping a tight grip on the lucrative reigns of majority status.

Its no surprise to say politics and power can breed corruption. STV is not some kind of cure-all but it clearly provides more benefits than the current system used in the USA and Canada.

Because a voter ranks candidates in order of preference, STV provides more real choices, thus increasing competition. Multi-member districts are inclusive inviting new people and ideas to the table. The lower threshold for election makes better opportunities for grass roots organizing. Multi-member districts temper the problems of drawing political boundaries because its harder to exclude people when seats are allotted to reflect the politics of a diverse electorate.

Upgrading to a proportional system like STV takes the power of sophisticated technologies out of the hands of politician demographers and puts it where it rightly belongs with the voters.

By voting yes on STV, British Columbia will fire the shot heard across the continent. And the sound will carry across North America to Ottawa, Washington DC and all provincial and state capitols in between.

The message will be clear politics as usual are over.

British Columbia can make history by voting yes on STV. Please lead our continent with the vision of a more inclusive, competitive and 21st century democracy."

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And yes, maybe it's true that I've run out of (new) things to say about STV so I'm resorting to quoting others :) Good thing the vote is coming soon - this Tuesday Vote Yes!

Understanding STV

2005-05-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to (highly) recommend this site: Understanding STV which does an excellent job providing a non-partisan (not to mention colourful!) explanation of how STV will work in B.C. Great work!

Last Week!

2005-05-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

So there's only one week left until the referendum. I think I've said pretty much all I have to say about the proposed Single Transferable Vote system. As a voter you get more choice, a much better chance of having representation and a legislature whose members actually reflect the votes cast in the election. In return you have to put up with a more complicated counting procedure - that's pretty much all it comes down to.

So with one week left I encourage everyone to tell their friends, family and so on to get informed and if people are getting scared by all the 'no'-side's fear-mongering just point out that they've been using this system in Ireland and Australia for the better part of a century and not only are they doing fine, they wouldn't switch back to our system if you asked them. In fact, the Irish were asked a couple of times but they kept saying no, we wannt to keep STV, so eventually the politicians gave up and learned to live with a system which puts more power in the hands of voters and less in the hands of parties.

A Depressing Thought

2005-05-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking about the possibility of the 'yes' vote coming in between 50% and 60% and it occurred to me how (darkly) fitting it would be for the first-past-the-post to win an absolute victory despite getting fewer votes than its opposition...

STV: More Links

2005-05-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

With the referendum approaching, there's lots of activity on the web regarding STV. Here is some of what I found most interesting:

Via Lotusland, I hear that: "the ubc mechanical engineering prof behind the lovely online stv simulation at bc.demochoice.org is now trying to organize a simulated election to be held on the streets of vancouver with names of real candidates on the ballots to raise stv awareness.

he requires volunteers: the idea would be to set up 7-20 polls around vancouver either next weekend (about may 7) or the following week - say may 11. the group would then tabulate the votes and pass the results to the media for publication.

if you'd like to help out or learn more, please feel free to join the webgroup:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trythevote."

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A new improved demonstration ballot can be found here It gives you a chance to try an STV ballot as it might look in your particular riding.

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Here is a good site devoted specifically to STV in the Kamloops area including a sample (Kamloops) election and an explanation of how STV works.

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This is a well written column which covers off all the really important things you need to know about why a 'yes' vote on May 17th is one of the most important votes you will have the chance to cat as a B.C. resident.

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If you know of any other good sites, let everyone know in the comments or send me an email.

2 weeks left, time to start twisting arms - uh, I mean making good sensible arguments - to convince your friends, neighbours and acquaintances to vote yes!

Changing Systems

2005-04-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

British Columbia isn't the only place having an election these days, British, uh, Britain is having one as well. Britain's current state of affairs is somewhat similar to B.C. in that they have two main parties (the somewhat to the right wing Conservative party and the somewhat to the left Labour party) and a smaller more leftist third party known as the Liberal Democrats (plus the usual collection of really small parties).

That's just some background to this interesting article by Richard Dawkins that appeared in The Independent, the other day. Says Dawkins in explaining why he supports the campaign of Reg Keys (an anti-war independent candidate running against Blair in the Sedgefield riding):

"But the most important thing the centre-left coalition might achieve is proportional representation. This would kill, once and for all, the idea that a vote for anybody other than Labour or Conservative is "wasted". Votes are wasted in this sense only because of the flagrantly undemocratic first-past-the-post system. With the single transferable PR system, no vote is wasted. You vote your preference - and no silly scares about big bad Tories.
Under the first-past-the-post system, your vote is wasted unless you happen to live in a marginal constituency. We saw this in America, with the grotesque concentration of electioneering firepower and money in a few key states such as Ohio and Florida. The only people who like first-past-the-post are politicians whom it puts into power. The Liberal Democrats have long been committed to PR. My greatest hope is that a hung parliament might enable them to implement it. This would benefit the long-term future of our democracy: a boon that would long outlive the short-term promises of any party."

Sound familiar?

I thought this article was interesting since one of the reasons 'No' supporters offer for sticking with our current system is that is an important part of our British system of government which we shouldn't risk messing with. So it would be kind of ironic if Britain ends up switching to STV (or some other form of PR) leaving us and the Americans as the last two Western countries still using just First Past the Post.

In a way, this situation kind of reminds me of the debate between the Imperial system of measurement and the Metric system. For most of the world, the decision to switch to metric was a relatively easy one since it was clearly a superior system. In England, Canada and the U.S. however, the decision was drawn out and controversial because of our love for tradition and resistance to change. Canada eventually made the switch to Metric on our own while the English got dragged into it by the Europeans. The Americans still won't switch.

Similarly, England, Canada and the U.S. are also lagging the world in changing to a proportional electoral system. England has already switched to a form of PR for its European elections as well as for regional elections in Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland. Canada is taking steps towards PR as well, and of course, in the U.S. progress is barely even on the radar screen.

So on May 17th you have a choice between our old, good for its time but its time has passed Imperial, First-Past-the-Post electoral system, or the new, superior, metric, Single Transferable Vote system. And while switching to metric was controversial at the time - do you think many people would want to go back?

STV Round-Up: How Does STV Work?

2005-04-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Another poll in today's globe showing that around half the population has no idea what the referendum is about and that (unsurprisingly) a similar percentage are undecided about whether to vote yes or no. It's encouraging that, among decided voters, support for a 'Yes' vote continues to run above 60% (27% for, 15% against), but clearly more work needs to be done to get people educated.

With that in mind, here's a few links:

Matt at liquid thoughts does a good job of making STV as easy as pie via the magic of analogy.

Meanwhile, Andrew at Not Sugar Coated tries to fit BC-STV into a nutshell.

Of course part of understanding STV well (at least in my mind) is not being taken in by some of the 'No' side's arguments.

To that end, this post from the Ogre's Den does a nice concise job of explaining the system and answering some of the 'No' side arguments.

And over at the Tyee, Rafe Mair echoes some of the Ogre's points in explaining why he supports STV.

Meanwhile the North Shore news has some good coverage of STV including this 'Vote Yes' editorial.

Finally, it's on the topic of Proportional Representation rather than STV in B.C. per say, but this post From Another Perspective, is worth a read if you're interested in electoral reform in general, specifically how proportional representation could work in practice.

Update: Via Tannock.Net I found this excellent STV resource from the CBC. If you want to vote in their ice cream election (which compares FPTP and STV side by side), you have until 9 (pm?) on Monday. What is it with STV and food anyway?

Voice of Reason

2005-04-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick note to recommend Ian King's latest post, "A plea: Slag STV honestly" in which he calmly and thoroughly debunks a couple of the more misguided 'No' side arguments such as worries about electronic voting or that the Assembly was hijacked by people with an ideological agenda. As Ian says,

"Opponents of STV do their own cause a great disservice when they try to smear STV by bringing in these strawman arguments that are at most tagential (sic) to the system."

The 'No' arguments I've seen so far have tended to more resemble the unrefined results of a long brain-storming session than a coherent critique of the system. I get the feeling (in general) that 'No' people are just throwing up any possible excuse to vote 'No' rather than just stating and elaborating on their core reasons for opposing STV. More on this another day.

STV Poll: Less than one-fifth of British Columbians think B.C. should keep its First Past the Post electoral system

2005-04-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

See here for the results of a poll on STV done by Nordic Research group (hat tip Burkean Canuck). The results show that 26% of people surveyed would vote 'yes' and 17% would vote no. Clearly, that leaves a large undecided block (57%). If the undecided block were to vote the same as the decided block, the end result would be 60.5% 'yes' and 39.5% 'no' and STV would pass.

I don't know much about the Nordic Research folks but it's clear they were hoping for a bigger 'No' vote based on how hard they try to spin the results. Their lead is "Less than one-third of British Columbians think that BC should adopt the BC-STV electoral system according to a poll conducted by Nordic Research Group." Of course, that statement is equally valid with my title to this post, and both are an absurd way to objectively characterize the results. In fact, bs like this makes one think that there should be some kind of professional standards one has to meet to be allowed to do poll write-ups.

Anyway, what the poll shows (besides there being more than 3 'yes' voters for every 2 'no' voters), consistent with an earlier Ipsos-Reid poll, is that there's a long way to go in building awareness of the proposed new system, of course if you're here reading this you're likely not one of those uninformed people. But if you are, please visit the links along the right hand side. Or feel free to send me an email. It may be a long time before we get another chance to improve our electoral system.

More Choice Under STV - Another Perspective

2005-04-10T14:32:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting article in Monday magazine (thanks to a reader for the tip) with the reporter (Andrew MacLeod) talking to Australian Senator Bob Brown, a Green Party representative who was elected under STV.

Some quotes from Brown,

"It's so thoroughly democratic because it's the system that most has the Parliament reflect the wishes of the voters," he says in a phone interview from his home. "The old single member electorates are thoroughly undemocratic . . . [STV] has meant there's been independent or small party representation in the Tasmanian government, and the ACT and the Australian senate."

and later,

"The system's worked well. It's been very productive." In Tasmania in years when the Greens held the balance of power, the government made an apology to local aboriginal people, advanced gay rights, passed freedom of information legislation and imporved [sic] labour laws, he adds. And, he says, the STV system provides for wider representation and "makes for a much better debate in the Parliament."

But the part which caught my attention most was this:

"...most Australians (including Brown) oppose the industrial-scale logging that continues in Tasmanian forests. During the last election, Brown says, a poll showed 85 percent of Australians wanted the logging to stop, yet neither of the country's main parties would oppose it. But since STV meant voters had realistic choices other than the two main parties, he says, the issue became huge in the last week before the election. "Without the STV system it simply would not have been on the agenda."

One of my 2 main reasons for supporting STV is that it will give voters more choice at the ballot box- because they will be able to choose between different representatives of the same party and also to vote for smaller parties without fear of needing to vote 'strategically' or of wasting their vote. One thing I hadn't considered was that under the current system, if the two main parties take the same position on an issue, voters have little recourse and so that topic will cease to become an election issue. But with third (and fourth and so on) parties having a legitimate shot at winning seats, they will be able to force issues which are important to the public onto the agenda. Just another way that STV puts more power in the hands of the voters and less in the hands of the two big parties.

Want to Blog About the Referendum - Register with the Government First

2005-04-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

note: cross-posted at the e-group

I recently received a comment which suggested that I might be breaking the law by writing this blog without first registering with the government. In response, I emailed elections BC to see if this was indeed the case.

I (foolishly, as it turns out) expected to get a reply indicating that no, the law on referendum advertising was not intended to apply to people who were just expressing their personal opinion on the internet without funding from anyone, but in fact I received this reply:

"Thank you for your inquiry. According to the Election Act, anyone promoting or opposing a particular response in voting in the upcoming referendum must register as a referendum advertising sponsor. The referendum campaign period began on March 1, 2005 and continues until 8:00 p.m. Pacific time, May 17, 2005. As your Web page has been accessible to the public during this period, it is imperative that you register with Elections BC as soon as possible."

There was a little more back and forth in which I explained why I thought that they should consider the matter further (which they did after asking me to forward the url for my site) and which ended with this explanation from elections BC:

"Thank you for sending me the link to your Web site. I have taken a close look at the site, and I feel that it constitutes referendum advertising. While there are links to various "No" sites, I feel that overall, the Web site clearly promotes a certain response to voting in the referendum. Regarding your individual blogs and postings on other Web sites, I feel that given their editorial nature, they do not constitute referendum advertising and do not require authorization statements.

Rapidly evolving technologies and the internet create challenges in determining political commentary vs. political advertising. However, Web sites created for promoting, directly or indirectly, a specific response in voting in the referendum do, in Elections BC's view, clearly constitute referendum advertising. Persons or organizations who create these sites must register as referendum advertising sponsors if the sites are accessible during the referendum campaign period. This approach is consistent with political party and candidate sites, which are a form of election
advertising during an election campaign period.

We fully recognize that not all Web sites that express an opinion on the referendum are engaged in referendum advertising. Individuals' blogs, that were not established or created for the purpose of conducting referendum advertising or promoting a specific response in voting, would not generally be considered referendum advertising. However, with rapidly emerging technologies each situation must be reviewed and determined on its own merit, and a blog could, conceivably, be created as an effective advertising method."

A similar back and forth exchange as well as some good analysis of the legalities can be found at David Schreck's site. A google search for 'Vote no STV' will bring up Schreck's site as one of the first hits, but he is not required to register his site because it existed before the referendum campaign and it is not devoted solely to encouraging people to vote against STV (he also encourages people to vote NDP).

Anyway, I have been debating whether or not to comply with elections BC's request. As one person who I asked succinctly said,

"It all depends on whether you're fighting the good fight against an unjust law that egregiously curtails your rights or if you're just childishly bucking the bureaucrats."

On the one hand, registration is free and while I would prefer not to have my name, phone number and address prominently posted on the internet, it is not a huge infringement on me. Still, for those who supported the right of bloggers to remain anonymous in recent discussion on the e-group, it's worth noting that under this type of legislation your anonymity would be threatened. For example, if the federal legislation were amended to follow BC's example, anyone classifying themselves as a 'blogging Tory' might have to register with the government (while other sites which were just as partisan but not as clearly identified as such would presumably be exempt).

It seems odd to me that someone can spend their day preaching in the park about voting yes, writing letters to the paper on why to vote yes, writing a vote-yes editorial in the paper and appearing on the radio and on television explaining why to vote yes but only when they get home and decide to start a blog/website explaining why people should vote yes are they forced to register. Especially when they could post all the same stuff on their existing blog and not have to register!

Finally, while elections BC is (currently) interpreting the law to only apply to blogs specifically created to argue one side of the referendum, I see nothing in the law itself which really supports this distinction. Which in turn means that this interpretation could (theoretically) change at any time and anyone who posts a comment anywhere on the internet for or against the referendum would suddenly be in violation of the law. The elections BC advertising 'Q&A' specifically states that even material published before the referendum period starts is considered advertising if it is 'available' (i.e. online) during the referendum period.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that, while I am flattered that elections BC would consider the completely unfunded expression of my opinion to be so influential that the public interest requires that I register with the government before expressing it, it feels like an unreasonable intrusion into my right to freedom of speech.

Notwithstanding this, I have decided I don't feel strongly enough about it to pick this battle and accordingly I have placed my site 'under the sponsorship of' the yes campaign for whatever that's worth, but I'm still torn over the wisdom of this decision.

Is this an unjust law worth fighting? Is it a threat to bloggers in general and their anonymity in particular? Is it one step on a road to ever tighter government control over the internet? Am I making a big deal over nothing?

Condescension

2005-04-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've noticed in a few anti-STV posts recently is the argument that STV is too complicated - not for the person who is writing the post but for other imaginary people such as 'joe sixpack', the 'layman' or the 'average voter'.

I can only speak for myself but few things would irritate me more than to know that someone (who understands STV themselves) is telling people to vote against it because they think it is too confusing for my little brain. If people find STV too complicated for themselves to support then fine, but saying it's too complicated for the 'little people' strikes me as terribly condescending.

Demonstration Vote

2005-03-25T18:19:00.000-08:00

I've probably linked to this before, but it's lot more interesting now that there have been more votes cast. It's a demonstration ballot which allows you to 'vote' as if you were in a five member STV riding. After you vote you can follow how STV decides which 5 people are elected round by round.

As it stands right now, nobody gets enough votes (1/6 of the total in a 5 member riding) to get elected right off the beginning and the first few rounds are just the lowest ranked candidates getting eliminated and having their votes transferred (the site shows you how many votes get transferred to each other candidate). After a while people start to get enough votes to get elected (Campbell was the first to meet the quota when I tried it) so you can see how those candidates' surplus votes are transferred as well.

It's hard for me to say because I'm so involved in the whole mechanics of STV, but it seems pretty clear how it works to me. Anyway, give it a shot.

Fair and Balanced

2005-03-25T17:50:00.000-08:00

Just so you know I'm not trying to snow you, and that I want you to make an informed decision - here are links to three STV opposing sites:

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

Update (April 6): This post originally contained a complaint that the third site listed above didn't clearly express its 'No' position on the referendum, but the site has since been modified so I have adjusted this post (to remove my complaint)accordingly.

Double-Whammy

2005-03-24T10:01:00.000-08:00

Sacha over at Double Blind continues to be a great source for thoughts on the upcoming referendum. Here are a couple of links to his most recent two posts in which he takes on David Scheck's concern that we won't have a fully written piece of legislation to vote on and, more substantively, explains why party control of MP's is reduced under STV vs. under the old (current) system.

Good stuff.

Keen Eyes

2005-03-22T12:04:00.000-08:00

I sometimes get a bit (over?) excited writing about STV, so here are a couple of good examples of people who stay calm and lay out a pretty convincing case for STV.

Vote Know?

2005-03-20T17:20:00.000-08:00

A website has been setup for a Vote No campaign against STV. The url and the title on the site read 'Know STV'. I guess 'know' is the obvious pun to go with for a vote no campaign, but I find it a bit odd since, in my opinion, the biggest hope of 'no' supporters is that people won't 'know' much about STV.

Consider what happens when people 'know' a lot: The members of the Citizens Assembly studied electoral systems for over a year and at the end, they voted 146-7 that STV is better than the current system. The Law Commission of Canada did a study and concluded that just about anything was better than First Past the Post (the current system) including STV (they recommended MMP as the best choice).

The truth is that pretty much any time any group has seriously studied electoral systems they have concluded that both STV and MMP are better than First Past the Post.

So maybe it's not surprising that, on a site whose avowed mission is to help people 'know' about STV, there is no section which actually explains what STV is, nor is there a link to any of the many animations which are probably the best online resource for understanding how STV works (I like the Australian one the best) - but they do have almost 1000 words in their section on the biographies of the Know STV backers. Seems like they want you to know 'know STV' more than they want you to know STV, if you know what I mean.

Now, it's true, the site does have a long Q&A section but this is more of a forum for them to give answers to softball questions than it is a place to get clear answers to help you 'know' what STV is.

For example, the first question is, "What is the Single-Transferable Vote (STV) proposed by the Citizens Assembly as BC's new electoral system?" - which sounds promising right?

But the answer given is, "The Single-Transferable Vote (STV) is an alternative to the First Past The Post electoral system"

Wow, that really clears it up, thanks! The rest of the answer is devoted to a comparison of the usage rates of STV and First Past the Post around the world which is interesting, but not what was asked (I always find it annoying when someone is asked something and they hijack the question - but when it's their own friggin' question you really have to wonder).

They do go into more detail about how STV works in their next question, "How does the Single-Transferable Vote (STV) differ from our current electoral system?" but rather than explain it clearly they make a few misleading statements and send the reader off to the Citizen's Assembly website for a full explanation.

Since I brought it up, here are some of the misleading statements:

"BC currently has 79 different constituencies but under STV there could be as few as18 constituencies or less. Each larger constituency would have from two or three members in rural areas to as many as seven MLAs in larger urban areas."

Aside from the confusing, bad writing, ('as few as18 or less'?) this paragraph could give the impression that there will be fewer MLA's elected under STV when in fact the number of MLA's elected (79) will remain the same.

The next line is, "Voters would rank all candidates in that larger constituency by their personal preference" which is simply not true. Voters could rank just one candidate or they could rank as many as they want. There is little point for most voters in ranking more than a few candidates and it is highly likely that the number of voters who decide to rank *all* the candidates would be extremely small. I know I have no plans to.

At any rate, I invite anyone to spend some time here on my blog and try to learn more about STV, (hint: click on the 'What the heck is STV' link) and then go to the Know STV site and see which one helps you learn more about how STV works.

----

All right, enough about how the Know STV folks don't really want you to know all that much about STV or electoral systems in general, let's take a more detailed look at their Q&A and correct some of the areas where it lacks a little in the 'fair and balanced' department.

First question: "What is the Single-Transferable Vote (STV) proposed by the Citizens Assembly as BC's new electoral system?"

I already talked about how they don't answer the question, but let's look at the question they did answer which is, "Which jurisdictions use STV and which ones use First Past the Post?"

Their answer, which is that first past the post is used in a lot more places than STV, is accurate but it misses an important aspect which is the trend. And the trend is that countries are abandoning our First Past the Post system in favour of more proportional systems. In New Zealand, they adopted the Mixed Member Proportional System. In Australia, we are seeing the gradual spread of STV (most recently adopted in the State of Victoria.

The European parliament has members elected from countries all across Europe. If you take a look at the linked map, you can see that while only 2 European countries use STV to elect their members, that is greater than the number (0) which use First Past the Post. Even England, the country which spread First Past the Post to so much of the world, no longer uses it for the European Parliament elections. Similarly, none of the recently set-up parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use First Past the Post (Scotland and Wales use MMP and Northern Ireland uses STV).

The fact that so many more countries use First Past the Post than STV is more of a historical artifact than a ringing endorsement of First Past the Post.

Q: "So how does our current First Past the Post electoral system work by comparison?"

A: "Under First Past the Post, each voter chooses one candidate to represent their constituency and the candidate who wins more votes than any other is elected.

Each FPTP constituency has one MLA who is personally accountable to those voters and the constituencies are much smaller both geographically and in terms of the number of voters in each one."

So after reading this answer would you get the impression that there is exactly the same number of voters per MLA under STV as there is under the current system? If not, then you've been misled. Another good question to ask voters might be how personally accountable they feel their MLA is currently. Especially when in many cases over half the voters voted against that MLA (which wouldn't be the case under STV). And when most of the people who did vote for the MLA were probably voting for the Party the MLA represented and if they wanted to support their party they only had one choice of who to vote for (unlike under STV).

OK, next question.

Q: "Isn't STV a lot more complicated than FPTP?"

AKA, 'How often does STV beat its wife?'

A: "Yes. One of FPTP's biggest advantages is the simplicity and ease of understanding it brings to all voters. In recent New Zealand local elections using STV for the first time 11% of all votes were disqualified, more than 14 times the number rejected in the previous election."

Of course, if they had done their homework, they may have run across this quote from the Citizen's Assembly website:

"Does changing the voting system lead to more spoiled ballots?
A change in voting system or ballot form does not have a large impact on spoiled ballots. For example, when elections for the parliament of Tasmania switched from First Past The Post (FPTP - our current electoral system) to STV (the recommended system) the rate of spoiled ballots was 1.2% in 1906 (under FPTP) and 2.9% in 1909 (under STV). Another example of this marginal impact is when the House of Representatives in Australia went from marking crosses on the ballot to listing numbers, the rate of spoiled ballots changed 1.2%.

You may have heard that New Zealand had a problem with counting STV votes in its Fall 2004 municipal elections. That was a problem with its computers, not with the STV system. The Assembly has designed BC-STV so the count can be done either by hand or by computer."

oops.

Anyway, the answer continues:

"Voters may also be faced with a very large ballot and dozens of candidates in larger ridings, making it hard to rank the candidates knowledgeably."

OK, imagine someone said this to you,

"Shoppers may be faced with a lot of different cereals making it hard to choose a cereal knowledgeably"

Let's face it, any trip to the store involves choosing between a multitude of various models of just about everything, and I think if people can manage this they can manage to pick out their favourite candidate (or someone from their favourite party) out of a long list. And if the success of big-box stores is any guide people prefer more choices not fewer. Shocking, I know.

The answer gets better,

"Voters will also be confused by a mathematical quota called the Weighted Inclusive Gregory System which determines how and where exactly their vote will be 'transferred' to, by having to rank a large number of candidates in each constituency and by the need to trust computers to get the results right."

You hear that voters, you *will* be confused (whether you like it or not!). Of course, if you let the 'know STV' folks get to you with their scary sounding mathematical formula I guess it's possible. But someone who really wanted you to 'know' STV might take this opportunity to explain just how your vote will be transferred (it's not that scary):

If the person you put #1 gets more votes than what they need to get elected, part of your vote gets transferred to your #2. How big a part? Well if your #1 got so many votes he/she only needed half of them to get elected, then they only get half your vote and the other half is transferred to #2. If they got so many votes they only needed 1/3 of their votes than they only get 1/3 of your vote and 2/3 is transferred to your #2 choice.

The other way your vote can get transferred is if nobody has enough votes to get elected, in which case they eliminate the poor sap who has the fewest #1 votes. If that poor sap was your #1 choice, then your vote (rather than being wasted like under the current system) is transferred to your #2 choice.

The same rules apply to your #2 choice as well so it's possible part or all of your vote could end up getting transferred to your #3 choice as well. (e.g. You vote for an independent with your #1, but they get eliminated and your vote is transferred to your #2 who is from the Green Party, but they get eliminated as well, so your vote is transferred to your #3 choice, and helps an NDP candidate edge out a Liberal candidate.)

OK, where was I, right, next question:

Q: "Will STV increase or reduce local representation and accountability?"

Before I get to the answer, I should mention the extensive section of (7!) links that the 'know STV' site has. One of these 7 lucky links is the "The Single Transferable Vote in practice", a report undertaken on behalf of the Scottish government (before they adopted STV for use in local elections).

Here's a quote from criticisms of how STV works in practice in Ireland:

"the heavy emphasis on constituency casework, faction-fighting between candidates from the same party, a focus on constituency, localist matters in election campaigns and parliamentary work, 'friends and neighbours' voting, are all seen as resulting - at least in large part - from the candidate-centred, preference voting of STV"

Yes, a frequent criticism of STV is that because candidates have to compete with members of their own party for seats, they focus too much on local issues and local representation at the expense of 'big-picture' thinking.

The Scottish report eventually concludes that it is hard to tell whether the intense focus on local issues is a function of the electoral system or just some quirk of the Irish in general (or possibly due to the fact that they only have national government with no provincial or local governments).

Anyway, what do the 'Know STV' folks say about STV and local representation?

"There will be less local representation and accountability because STV will mean much larger constituencies and MLAs will be representing far more people over a wider geographic area."

Once again, may I point out that the number of voters per MLA will be the same under STV as it is now. So MLA's will be representing the same number of people as before. It's just that instead of having (for example) 4 ridings each with it's own MLA, you would now have them combined into one riding with 4 MLA's. So maybe the MLA's will have to figure out how to divide up the riding between them - an insurmountable challenge? I doubt it. Personally I'd rather have four MLA's to potentially go to with a problem - including one that I voted for, vs. having only one choice and that being someone I voted against because I couldn't stand them, but that's just me.

They continue, "In large rural constituencies that contain a major town, it’s possible that all MLAs elected will come from that town because that’s where the most voters are, reducing accountability for other parts of the constituency."

Let me see if I can explain this. If an area was large enough to be a riding under the current system, then that means it has enough population to elect someone to represent them that is from their area - if that's what they want (and if they make the effort to get off the couch and go vote). This might be a good time to point out how under the current system parties can bring in candidates who don't even live in the riding at all (the recent election of John Tory in a by-election in Ontario is a good example of this) and people have no choice if they want to support their party. Under STV people could choose the representative from their party from their local area. Here's another quote from the Scottish report:

"Moreover studies of Irish voting patterns also indicate that candidates from a local area will receive more votes from that part of the constituency in which they live (Farrell 2001). Accordingly Irish political parties have developed sophisticated vote management and election strategies. These tend to involve ensuring that:
candidates are picked from different corners of the constituency and voters in each locale are actively encouraged to vary the ordering of their preferences so as to maximize the efficiency of the party vote. The basic idea is that the more equal the spread of first preferences across the different party candidates, the greater chance that more will be elected (Farrell 2001, p.146)."

But wait, Ireland and B.C. aren't the same, next question:

Q: "STV supporters say local representation is very good in Ireland under STV. What's the difference with BC?"

A: "BC and Ireland are quite different geographically, with BC many times larger. However Ireland's population is very close to BC's 4 million people and they have 166 representatives in their parliament, called the Dail, while in BC we have just 79 MLAs in the B.C. Legislature."

This is of course true, but it's just as true under our current system as it would be under STV. If we need more MLA's to represent us, we should have more MLA's. If we're short on MLA's that doesn't have much bearing on a comparison between two systems, both of which have the same number of MLA's.

They continue,

"Inevitably with huge ridings and few MLAs parts of BC would likely lose local representation. In some areas it is possible that no local candidate would be elected as an MLA, removing local representation completely."

'huge ridings and few MLAs?' Did I mention that there will be the same number of MLA's under STV, yeah I think I did.

Let's face it, this whole long list of concerns about local representation comes down to a worry that MLA's may be distributed slightly more unevenly around the province than they are now. Even though this will be left pretty much entirely in the hands of voters to decide for themselves. And there is no mention of how the fact that MLA's will have to worry about being defeated by members of their own party will force them to be more attentive to local needs. Or how the absence of safe Liberal or NDP seats like under the current system will mean that people will have to get elected based on their personal reputation for getting things done vs. which party they are running for.

OK, next question.

Q: "Does STV give proportional results? That is, if a party gets 10% of the popular vote in B.C. would it win 10% of the seats?

A: "No. STV supporters say it is more proportional than FPTP but there is no guarantee that seats won will correspond with popular vote. Proportional representation electoral systems such as List PR are designed to ensure such proportionality, not STV.

If a party got 10% of the vote under STV it would be unlikely to win a seat in any constituency in BC. Look again at the example of a constituency of 100,000 voters electing three members: the number of votes needed to win is 25,001, which means that a party would need at least 25% support to win one seat of the three."

Never mind for a moment that the Green party got 12% of the vote in the last election under First Past the Post, got 0 seats, and in all likelihood *would* have elected members under STV, instead how about we ask a different question:

Q: Is STV far more proportional than our current system and has this been clearly proven time after time in elections around the world and is the proportionality of STV much closer to being perfectly proportional than it is to matching our current system?

A: Yes. OK, let's move on.

Q: "Are MLAs elected with equal levels of support under STV?"

A: "No. Proponents say because STV it is more proportional "overall" if is a fairer system. But a candidate in a two-member riding in northern BC can get elected with 33% public support while a Vancouver or other large urban centre candidate can get elected with just 13% of the votes cast.

This means some MLAs have had to win far more support than others to be elected to the BC Legislature."

OK, Time for a math lesson. The candidate in the rural riding is getting a larger percentage of a riding with fewer voters. The candidate in the urban riding is getting a smaller percentage of votes in a riding with more voters. Can we see how these factors balance each other out so the two candidates need roughly the same number of total votes to get elected.

Now it's true that there is a slight difference. Say we assume 10,000 voters per riding then in a 2 member rural riding, a candidate would need 1/3 of 20,000 (10,000 each for the 2 members) votes = 6,700 votes to get elected. In a 7 member urban riding, a candidate would need, 1/8 of 70,000 = 8,750 votes. Of course a quick look at the last election results will show that the riding of Victoria-Hillside was won with 7,878 votes while the riding of Fort Langley Aldergrove was won with 16,527 votes. And this kind of disparity, far larger than the biggest possible difference under STV, is par for the course for First Past the Post (sorry about the mixed sporting metaphors).

I'm not even really sure what this question is getting at, but if MLA's getting elected with an equal number of voters actually is important, than we should point out that STV is far superior to our current system once again in this area.

Are you starting to notice a pattern yet? When the Know-STV folks feel that First-Past-the-Post has an advantage, they go for a direct comparison of the two systems. But when they think ('know') that STV is superior, they compare STV to some ideal standard like perfect proportionality or MLA's being elected with exactly the same number of votes each. Also note how rarely they are willing to take on a direct comparison - what does that tell you?

OK, next question.

Q: "Does STV allow independent candidates to win seats?"

A: "Not necessarily. Malta has used STV since 1921 but since 1950 not a single independent candidate has been elected. Any candidate requires significant funding to win election and with STV the constituencies will be much bigger, forcing candidates to raise even more money. In a seven-member constituency as proposed for Vancouver, major parties will likely spend $1 million or more in that constituency campaign alone — an amount no independent candidate could possibly raise."

First off, this answer is simply factually inaccurate. Yes, STV *necessarily* *allows* independent candidates to win seats. Even our old First Past the Post system *allows* independents to win seats. More substantively, the Know-STV folks yet again seem to be confused about STV. A 7 member constituency would indeed be much bigger, but there are 7 seats, so an independent only needs to get 1/7 of the votes (technically 1/8th since only 7 people can get more than 1/8 of a total). The parties aren't going to spend any more money *per MLA* than they do right now and an independent won't have to either.

Let me explain why STV is better for independents, something which pretty much everybody (even most STV opponents acknowledge) but which the 'Know-STV' people apparently don't want you to, you know, know.

Under the old system, the only way for an independent candidate to get elected is to win a plurality (get more votes than anyone else) in a specific riding. Under STV, an independent candidate who gets that many votes in one riding will still (with a very high probability) get elected. But in addition, an independent candidate can get a smaller level of support, spread over a wider area. For example, an independent candidate who gets an average of 15% support across one of the big Vancouver ridings would be able to get elected under STV, but would have been shut out under the old system (much like the Green Party was in the last election).

Furthermore, under the old system, many people don't vote for independents because they know the independent has no chance of being elected so they are wasting their vote (or worse by not strategically voting for their favourite party, they may help that party's opponent to get elected). But under STV, voters can vote for an independent knowing that if that candidate gets eliminated, then their vote will be transferred to their second choice, so they don't have to worry about wasted votes and strategic votes.

Next question.

Q: "Would smaller third parties be elected under an STV system?"

A: "Not necessarily. In Malta, which has had STV since 1921, there are only two parties with elected officials. In recent elections the largest third party has won less than 2% of the vote and no seats. In Ireland small parties have won seats but so have smaller parties in BC under First Past The Post, as recently as in 1996."

OK, this is getting tiresome. How about:

Q: Are smaller parties far more likely to be elected under STV than under our current system? A: Yes.

Seriously, if these folks really want you to make an informed choice why are they trying to deny even facts which are blindingly obvious to anyone who takes some time to think about how the two systems work (not to mention clearly documented by almost 100 years of electoral history). First Past the Post is so hostile to small parties that political scientists have formed a 'law', (Duvergers Law) which postulates that First Past the Post naturally leads to a two-party system.

It's simple, STV is more proportional so you need a smaller percentage of the vote to get elected plus it eliminates strategic voting - thus more small parties can be elected and this has been shown pretty clearly in practice. It's true that in Malta small parties don't get elected - because people don't vote for them - and this is a problem because?? OK, moving on.

Q: "Are women elected in larger numbers under STV?"

A: "No. In Malta women make up just 9.2% of the country's legislators, with only 6 women elected out of 65 representatives. In Ireland just 13.3% of elected officials are women."

I've already discuss this at length here, so I won't belabour it any further, but I'll just ask one more time, why, if the 'Know-STV' people want you to truly know STV, would they fail to mention that in the STV-using jurisdiction most similar to Canada (Australia), more women are elected than in B.C. Wouldn't that information be helpful to someone trying to make an informed decision?

Q: "Does STV mean an end to so-called 'wasted votes'"

All right, I'm just warning you, the 'Know-STV' folks really jumped the shark on this one, so this may get lengthy.

A: "If no vote were to be 'wasted' that would mean every voter's candidate of choice would have to win election - it's not possible or sensible."

Actually, it is entirely sensible and possible - in fact that's what proportional representation means. According to the Citizen's Assembly site:

"STV virtually eliminates 'wasted' votes. For example, in a three seat riding, even if a voter's #1 preferred candidate is not elected, there is a good chance her ballot will help her #2 and #3 preferred candidates win a seat. About 16% of ballots don't contribute to electing a candidate."

So STV doesn't eliminate wasted votes entirely like a pure proportional system would, but it reduces the % of wasted votes (from around 40-50% in a typical First Past the Post election) down to 16% - which is pretty good since it means one in four voters who would have someone in the legislature that they voted for under STV where they would have had noone under First-Past-the-Post.

They continue: "Elections are to select which candidate in each constituency has the most support"
Actually that's a definition of the First-Past-the-Post system not 'elections', but it's instructive to see that the Know-STV people think that the First-Past-the-Post method is equivalent to 'elections'.

"...and then which parties across the province have enough support from elected members to form a government.

STV supporters say that by ranking your choice of candidates, the odds are one of your choices will win a seat. But that's a little like saying if you bet on every horse in a horserace, one of your picks will be a winner."

Actually, it's not like that at all. Voters are expressing a preference between who they want to help win the race vs. who they want to lose, not trying to profit from every possible outcome - that's why the ranking is crucial. If you really want an analogy, it's more like saying that if your friends vote down your choice of a pizza with anchovies, egg and corn, you can still have a say in the decision between the vegetarian option and the pepperoni pizza rather than being shut out of the crucial decision because you wanted to be able to express your true preference first.

"And because of the complicated transfer system, you will never know where your vote actually went in electing the MLAs for your constituency."

Wrong again. If your first choice didn't get elected, it's a good bet that your vote got transferred to your second choice, unless the person you voted for was the last one to get eliminated. If your person was the last to get eliminated then your vote didn't get transferred at all. That's tough but console yourself by remembering that if we still used FPTP your vote would *never* get transferred.

Now, if your first choice did get elected, either they were the last one elected in your riding (in which case they got all of your vote and none was transferred) or they weren't the last one elected and they got part of your vote (enough to get elected) and the rest was transferred to your next choice. You can check the result to see how many votes your candidate got compared to how many they needed. The same calculation as before applies. If your candidate got twice as many votes as they needed then they got half your vote and half was transferred to your #2.

So the truth is, if you care to know, it will be easy enough to track where your vote went. It takes a bit more effort than under the current system where - unless you voted for the person who won - you might as well have put your ballot in the trash can as in the voting box, for all the effect it had on the election.

"Under First Past The Post, your vote goes to one candidate and is counted clearly. Regardless of your choice, that's not a wasted vote."

Seriously, why are they even bothering with this nonsense? If my vote had 0 impact on who get elected, it's a wasted vote, end of story. True, you could argue that no vote is wasted because it's important on principle to vote, but the 'know-stv' folks know as well as you and I do that that isn't what we're talking about when we talk about wasted votes. Sheesh.

Q: "What would happen to nominating meetings under an STV system?"

A: "Because STV combines the smaller single member constituencies of our current system into large multi-member constituencies, the likelihood is that special interest groups would dominate the nomination process of political parties even more than today."

Umm, why is that exactly - I'm not following. Wouldn't bigger ridings make it harder for special interests to dominate a nomination meeting. Isn't that logical - the smaller something is, the easier it is for a special interest to dominate it? I'm just asking.

OK, almost finished, I promise:

Q: "What is the short version of what's wrong with STV? Why should I vote no?"

A: "STV is complicated, confusing, prone to errors and delay, it reduces local accountability, increases the size of ridings, allows MLAs to avoid direct accountability for their decisions, increases party control and allows special interests to dominate party nominations."

So here's the big finish. STV is too complicated and confusing (translation BC voters aren't as smart as voters in Malta and Ireland and Tasmania who have been using STV since before the invention of commercial air travel, the automobile or television.)

It's prone to errors and delay (translation: Elections BC is incompetent and can't manage elections as well as the Irish or the Maltans)

It reduces local accountability (never mind that one of the most common criticisms of STV is that it makes MLA's focus too much on local concerns)

It increases the size of ridings (but not the number of voters per MLA - if this is such a big concern we could always just add more MLA's anyway)

It allows MLA's to avoid direct accountability for their decisions (how exactly? - and don't you think that MLA's are more accountable when voters know they can dump the MLA without voting for a different party?)

It increases party control (Actually, no. How much control parties want to have over their MLA's is up to the parties. - If anything, MLA's who go against the party have a better chance of surviving as independents under STV than they would under the old system).

and it allows special interests to dominate nomination meetings (not that there is any evidence of this ever happening anywhere, but the 'know STV' crew have decided that it's true so there you go. Personally I think logic suggests that larger meetings will be less corrupt but that's just me.)

So that's it. It's quite a long list of questions, but somehow they missed the obvious ones. Which system is more proportional? Which system doesn't require strategic voting? What % of Citizen's Assembly members thought STV was superior to First Past the Post? What happened in the two referendums where Irish voters were asked if they wanted to switch away from STV? Which system gives voters more choice? Yeah, I wonder why they didn't ask any of those questions.

Maybe because they didn't want you to 'know' the answers.

STV Events

2005-03-17T22:45:00.000-08:00

Via the Yes Campaign website, there a few STV events coming up in the next few days:

Sun, Mar 20th, 2005, @7:00pm- 8:00pm
Vancouver: Britannia Community Forum on BC-STV

Mon, Mar 21st, 2005, @7:00pm- 9:00pm
Victoria: To STV or not to STV? Open Forum

Thu, Mar 24th, 2005, @8:00pm- 11:00pm
Vancouver: Blarney Stone Meetup & Fundraiser

The way I figure, the more people know about STV, the more they'll like it so I encourage people to go find out as much as they can about why the Citizen's Assembly picked STV as their recommended choice for B.C.

An Excellent 'Sermon'

2005-03-13T22:40:00.000-08:00

People who know me know I'm not much for religion but I was impressed by the this article on STV by Philip Symons which I came across on the website for the First Unitarian Church of Victoria.

Some of the best passages:

"Some people have criticized STV as being complex, and too difficult for voters to understand and use. This is an insult to Canadians! Citizens of other countries (Ireland, Scotland, Australia) use varieties of STV in at least some of their elections. Are Canadians stupid?

Users only have to prioritize some of the candidates and number their priorities on the ballot. The analysis of the votes is indeed more complex (for details see the accompanying sheet "STV-Single Transferable Vote-Primer"), but that needn't concern voters, unless they're political science students."

and further down:

"The Citizens' Assembly was selected randomly from voters' lists in every riding. ...
This random selection means that those on the Assembly are as representative a group of citizens in B.C. as it is possible to get. They are far more "representative" than our political "representatives"! And what this means is that if any one of us had been sitting in the Assembly, there's nearly a 93% chance-the proportion of Assembly members who voted for STV over our current "First Past the Post" system-that we too would have recommended BC STV!"

Well said. I think that's something people should consider is that any time someone actually takes the time to investigate electoral systems around the world, there is a good chance that they will end up recommending some form of Single Transferable Vote as the best system. There's a very small chance (<10% most likely) that they would think that our current First Past the Post system is the way to go. So people who prefer our old First Past the Post system should ask themselves what it is they know that the average B.C. citizens who spent a year looking at what would work best here don't.

BC-STV news roundup

2005-03-06T23:17:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd take a moment (or two) to try and round-up all the newspaper articles I can track down on the topic of the upcoming referendum:

First off, a good article by Brenda Guild Gillespie in the Tri-City News.

The Tyee:

STV Gives Rural Towns Needed Clout Peter Ewart argues that STV will allow rural MLA's to more effectively represent local interests.

A Voting Scheme Made for the Rural Right Kevin Potvin argues that the setup of the ridings (fewer members per riding in the rural areas) will favour right wing parties.

Weee! Easy As STV! Tom Barrett almost makes Norman Spector look like a giant of logical argument with this piece which I would hesitate to print if I was editing an elementary school newspaper for fear of lowering the tone.

B.C. Vote Reform Could Lock in Right Wing This is, um, basically the same article that Kevin wrote above. I guess they figured it had been a few months so they'd change the byline and a few words and re-print it.

Rafes Revenge This article is about Rafe Mair, not STV specifically, but it does have a good quote from him on electoral reform:

Still, he thinks the system would yield good results strong, electable independent candidates, greater diversity of opinion, and governments that would be obliged to respect diverse interests.

The people that prefer first-past-the-post are the solid interests, the solid socialists, the solid capitalists. They are the folks who benefit from the devoted patronage of having their person in the premiers office. Its not in their interest to have actually lobby the broad base of an entire legislature.

The Georgia Straight:

Coverage of STV in the Straight basically consists of:

1. Columns by Bill Tieleman (Democracy Denied With STV Propaganda, Greens, Liberals Drove Assembly to STV, STV Shenanigans Confusing, Single Transferable Vote Equals Multiple Problems) where he desperately tries to twist any possible angle into a reason to oppose STV, even going so far as to suggest that we should vote against it because otherwise people in Ontario will laugh at us and:

2. Letters to the Straight, the majority of which are spent pointing out the numerous errors, misconceptions and oversights in his columns. See: Tieleman Tsk-Tsked for STV Trash Talk, Readers Vote For Electoral Change, Assembly Casts About for Electoral Answers, not to mention: Why Did Citizens' Assembly Choose STV?, Obscure Fringe Could Be Our Salvation, and Readers Submit Votes For and Against STV (mainly for, from what I see).

The Province, The Sun, The Times-Colonist

These papers are all part of Canada.com which claims to have no articles on STV in the last 7 days, and isn't searchable any further back. Does it seem weird to anyone that this free blog which I do in my spare time (left over after working on my other free blog) has better search capability and better archiving than the three highest circulation newspapers in the province?

Moving on, the Citizen's Assembly site has a great list of anything in the media up to about mid-December.

Finally, the Yes Campaign Site Forum has a Section for Press Coverage here, and a section for rebuttals to various anti-STV commentary here.

Good Sign

2005-02-28T17:21:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking that it's not a very good sign for STV opponents when a Google search for "Opposing BC-STV" brings up my site as the first hit. Although it may be logical since anyone searching for that term is probably just trying to dig around to see if there actually is anyone opposing BC-STV besides a few nervous party insiders/columnists (and in case you're wondering, so far the answer is no).

See this post over at Double Blind for a seconding opinion.

Public Forum Recap

2005-02-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

So I went to the Public Information forum at UBC Robson Square on Thursday night. It was pretty interesting, there were 4 speakers including David Mills and Shoni Field from the assembly (and in favour) and Bill Tieleman (columnist in the Georgia Straight) and Andrea Reimer (local green party politician) opposed, not that Reimer had anything good to say about the old First Past the Post system.

While it was heartening to see so many people interested in learning more about the system and while I think the overall opinion seemed to be that the current system is broken and it's worth giving the new one a try, there were a couple of points which worried me.

One is that some people still seem to be fighting the battle between Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) and making arguments to show that STV isn't as good at MMP at, for example, providing perfect proportionality. Hopefully between now and May 17th, MMP supporters can bring themselves to face the fact that we have a choice between STV and the old First Past the Post system and that voting No isn't going to bring us MMP any faster than voting Yes would.

The second is that one of STV's biggest advantages can actually be a bit of a weakness when it comes to a debate. What I'm talking about is that, under STV, voters have a lot more power and a lot more choice than they do under any other electoral system. As a result, how STV works in practice varies quite a bit (since voters vary from place to place). In Ireland, STV elects a lot of independent candidates and creates a lot of coalition governments. But in Malta, under STV, voters vote along very strict party lines resulting in two parties getting all the seats and alternating majority governments. Meanwhile, in Australia, under STV a high percentage of women have been elected, in contrast to Ireland and especially Malta where the parties nominate few female candidates.

So, one week we can have a column in the Sun where a columnist complains that STV will lead to the breakdown of majority governments and rule by two centrist parties (like in Ireland). And the next week we can have a column in the Georgia Straight complaining that STV won't lead to the breakdown of majority governments and rule by two centrist parties (like in Malta).

And we'll get STV opponents bringing up Malta as an example of why STV is bad for women, but somehow failing to mention that all the legislatures in Australia which use STV elect a lot more women than we do here in B.C.

The point is that voters want different things in different places and STV gives them the freedom to make that happen. That's why it's hard to predict how STV will work out here in B.C. But what we can predict, and what yes supporters needs to emphasize is that however it turns out, it will turn out that way because that's what voters want - not because that's what the parties want or because the electoral system forced things to go a certain way.

For example, say you're a voter who wants to vote NDP and also vote for a woman. Under the old First Past the Post system, the NDP will choose a nominee for your riding (and historically they've chosen mostly men) and if you want to vote NDP, you have to vote for that person. In some ridings there won't be a single female candidate form any party.

Under STV, there will be multiple MLA's elected from each riding. Say you're in a riding from which 5 MLA's are going to be elected. Odds are, the NDP will run at least 4 candidates in this riding - and odds are, one of them will be a woman. Thus, under STV there is a much greater chance of being able to vote for both the party you want and the (type of) candidate you want - because you have more choice. Even if the NDP chooses not to run any women in your riding, there is likely to be a woman running for one of the 'fringe' parties. So you could rank the woman running for the fringe party #1, knowing that when she is eliminated because she got too few votes, your vote will be transferred to the NDP candidate you ranked second on your ballot. That way you can send a message that you want more female candidates and still vote for your party.

Voting under STV vs. the old First Past the Post system is bit like being at a buffet vs. being at some stuffy old restaurant with only 3 choices on the menu.

Bits and Pieces

2005-02-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

The Yes campaign site has incorporated a blog into their site (kind of) - you can't leave comments but it does seem to support rss - kind of neat.

Also from the Yes campaign site, the following events will be taking place over the next week:

Thu, Feb 24th, 2005, @7:30pm- 9:00pm
Vancouver: Redesigning Democracy (ala UBC)

Mon, Feb 28th, 2005, @7:00pm- 9:30pm
Mackenzie: Community forum (Active Voice)

Tue, Mar 1st, 2005, @7:30pm- 9:30pm
Prince George: Community Forum's (Active Voice)

more details available at the site itself

For the Vancouver one on Thursday, the details are:

Redesigning Democracy, STV and How We Elect our MLA's
With: David Wills, Shoni Field and Bill Tieleman
Thurs. Feb. 24th 7:30-9 pm
UBC Robson Square (by the UBC bookstore, entrance near the faux-skating rink below ground near the court buildings)
Admission is free but please pre-register at info.talkofthetown@ubc.ca or by phoning 604-822-5675

Wills and Field were members of the Citizen's Assembly while Tieleman is a columnist with the Georgia Straight who has written a number (4 and counting) of critical columns about STV.

Talk of the Town (a series of speakers at UBC Robson Square) prefers if you pre-register but it's no big deal if you don't so don't let that stop you from going if you're interested (last time I was there they told me the pre-registration was just so that they could estimate how many chairs they needed, but their chair estimate was way off anyway so it seemed extra pointless, but I digress).

-----
And I also wanted to mention that Shannon, over at Shenanigans, explains how STV works in a recent post. Nice work.

On a More Positive Note...

2005-02-19T15:10:00.000-08:00

After my last rant, I figure it's time for something more constructive. So on that note, I thought I'd mention some more STV commentary which I dug up with google trawling:

There's some really articulate discussion of the pros and cons of using STV in B.C. at, of all places, ehMac.ca (Canada's Mac community) which was triggerred and followed up repeatedly by someone going by the username 'Gratuitous Applesauce'. Reading down through the page you can see his/her evolution from initial wariness towards STV towards a growing belief that it really is a good idea. Well worth a read (IMO).

In addition, I ran across a blog named Double Blind, which besides supporting STV is also just an all around interesting read, especially for people like me who are both math geeks and interested in B.C. politics.

Also, there is an STV-voting yahoo group here with lots of interesting messages although it focusses more on the technical details of vote counting under different electoral systems - still interesting though.

Sometimes, as I wander around the net, I'm struck by the difference in the quality of analysis collectively offerred up by blogs and online forums as compared to what you get on TV and in the newspapers. I don't know what the future holds for media, but a situation where the stuff you pay for is of poorer quality than the stuff which is free doesn't seem too sustainable if you ask me.

In other news, the B.C. government has a site up on the referendum. Nothing too much there as yet which you couldn't also find at the Citizen's Assembly site.

And finally, the Yes Campaign has a new and improved site (same address), which includes a 'demonstration' STV ballot in which you can 'vote' and see how the results work out under a STV vote count. To give credit where it's due, the poll appears to be taken from the demo-choice site.

Update: While I'm being charitable, I should also mention that while I don't think much of his columns (especially the ones on STV), Norman Spector's daily media round-up is most definitely a useful resource, and one that I check most days. Now if only he'd work on setting up decent archiving for his round-up and stop writing columns about STV...

Time to Pack it In

2005-02-18T14:44:00.000-08:00

After reading Norman Spector's latest comments on STV in the Vancouver Sun, I have come to the conclusion that it is (past) time for him to depart from the column writing business.

Let's start with the outright lie with which he concludes his column, saying that STV is "a voting system used by only one Commonwealth country"

The Sun should really publish a correction on this one, since clearly Australia and New Zealand are members of the Commonwealth and equally clearly both use STV for some elections (not to mention Scotland and Northern Ireland). I'm not sure why Spector feels that, on top of his pathetically transparent attempt to exclude Ireland (which uses STV) from discussion, he needs to lie outright as well.

But that's far from the only laughable part of this column. Now when you read the following line, "Proponents of STV claim that only politicians and political hacks favour the existing system", what do you expect is coming next?

I think you'd expect to be given an example of someone who favours the existing system, but isn't a politician or a political hack. But no, here's what comes next, "As I look at prominent names in the debate, however, I see the Bob Williams faction of the NDP -- represented by former cabinet minister Andrew Petter -- supporting STV. I see Moe Sihota -- representing the less ideological Dave Barrett wing -- opposing it. And I see a similar radical/moderate split on the right."

So you see, it isn't just politicians and political hacks who support the existing system, Moe Sihota, representing the less ideological Dave Barrett wing of the NDP, supports it too. And it's the same on the right!

It gets better. Spector's main point seems to be that, under STV, the Liberals wouldn't have decided to spend more money in the budget in the hopes of getting elected. He posits that, "STV would fragment our two big-tent, centrist parties and force politicians to compete for votes on the ends of the political spectrum." and that, "B.C. politics are not polarized. It's our society that's polarized -- along multiple fault lines. In fact, our political system is one of the few institutions that keep it all together." So you've got the argument right, having more than two parties would cause polarization - I don't agree, but at least it's a coherent point.

But further down, Norman backs his point up by saying that we don't want to become like Malta (which uses STV), since Malta is, "a country that's infamous for polarized politics." The thing is, Malta is also famous as the only jurisdiction which uses STV and which still has a two-party structure. So the infamously polarized Malta has a two party system, just like we do now, and Spector is basically contradicting his argument that a two-party system is the recipe for non-polarization.

There's more. Spector also claims that, "To date, proponents of the new voting system have been unwilling or unable to explain clearly where my vote and your votes would go after we mark our ballots."

Now the unwilling part is absurd. It is the Yes side which has a strong interest in explaining the STV system as well and as clearly as possible and a visit to any Yes-vote supporting site will reveal a strong emphasis on doing exactly that. For Yes supporters, ignorance (like Spector's) is our enemy.

As for the unable part, I doubt that Spector has conducted a poll, so one of two things must be true:

Either a) Spector has failed to understand how the vote counting will work - which makes the fact that he has written a number of columns criticizing the impact of the new system seem a little premature to say the least or

b) Spector understands it himself, but he is concerned for the little people in B.C. who don't have his intelligence to figure out this complicated system (which the Irish have been using since before WWII).

There's other nutty stuff as well, such as insinuating that STV will lead to a ban on abortion in one paragraph and then calling STV supporters an 'unholy alliance' (he seems to miss the irony) only a couple of paragraphs later.

Aside from all this, if Spector is going to comment on electoral reform, shouldn't he at least make a token effort to address all the flaws such as the lack of fairness and lack of power for voters which have driven us to consider dropping our current system? Or does he feel that if he keeps repeating his lie that 'only one country in the Commonwealth uses STV' like a mantra, then that is argument enough?

You put it all together and what you get is one of the most poorly written columns I've ever read, and one which the editors of the Sun should be embarrassed to have printed in their paper.

Electoral Systems and Women

2005-02-13T22:45:00.000-08:00

In his most recent rant against STV in the Georgia Straight¹, Bill Tieleman is claiming that STV is one of the worst systems in the world for electing women based on experience in Ireland and especially Malta as opposed to higher rates of women elected in Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

First of all, the electoral system in Sweden, Denmark and Finland is closer to STV than it is to our current First Past the Post (FPTP) system so, given that we are deciding between STV and First Past the Post, a more sensible comparison would have been to other FPTP systems like ours, such as the ones in the U.K., the U.S. or France (all of which have lower rates of women elected than Ireland does).

But far more importantly, just how laughable is the suggestion that different outcomes for women in Ireland and Malta vs Scandinavia can be explained by the electoral system. The status of women in Scandinavia vs. Malta (or Ireland) is different in pretty much every way imaginable, but we are explaining this particular difference based on the electoral system??

If you really want to understand why the number of women elected in Malta is so low (rather than just trying to score pundit points on it), I recommend reading this study which examined that exact question.

The most important thing to note is that historically only about 4% of the candidates have been female. So clearly, if STV is acting to prevent women from getting elected in some way, it must be by preventing them from getting nominated. But it's not at all clear to me why, if a party is going to nominate say 5 people for a single riding instead of 1 person each for 5 smaller ridings, this would work against them nominating women. In fact, if it makes any difference at all, most people would argue that the multi-member ridings work more to women's advantage.

The conclusion from the study is that the history and culture of Malta leads to a situation where women are less likely to be in a position (such as a suitable profession such as a lawyer or doctor) to run for office, and are less likely to seek to become a candidate even if conditions were suitable. Whether there are barriers which prevent women from winning candidacy at nomination metings isn't clear. What does seem clear is that STV isn't the cause of the low number of women elected. After reading the study, one imagines that if Malta used our First Past the Post system, they might never have elected any women!

While we're doing international comparisons of electoral success for women under STV, it may be worthwhile to consider a jurisdiction where social conditions are more similar to B.C. than Ireland or Malta - the Australian province of Tasmania.

In this research note on the 1998 Tasmanian election, Dr. Jennifer Curtin again shows that the number of women elected is closely dependent on how many are nominated which in turn is dependent on social conditions - not the electoral system,

"While the representation of women in Tasmania's House of Assembly stood at a record 31.4 per cent prior to the 1998 election, this strong showing is a recent phenomenon. While Hare-Clark(4) has been in place from 1909, it was not until 1955 that the first two women were elected and there remained only two women in the Assembly until 1964. No women were present again until 1976, and by 1986 there were four women. By 1992 the number had increased to seven (twenty per cent), and in 1996 there were 11 women."

Curtin concludes,

"What is evident from this brief analysis of the Tasmanian election is that while the size of electorates does matter [in that multi-member districts with more members are better than districts with fewer members], it is not the only factor important to increasing women's representation. ... Rather, the onus is also on the major parties to enlist and support high profile female candidates."

I guess we'll see how many women are running for the various parties in the next election.

The best way to measure the effect of the electoral system on women is to remove the impact of different cultures by comparing results from different systems used within the same country.

Some insight into this can be found in a couple of quotes from an article by Marian Sawer of the University of Canberra,

"The late Enid Lakeman compared the results for women in France under different systems of PR in multi-member districts from 1945-1958 and subsequently under single-member constituencies. The greater part of the fall in women candidates and members of parliament dated from the reversion to single-member constituencies [that is, after switching from a system like STV to a system like our current one in B.C.]. By 1973 women constituted only 1.7 per cent of members of parliament (Lakeman 1976: 160)."

and

"In Australia voters receive separate ballot papers for the House of Representatives (single-member constituencies) and for the Senate (STV), but similarly twice as many women are elected off the Senate ballot papers."

It's odd that Tieleman forgot to mention any of these cases in his article (much like he forgot to mention that Ireland had STV a few columns ago when that information didn't suit his purposes²), especially given his oft-expressed concern that people are getting biased information about STV.

----

But let's forget about international comparisons for a second and think about how the two systems, First Past the Post and Single Transferrable Vote actually work.

Let's take a hypothetical voter named Bill who is a strong NDP supporter but also wants to elect a female candidate.

Under FPTP Bill will have one NDP candidate running in his riding. So if that candidate is a women, it's all good. But if there is a man running for the NDP (most NDP candidates have historically been men) then Bill is in a bit of a spot. Does he vote NDP and forego his preference for women, or does he vote for a woman from one of the other parties in his riding (if any of them even have a female candidate). Our old system doesn't give Bill a lot of choice. If he wants to support the NDP he has to vote for whoever they tell him to vote for, whether that is for a man or a woman. If he wants to vote for a woman he may end up voting for any kind of platform, or he may not even have that choice at all.

Under STV however, Bill will likely have a few NDP candidates to choose from, one of whom is almost certain to be a woman. So Bill can express his preference to vote for someone from the NDP and vote for a woman. And even if the NDP decided not to run any women, Bill could vote for a woman who he knows won't get enough votes to be elected as his first choice and then put the NDP candidate as his second choice. That way he gets to vote for the NDP, but his preference for a female candidate will still show up in the voting results - and if the parties observe a trend whereby female candidates are getting more votes than male ones, you can be sure they'll find a way to get more female candidates. This is what I'm talking about when I say that STV puts the power and the choice in the hands of the voters.

Personally, I feel that people should vote for whoever is the best candidate, not based on gender. But that's just my opinion, other people may feel differently. And that's the whole point, the electoral system should allow, as much as possible, for us all to express our preferences, whatever they may be. If people want to elect more women, they should have that option. If they don't want to, they should have that option as well. It's called democracy.

And that's why, if you do want to have the choice of voting for a female candidate, you should vote yes on May 17.

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¹ Here's what you get if you search for STV on the Straight's website (as at Feb 13, 2005). I count 4 anti-STV columns and a mixed collection of letters. And to think I was mocking the National Post earlier today for it's one-sided take on issues. Who knew the Straight would be so opposed to moving towards a more fair, progressive, electoral system?

Update: the link doesn't seem to work directly, but if you go to the Straight and search for STV you'll get there. Since I wrote my post, they've added some more letters critical of Tieleman.

² From Tieleman's Nov 10 column, "For starters, why would B.C. change its way of electing members of the legislature to one favoured in just a few places like Tasmania, Malta, the Australian senate, and Northern Ireland?"

STV and B.C. on the web

2005-02-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

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.

-----
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.

Why Vote Yes? - Short Version

2005-02-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

2 reasons:

Fairness.

It is only fair that the number of seats a party wins in an election should be reasonably similar to the number of votes it received. It is not fair for a party to get all but two of the seats when 42% of the people in the province didn't vote for them. It's not fair for a party to get 12% of the vote and not elect a single member. It is not fair for one party to form a majority government when the other party got more votes than they did. All these examples of unfairness are drawn from just the last 2 provincial elections. Our election results will never be fair as long as we stick with the old system.

Power.

As much as possible, power should reside with voters. Switching to STV will give voters more power in two key ways:

1) Voters can choose between different candidates from the same party. Instead of having to vote for the one person the NDP or Liberals decided to run in your riding, you can choose which NDP or Liberal candidate to vote for. This gives you the power to reward a candidate who represents your riding well and punish them if they don't.

2) If you want to vote for a smaller party, you don't have to worry that you are wasting your vote because if your first choice is eliminated, your vote will go to your second choice. This gives you the power to vote for who you really want and still express a preference among the other parties.

Opponents of STV will tell you that the votes shouldn't be counted fairly because people can't be trusted to vote properly so as to elect a majority government. Or because too many people won't vote properly and will elect candidates from parties other than the NDP or the Liberals. Or they'll say that the system is too complicated and you'll never be able to understand it - even though people in Ireland have been using it for almost 100 years.

Basically they're saying that the new system (STV) is a bad idea because the voters (you) are not smart enough to figure it out and can't be trusted to vote for the 'right' people. I disagree.

Not convinced / want more details? Read the long version.

What the heck is STV, anyway?

2005-02-02T01:50:00.000-08:00

STV stands for Single Transferrable Vote and it is an electoral system which attempts to retain geographical representation (i.e. you vote for people from your area), while making the system more proportional (i.e. parties get a number of seats which corresponds to how many votes they got), eliminate the need for strategic voting (e.g. voting Green won't help a Liberal beat the NDP candidate) and give voters more choice among who they want to vote for (even among candidates from the same party).

As for how it works, maybe I'm lazy or maybe they just did a good job, but I can't really improve much on how the Assembly described it in their final report:

Electoral districts have more than just one MLA.

Voters rank the candidates in the order of their preference: 1,2,3,4 etc.

The number of votes needed for election (called the quota)is calculated.

Everyone's first preference vote is counted.

Any candidates that reach the quota are elected.

If a candidate has more votes than necessary those votes are not wasted but transferred to the voter's second choice.

If no one is elected the person with the fewest votes is dropped and their votes transferred to the voter's next preference.

The process continues until a district has elected all its MLAs.

One thing I would add is that the expectation is that the most urban areas would have 7 MLA's and as areas became more rural the number of MLA's per riding would drop until reaching 2 in the most remote regions (this is to keep the physical size of the ridings from becoming too enormous).

For a graphic representation of how this works, I recommend viewing some of the flash animations at the Assembly site.

If you're more a theory kind of person, one way to think of STV is as a compromise between lots of ridings with 1 person elected per riding (the existing First-Past-the-Post system) and 1 riding with lots of people elected from it (pure Proportional Representation).

I explored this idea at greater length in the long version of my post on why to vote yes to STV:

"...Before explaining what STV is, it's worth considering what the opposite of First Past the Post would be. First Past the Post breaks the territory down into a number of regions (ridings) such that there are as many ridings as representatives and then chooses one representative from each riding. The opposite would be to only have one riding (equal in size to the whole territory) and then choose all your representatives from that one riding.

This opposite system is known as [Pure] Proportional Representation or Party List Proportional Representation (since it is normally implemented in such a way that who gets elected from each party is based on a list that each party puts together - although there's theoretically no necessity to implement it that way).

Pure Proportional Representation achieves (surprise, surprise) perfect proportionality, but does it by sacrificing geographic representation (and in the case of party lists, people are only really assured that they are represented by the party they voted for, not the individual). It is generally used in geographically compact places where geography isn't a big issue.

So, given that First Past the Post and Pure PR represent two extremes (One person elected per riding & perfect geographic representation vs. one riding from which everyone is elected & perfect proportionality) how do we compromise between them?

There are two ways. The first is to elect half (or some percentage) of the members from First Past the Post and half (or some percentage) from Pure PR. This approach leads to what is typically known as the Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP), the system which was recommended by the Law Commission of Canada and the one which is going to referendum in P.E.I. in November. MMP is a pretty good system and, if you ask me, it's about equally as good as STV in general and probably better for large territories with many regional parties (like the federal government in Canada).

In B.C. however, the Citizen's Assembly rejected MMP and chose the second way to compromise: fewer ridings with more than one person elected from each one - STV.

Under STV you could have, for example, a riding from which 5 people would be elected (this riding would be 5 times the size of the old ridings if you wanted to keep the number of representatives the same). Voters would rank candidates starting with #1 and continuing up to #5. After that, anyone who gets enough first place votes (more than 1/6th of the total, since only 5 people can get more than 1/6 of the votes) is elected (if someone has more votes than they need, then their 'extra' votes are redistributed among the remaining candidates) and if nobody has enough votes to get elected than the person with the fewest first place votes is knocked out and the second place votes on their ballots are redistributed. This process repeats until 5 people are left standing."

So that's my take on explaining STV, feel free to contact me if you have questions and I'll do my best to answer keeping in mind that I'm no expert, just an interested citizen.

Want more info on STV?

A good place to start is 'Understanding STV'.

I also recommend reading in full the assembly's final report (it has more explanation than just the bullet points I posted), skimming the technical report(especially pages 9 - 20) or checking out the Wikipedia site on STV.

Next up, Why Vote Yes? (short version)

How did we get here? (Backgrounder)

2005-02-02T01:16:00.000-08:00

In the 1996 B.C. provincial election the Liberal party received roughly 662,000 votes, or 42% of the total. Meanwhile, the NDP received roughly 624,000 votes, 39% of the total. But thanks to the unfairness of B.C.'s current electoral system, the NDP ended up forming a majority government with 39 seats to the Liberals 33 seats.

Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, the Liberals included electoral reform as part of their platform in the subsequent 2001 election. In that election, the Liberals were on the receiving end of the system's unfairness as they ended up winning 77 of 79 seats in the legislature, despite getting 'only' 58% of the vote. Meanwhile the NDP got almost a quarter of all the votes (22%) but only got 2 seats and the Green Party got over 12% of the votes and didn't receive any seats at all.

To their credit, the Liberals didn't let the fact that the system had favoured them this time around dissuade them from carrying through on their promise to look at electoral reform.

What they did is create a 'Citizens' Assembly' which included two randomly selected members from each riding in the province (+2 First Nations members), and a chair appointed by the Assembly members. The Assembly members then spent the better part of the next 2 years learning about electoral systems and holding public hearings at which people could give their opinion about what they should recommend.

The Assembly finished its work with 3 votes:

October 23, 2004: Which of the two alternatives would best serve British Columbia?
MMP - 31, STV - 123.

October 24, 2004: Do we recommend retaining the current First-Past-the-Post electoral system in British Columbia?
YES - 11, NO 142.

October 24, 2004: Do we recommend the STV (BC-STV) system to the people in a referendum on May 17, 2005
YES 146, NO 7.

So that's how we got here. More details on the Assembly process can be found in the Assembly's final report

And if you're really a glutton for punishment, you can dive into the Assembly's 280 page technical report.

If you'd rather read someone else's background on how we got here, this one was pretty good (in my opinion).

Next up: What the heck is STV anyway?

Site Note

2005-01-31T01:47:00.000-08:00

As the abstract says, I put this blog together as a way to organize all my posts and links on STV into one place, and to provide an STV-only place where I can post all I want on STV without boring readers of my regular blog who aren't interested to tears.

For the moment, the site is a bit of a work in progress, I hope to have it pretty much fully up and running by the end of the week (Feb 6).

I guess we'll see how it goes.

Cheers,
Declan.

STV Bits and Pieces

2005-01-31T01:24:00.000-08:00

Note: Adapted from posts made on Crawl Across the Ocean, Jan 19 & 27 2005

First off, thanks to Angela for creating the STV logo used as the header for this blog - a definite improvement over anything I would have come up with!

In other news, I have been asked by the people running the Yes to STV campaign if I want to do some volunteer work for them. To tell the truth, I'm a pretty lazy guy and fairly busy, and even the Blog seems like a stretch some of the time so I'm not sure how much I can commit, but on the other hand I do want this to pass, so it's a tough one.

Finally, the Citizens Assembly website has put together some good flash animations on STV and First Past the Post here.

(If you've watched the Australian animation I linked to a few posts back, you may notice some distinct similarities.)

Another reason to support STV...

2005-01-31T01:20:00.000-08:00

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Jan 12, 2005

...is the truly weak arguments that No supporters make when they try to argue their case.

For today's lesson, let's take Norman Spector's column in the globe from Monday:

Here's how it starts:

"Single transferable nonsense
10 January 2005
The Globe and Mail
A13

The proposal that British Columbia adopt the single transferable vote (STV) in provincial elections is such a dumb idea, one hardly knows where to begin."

He's already said it's dumb AND nonsense and he hasn't even begun yet - sounds like a balanced piece coming up. He continues...

"Have I mentioned that STV supporters are asking us to try on for size the voting system used by only one of the Commonwealth's 53 countries? Now, it's possible that 400,000 Maltese know something the other 1.8 billion inheritors of British political traditions haven't yet grasped, but I wonder."

It turns out that the place to begin was with misleading statistics, bordering on outright lies. Last time I checked, Northern Ireland was part of the commonwealth, as are Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory (of course Norman might argue that sub-national jurisdictions don't count as a valid comparison because we are talking about B.C., which is a - oh, never mind.)

At the national level, Australia uses a form of STV for its Senate. Not to mention the fact that while Ireland (which has used STV since 1922) isn't part of the Commonwealth, to say that they haven't had a chance to be exposed to the great British system of government and all its wonders might be a bit misleading.

He then continues a bit further down (Note: I'm not going to quote every single line in his piece, every now and then I've skipped a few, you should probably start by reading his piece, in its entirety)...

"Proponents of this Rube Goldberg voting system say it's as simple as 1-2-3, but they're unable to explain how STV would work in practice."

Another random insult to raise the tone, and another misleading statement bordering on a lie. A visit to the Citizens Assembly will give anyone a pretty clear idea of how STV would work.

"STV advocates contend that only one country uses the system because it transfers power from politicians and parties to the people. I smell other interests at play."

Actually, only Norman talks about only one country using the system, because as we have noted, he is the only one who has randomly decided to pretend that all the jurisdictions besides Malta which use STV don't exist.

Norman's going to go on to explain how he thinks that it is just fringe elements who want STV because it would help them get elected, but if you ask me, the reason STV isn't more widespread is because it is a more complicated electoral system than first-past-the-post. And that's pretty much how everything in the world works, things start simple, but over time you learn the limitations of the way you do things and you decide to make things better, which generally means making them more complex as well. It's like the history of organized sport (with the gradual addition of fouls, lines, referees, offside rules etc.), organized religion, politics, pretty much everything. Of course if nobody is willing to improve their system until everybody else already has, well, you can see how progress might be a little slow.

"Like all proportional voting systems, STV produces minority governments"

This is true - do you know why? Because one party almost never gets over half the votes. Shocking, isn't it. Unlike first past the post which skews the vote results to artificially create a majority, proportional systems simply reflect the actual vote, and people usually vote for a minority.

"The second largest group of voters are disenfranchised, while fringe groups are empowered. And they multiply. In British Columbia's fruitful climate, that's a recipe for disaster."

God forbid the second largest group of voters are disenfranchised. That's what ALWAYS happened under a majority government - the kind that first past the post almost always produces. And does he even remember the 1996 election, when under first past the post, it was the largest group of voters who were disenfranchised?

As for fringe groups, to get a seat under STV, a party likely needs to get at least 15% if not 20-25% of the total vote in any one riding. Just how fringe is a group that gets that level of support. And what disaster does Spector foresee if a fringe-group like the Green Party (which got 12% of the vote in the last election) gets a few seats? That they might end up in a coalition and have a chance to push for part of their agenda to be implemented? What a disaster.

The rest of the article is pretty much a personal attack on Nick Loenen which attempts to show that since he supports STV and he is opposed to Abortion, STV is an inferior system to First Past the Post (I'm not making this up, that takes up about half the article).

I like it when he says that,

"he [Loenen] and other proponents of STV are proposing to destroy the finest political system in the world, British parliamentary democracy."

Before arbitrarily deciding that British parliamentary democracy is the finest political system in the world, Spector might want to compare the results over the last 40 years of two neighbours, England and Ireland - a comparison in which we see that Ireland (under STV) has emerged from hundreds of years of British oppression to exceed England in just about any measure of societal progress (including economic growth) while England has continued to struggle despite possessing the system which Spector likes so much.

Ireland's success is no proof of anything of course, but it suggests to me that B.C. isn't headed for disaster by 'destroying the finest political system in the world'.

Anyway, here's the big finish:

"Of proposals like Mr. Loenen's, leftie activist Judy Rebick has said, “This may be the only issue where you can have a left-right alliance.” Need I say any more?"

Do you see how after demonizing Loenen for half the article, he now attributes the entire STV decision to him, as if the whole Citizen's Assembly thing had never happened? And of course, all that Judy Rebick's comment means is that electoral reform isn't really a left-right issue, which of course I agree with. For example, I, a centrist, am firmly in favour, as I suspect noted conservative Andrew Coyne would be, as are any number of left wing voices.

So does Spector need to say more? I would say yes. He needs to talk about what the purpose of an electoral system is, he needs to talk about the problems with strategic voting, he needs to address the ethical problems with designing an electoral system to achieve policy objectives (strong government, marginalization of non mainstream voices) instead of simply reflecting the votes cast, and most of all he needs to address the failings of the current system which have led us to this referendum.

Vote Yes to STV on May 17 (if you live in B.C., anyway)

2005-01-31T01:17:00.000-08:00

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Jan 9, 2005

Since the current B.C. Liberal government honoured a campaign promise and brought in fixed election dates we already know, 4 months ahead of time, that on May 17th, B.C. will be going to the polls for a provincial election. At this point, I am somewhat indifferent about which party gets elected (they all have serious problems) although that may change as the date approaches and we actually (hopefully) see some platforms.

But what I will be campaigning for is a 'Yes' vote on the referendum to change the electoral system. The Liberals honoured another election promise by forming a 'Citizen's Assembly' to study whether the electoral system in B.C. should be changed (In the 1996 election the Liberals got more votes than the N.D.P. but the N.D.P. still formed a majority government - this soured the Liberals somewhat on the old (First Past the Post) system).

After months of study, the Assembly recommended that B.C. switch to the 'Single Transferrable Vote' (STV) system which has been used in Ireland since it gained independence in 1922. So along with voting for a party on May 17th, B.C. residents will also vote on whether to switch to STV or to stick to the old system. In order to pass, 60% of people must vote in favour, and there must be a favourable (50% or more, simple majority) vote in favour in at least 60% of the provincial ridings.

I've been reading various people's opinion on whether to vote 'Yes' or 'No' and there seems to be some confusion on what the vote is about:

So, to clarify:

It is not a referendum on how you feel about the Liberal government.
It is not a referendum on the process which was used to generate the choice between STV and the old system.
It is not a choice between STV and your ideal electoral system.
Similarly, it is not a choice between STV and the Mixed Member Proportional System
It is not, or shouldn't be, a choice of which system you think will be best for the party you support.

So, if it's not all that, what is it?

It's simple, it's a choice between whether you think the old (First-Past-the-Post) electoral system or the proposed (STV) system is a better electoral system for B.C.

In order to answer this question we need to ask: what is an electoral system supposed to do? i.e. what makes an electoral system good (or bad)?

In a representative democracy, the electoral system is the mechanism by which all the votes cast (roughly 1.5 million in B.C.) are translated into a list of individuals (79 MLA's in B.C.) who will 'represent' the voters in making laws.¹

In order to do this well, the system needs to accomplish 3 things:

1) Proportionality: The distribution of representatives should be reflective of the distribution of votes. As an extreme example, if some party received 80% of the votes in an election and got 0 seats, we would say that the electoral system had failed. If they got 80% of the votes and 80% of the seats, we would say the system had succeeded.

2) Minimize Wasted Votes: As many people as possible should be represented by someone they voted for. For example, under the current system, if I vote for, say, Bill Derlago and he doesn't get a seat in parliament, there will be nobody in parliament representing my vote, and the system has failed to fully represent me.

3) Ensure Geographic Representation: In addition to each person having representation, each geographical region should have representation as well. For example, if after the B.C. election there were no MLA's from the Okanagan region, we would say the system had failed.²

In order to assess how well each of the two systems do on these 3 tests, we need to understand a bit more about how they work.

First Past the Post

The First-Past-the-Post system is quite simple (in fact simplicity is it's main selling point). The territory in question is divided into equally sized ridings and whoever gets the most votes in each riding is elected.

Proportionality: First Past the Post systems routinely fails to accurately reflect the popular vote in the selection of representatives. Generally speaking, the more parties there are, the worse it does. There are three factors which cause distortion under First Past the Post:

1) The rich get richer: In general, the more votes a party gets, the more it is overrepresented in the legislature. For example, in the last B.C. election, the Liberal party got 57% of the vote, but got 97% (all but 2) of the seats. In the previous election, the N.D.P. got 39% of the votes and got 52% of the seats (and formed a majority). The corollary to this of course, is that parties which get fewer votes are underrepresented. As an example, in the 2001 election in B.C. the Green Party got 12% of the votes (an almost identical percentage as the Bloc Quebecois got in the last federal election) and got 0 seats. Which leads nicely into factor 2)...

2) Regional is better: In general, a party whose voters are more regionally concentrated will be overrepresented in the legislature. We see this most clearly in the national parliament where in the last election the Bloc Quebecois (whose support is concentrated in the French speaking parts of one province) gained 18% of the seats (54 seats) despite only getting 12% of the total vote. The corollary to this is that parties with broad-based support from all regions are underrepresented. The most extreme recent case of this was in the 1993 federal election when the nationally supported Progressive Conservative party got 16% of the vote but only got 0.6% of the seats (2 seats).

3) Luck: Finally, there is an element of pure chance in that a party which happens to win a lot of ridings by close margins will be overrepresented while a party which happens to lose a lot of ridings by close margins will be underrepresented - as happened to some extent in the 1996 B.C. election.

So, the First-Past-the-Post system gives unearned seats to the big, the regionally concentrated and the lucky. And by the same token it cheats the small, the broadly supported and the unlucky.

However, there are further, less obvious problems of proportionality in the First Past the Post system. Because of the way it operates, the First Past the Post system may distort the actual vote itself, by forcing people to vote for someone who is not their first preference.

Consider the case of Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. How many people would have preferred to vote for one of them but didn't because by voting for Perot they actually helped elect Clinton and by voting for Nader (instead of Kerry) they would help elect Bush.

Under First Past the Post, having two parties with a similar message is counter-productive, which discourages the formation of new parties, discourages voting for new parties if they do form, and discourages the continued existence of the new parties even if people do vote for them. Consider the case of the Reform/Alliance party and the Progressive Conservative party. The two parties had different messages which appealed differently to different people. But because they appealed to similar, overlapping groups of people, the two parties were effectively forced to merge in order to have any chance of electoral success.

The end result is that people are never really given the option of voting for the party that they would choose in an unbiased system, so the vote count itself is not proportional with the preferences of the population.

Wasted Votes: With only 2 parties, the proportion of those votes which are wasted (i.e. the percent of the population not represented by anyone they voted for) varies from a maximum of 50%, down to about 25% in really lopsided elections. As the number of parties increases, the number of wasted votes increases. For example, in a four party race, one candidate could win election with only 30% of the votes (with the other 3 getting 25, 25% and 20% respectively). In this case, 70% of the voters will be left unrepresented.

Geographical Representation: First Past the Post does a good job of this, and ensures that each riding is represented by one person.

Single Transferrable Vote:

Before explaining what STV is, it's worth considering what the opposite of First Past the Post would be. First Past the Post breaks the territory down into a number of regions (ridings) such that there are as many ridings as representatives and then chooses one representative from each riding. The opposite would be to only have one riding (equal in size to the whole territory) and then choose all your representatives from that one riding.

This opposite system is known as [Pure] Proportional Representation or Party List Proportional Representation (since it is normally implemented in such a way that who gets elected from each party is based on a list that each party puts together - although there's theoretically no necessity to implement it that way).

Pure Proportional Representation achieves (surprise, surprise) perfect proportionality, but does it by sacrificing geographic representation (and in the case of party lists, people are only really assured that they are represented by the party they voted for, not the individual). It is generally used in geographically compact places where geography isn't a big issue.

So, given that First Past the Post and Pure PR represent two extremes (One person elected per riding & perfect geographic representation vs. one riding from which everyone is elected & perfect proportionality) how do we compromise between them?

There are two ways. The first is to elect half (or some percentage) of the members from First Past the Post and half (or some percentage) from Pure PR. This approach leads to what is typically known as the Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP), the system which was recommended by the Law Commission of Canada and the one which is going to referendum in P.E.I. in November. MMP is a pretty good system and, if you ask me, it's about equally as good as STV in general and probably better for large territories with many regional parties (like the federal government in Canada).

In B.C. however, the Citizen's Assembly rejected MMP and chose the second way to compromise: fewer ridings with more than one person elected from each one - STV.

Under STV you could have, for example, a riding from which 5 people would be elected (this riding would be 5 times the size of the old ridings if you wanted to keep the number of representatives the same). Voters would rank candidates starting with #1 and continuing up to #5. After that, anyone who gets enough first place votes (more than 1/6th of the total, since only 5 people can get more than 1/6 of the votes) is elected (if someone has more votes than they need, then their 'extra' votes are redistributed among the remaining candidates) and if nobody has enough votes to get elected than the person with the fewest first place votes is knocked out and the second place votes on their ballots are redistributed. This process repeats until 5 people are left standing.

It's a bit complicated although it becomes pretty clear if you watch the cute animation here (note: what the Aussie's call Proportional Representation in the animation is what we call STV).

So how does STV do on our three criteria for an effective electoral system?

Proportionality: While not as good as an MMP system or a Pure PR system, STV does much better than First Past the Post. The more people are elected from each riding, the more it resembles pure PR and the better the proportionality.

Minimize Wasted Votes: Because it allows you to express more than one preference, STV is probably the best system for making sure people have someone in parliament who they voted for, since even if their first choice was a fringe candidate with no hope of being elected, once that candidate is eliminated, their second preference will be counted.

Ensure Geographic Representation: Under STV every representative, represents a specific geographic area and every area has (more than one) representative. Some might say this is a disadvantage vs. First Past the Post since the one-to-one connection between citizen and geographical representative has been broken. Others may see it as an improvement since now voters have a choice of more than one representative from their area they can go to in case of trouble, giving them more choice. Personally, I'd say it's a draw, but that's a judgment call.

So on our 3 main criteria, STV is clearly superior on two and about even on the other. This is why the button I added to my site says, 'STV for True Democracy' - because true democracy means an assembly which accurately represents the votes cast and which doesn't waste the votes of half the population.

--
Other Issues:

Besides the 3 primary tests I identified, there are a variety of other issues which can be considered in comparing electoral systems:

Ease of entry for new parties:

First Past the Post: Very difficult. A new party typically needs to get at least 30% of the vote in a single riding in order to elect someone. What percent of the total vote they need in order to get someone elected depends on how regionally concentrated they are. That's why most new parties which form and are able to win seats under First Past the Post are regional protest parties.

Of course even these regional protest parties generally don't last all that long since they don't have the support to form a government and under First Past the Post, they just take votes from any other party with similar policies. So not only can they not gain any power, their presence tends to lead to the party they are protesting against taking power (Perot=Clinton victory, Nader=Bush victory, Reform=Liberal government) This is why there's even a 'law' which says that First Past the Post systems naturally lead to only having two political parties.

STV: Easier. Strategic voting is no longer a problem and a new party will start getting close to gaining seats as its support reaches double digits (roughly - it depends on how many members are elected per riding - the more, the better the chances for small parties).

Support for Extremist Parties: Mildly easier under STV but since you still need at least 10% of the vote (more in most cases) to get a seat, it's a question of how extreme a view something is if 1 in 10 people support it as their first preference.

Turnout: First Past the Post - probably the worst system, due to the high percentage of wasted votes, large numbers of safe seats where the outcome isn't in doubt, the problem of strategic voting and a lack of choice among candidates.

STV: Its complexity may discourage some people, and the percentage of spoiled ballots may be slightly higher, but the far greater choice, combined with no problem with strategic voting, no/fewer safe seats and fewer wasted votes would lead one to believe that turnout would increase under STV vs. First Past the Post.

Choice Among Candidates from the same Party: First Past the Post: none - if you want to vote conservative in Calgary West in the Federal Election you have to vote Rob Anders, the party tells you who to vote for.

STV: Yes - how many choices you have depends on how many people are elected from your riding. If 5, then you would have up to 5 choices of Conservative candidates to vote for.

Complexity: First Past the Post: Probably the simplest system you could come up with other than just flipping a coin.

STV: More complex. It is easy to vote (just put a 1 beside your first choice, a 2 beside your second choice, etc.) but the process for determining who gets elected in each riding is somewhat complicated (in order to make it as fair as possible).

Party Control of Electoral Process: First Past the Post: Limited to choosing who runs in each riding.

STV: Even more limited since voters can choose among the various candidates nominated by a party in a certain riding. If they don't like one of the people who wins nomination, the other candidates will be elected first. This makes it difficult for party leaders to parachute in' outsiders.

Likelihood of Majority Government: First Past the Post: High - because parties with more votes get disproportionately more seats under First Past the Post, majority governments are more likely. This is seen as a plus by those who believe that strong government is better government (up to a point - they generally don't support dictatorship) and who don't mind skewing the results to achieve it.

STV: Lower, because STV is generally proportional, in order to gain a majority the party would need to get close to 50% of the total vote. This doesn't happen very often (although it could, if that's what voters wanted).

Some people express concern that in a minority government situation, a small party could hold the balance of power (like the Bloc does in our current Federal government). Of course, this doesn't mean that a small party can get whatever it wants. Even if it does enter into a partnership with the ruling party, it is generally a junior partner and is lucky to get progress on a couple of it's key issues (those least objectionable to the ruling party, generally). Really, the only change is that the small party holding the balance of power (and the people who voted for them) won't be completely ignored like they would be under a majority situation.

Representation of Women (+ Ethnic Groups, etc.): Although women make up half the population, they have historically made up a much smaller percentage of assembly members under First Past the Post systems. Party list systems (including MMP) can increase the number of women in parliament, basically because the party leaders decide who gets elected, so if they want, they can decide that a certain percentage of those people should be women.

However, like First Past the Post, STV require candidates to both win a nomination for a riding and then win a seat in the riding itself so it isn't likely to increase the number of women elected. In fact, since STV is both more competitive and offers voters more choice than First Past the Post, it may lead to fewer women: if, that is, women are not being elected due to an unwillingness to compete or because voters don't want to vote for women.

Level of Change from Past: First Past the Post: None, First Past the Post is the past.
STV: STV would be a fairly significant change although, if you believe this book (a fairly famous work, which probably deserves a post or two itself), any impact on government effectiveness is likely to be limited - change would be limited to the composition of the assembly. Of course, if you don't like change for any reason, it makes sense to vote for the status quo.

----
Conclusion:

Simple enough?

If not, let's just say that just about anyone who has studied electoral systems seriously (like the Citizen's Assembly) has concluded that STV is better than First Past the Post and the last few decades have seen a lot of countries switch away from First Past the Post and hasn't seen any (that I know of) switch to it. There are reasons for this, and those reasons are what I tried to capture in this post and they're why I'll be voting yes on May 17th.

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Notes:

¹For those of you more comfortable in the symbolic world, the electoral system could be considered: F(v) = a, where v = the votes cast, a = the composition of the elected assembly and F is the function (electoral system) which takes v as input and produces a as output. And yes, I am a bit of a math geek.

² Some may wonder why geography is so important but other possible criteria for representation (class, gender, occupational class etc.) are ignored. If so, you should go read Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs. As she explains, the work of government (and what makes it ethically different from commerce and trade) is that it involves the control and management of physical territory. Hence the importance of territorial representation in the parliament.

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Some Resources:

Tons of relevant information at the site for the Citizen's Assembly

Additional info on First Past the Post, and Single Transferrable Vote, at Wikipedia

Dave Pollard had an excellent post on STV over at How to Save the World

The Electoral Reform Society has been studying what electoral systems work the best longer than anyone.

The best illustration of how STV works that I've seen can be found in a flash animation
put together by South Australia's State Electoral Office

One thing to note is that what the Aussie's refer to as Proportional Representation in the animation, we call Single Transferrable Vote, and what they call 'Exclusion (Bottom's Up)' is often referred to as Instant Runoff voting here.

A report on electoral reform from the Law Commission of Canada.

Fair Vote Canada is a group that was been working on improving the electoral systems across Canada.

Here is the same Vote Yes to STV campaign website that the button links to.

Finally, if you think I'm long-winded on this topic, don't go here. Within that site, you can also find this concise summary of the experience with STV in Ireland
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STV in B.C.

2005-01-31T01:14:00.000-08:00

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Dec 18, 2004

Daniel Girard has an informative, albeit oddly timed article on B.C.'s electoral reform situation. This is the kind of concise, informative, matter-of-fact information piece a long-winded, opinionated person like me could never pull off. The one thing he doesn't do (and realistically couldn't in the space of a column), is provide much information on how the electoral systems in question (the proposed [and far superior] Single Transferrrable Vote and the existing [outdated and undemocratic] First-Past-the-Post ) actually work.

For that, I recommend this , a flash animation put together by South Austalia's State Electoral Office, that explains it all and is entertaining enough in its own right to watch even if you're not trying to learn about electoral systems. Well, it's pretty cute at any rate.

One thing to note is that what the Aussie's refer to as Proportional Representation in the animation, we call Single Transferrable Vote, and what they call 'Exclusion (Bottom's Up)' is often referred to as Instant Runoff voting here.

OK, back to PR

2005-01-31T01:12:00.000-08:00

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Nov 22, 2004

First of all, even though I disagree with his conclusions I have to say that in his article, STV will be very very bad for Canada Jeffrey Simpson from the Globe shows himself to be a cut above the other fearful columnists who are so scared of changing the electoral system.

He makes pretty much the strongest case you can against electoral reform, avoids (mostly) the deceptive arguments and misrepresentations of many of the other columnists, makes reference to actual experience with other systems and even manages a few valid points (valid points being defined as those I agree with).

Nonetheless, there is lots I disagree with and I could do the same point by point rebuttal I did with the last couple of articles, but I saw the way my girlfriend's eyes glazed over when she saw the length of those posts, so I'm going to try something a little different this time, and focus on a more theoretical discussion of electoral reform.

(I know what you're thinking, sounds exciting)

As I see it, before choosing an electoral system we have to answer a fundamental question: is the electoral system solely a means to an end, or is it actually an end in itself?

Put another way, if we were assured (by some verifiably omnipotent being, say) that we would receive better government under a dictatorship than under a democracy, would we switch, or would we stick with the democracy.

If one system is more democratic than another but less effective, how do we trade these two things off against each other?

Take, for example, the last Federal election. At a rough estimate, I'd say that the average MP elected received about 50% of the vote (probably less), meaning that about half of all voters have someone in parliament representing them.

Under a Single-Transferrable-Vote system, that number would likely rise to at least 80%. Now say, (only for the sake of argument), that STV would lead to poorer decisions (for whatever reason). Does that mean we should stick to the current system which is 50% democratic, vs. one which is 80% democratic? If yes, then what if we had an option in which only 25% of the votes counted, but we figured it would provide even better government? 10%, 5%? Is there a line somewhere?

So where do our columnists stand in this debate? Murray Campbell quotes Churchill as saying,

"the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

in his argument that we don't want the system to be too democratic. Simpson says that,

"PR systems can make hard decisions if they absolutely have to, as in a crisis. But they don't instinctively put a premium on long-term thinking or provide the smack of strong government."

in his argument that we don't want the system to be too democratic.

Ian Urquhart of the star says that,

"If we end up with the B.C. model [STV], that delay [in implementing it] will be a blessing"

in his argument that we don't want the system to be too democratic.

From what I've seen, the only major columnist who has put the principle of democracy ahead of the goal of good (strong in their view) government is Andrew Coyne, for which I give him credit.

(Note: Richard Gwyn didn't really seem to take a side, he was focussed on his odd digression into the urban/rural split).

Darn it, every time I talk about PR it turns into another long post, I think my next one will simply say,

"PR is better - go study it for yourself, and don't believe everything you read in the paper."

Columnists and PR #2

2005-01-31T01:10:00.000-08:00

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Nov 21, 2004

OK, I hope the pace at which columnists write absurd stories about PR is going to slow down because otherwise it's going to be hard for me to keep up.

Today in the star it's Richard Gwyn's turn with an article about how the push for PR is really a secret plan by urbanites to steal power from rural areas.

First off, he argues that election finance has already achieved some of the aims of PR saying that:

we've already achieved many of the benefits of PR through our new system of election financing. In our last election, the Greens didn't elect a single MP, as is commonly the fate of small, widely dispersed parties under the existing, winner-take-all system. But the Greens will get a lot of public funding for their 4 per cent share of the vote, so their voice will be heard across the nation anyway.

It could be just me but I haven't been hearing the voice of the Green Party across the nation too much lately. And I have this funny feeling that when it comes time to decide which party leaders get to participate in the debate prior to the next election, the media will argue that the Greens shouldn't be there because they don't have a seat in parliament. So they don't need a seat because they can make their voice heard anyway. But they can't make their voice heard because they don't have a seat. OK, then.

"But none of its advocates have yet explained the most radical consequence of a switch to proportional representation. This is that PR will significantly increase the number of urban MPs in our legislatures, and decrease correspondingly the number of rural MPs."

There are two forms of PR which are likely to be recommended in a switch to PR: either the Single transferable Vote system (STV) or the Mixed-Member Proportional System (MMP).

Under STV (which was recommended in B.C. by the Citizen's Assembly) there would be no such transfer from rural to urban (unless it was explicitly designed into the system).

Under MMP, some percentage (probably around 60%) of the seats would be elected the same as now and the rest would be elected based on party-lists (most likely, anyway). Whether those 40% would be more urban or rural would be up to the parties themselves and not a product of the system per se.

So, I can conclude that, far from being 'the most radical consequence of a switch to PR' a change in the rural-urban distribution of seats would only be accomplished via a specific attempt to do so, not by stealth.

"our most glaring political imbalance is the overrepresentation of rural Canada and the underrepresentation of urban Canada."

Even if you were to even out all the ridings so that they had the same population, I doubt that it would cost rural areas more than about a dozen seats across the country. Meanwhile, the Bloc received 54 seats in the last election, even though they were only entitled to 38 based on their share of the popular vote. And that's just one party.

If you ask me, the most glaring political imbalance in our system is the overrepresentation of regionally concentrated interests (like Separatist/protest movements) and the underrepresentation of more dispersed interests (like the Green or Libertarian parties).

Further down, Gwyn writes:

"Involved here, as PR advocates take care not to admit, is a transfer of power from voters to party professionals. In advance of the election, each party would compile a list of its second-choicers, in descending order. Those most liked by the party insiders would head the list and most likely would make it to Parliament."

Of course, this is the main reason why the Assembly in B.C. is recommending STV, a system which gives voters even more power (and parties even less) than they have in the current system. It's funny how, just a sentence after talking about how "there are innumerable forms of PR", Gwyn ignores the fact that for one of the most prominent ones, his next sentence just isn't true. Furthermore, an MMP system could be designed to reduce the influence of the parties on who gets elected, if that's what we want.

"These second-choice MPs won't be rooted in any riding. So star urban candidates would be natural choices, as well as representatives of ethnic and other minority groups, all of whom are concentrated in cities."

To his credit, Gwyn now gets around to defending his earlier assertion that MP's picked by parties under MMP are likely to be from urban areas. Still, it's not clear to me why there can't be star rural candidates and I would note that the biggest 'group' underrepresented in parliament is women - and last time I checked they weren't overly concentrated in cities.

"It's possible that the advocates of proportional representation don't realize this. It cannot be a coincidence, though, that almost all of them are urban types."

This is by far the most objectionable line in the article. First of all, it seems clear to me that, far from Richard Gwyn knowing so much more about PR then the people advocating it, the reverse is in fact true.

Secondly, the implication that the only reason people would support an electoral system is because it supports their urban/rural class is absurd. Is it so impossible to think that people are motivated to implement PR simply because it is a better system? Is it possible that the reason most of PR's advocates are urban dwellers is because (as Gwyn himself notes), most people in Canada live in cities? Does Gwyn really think that if I had never left the town I grew up in (an overrepresented rural area) I would be opposed to PR - and that the fact that I support it and believe that it is a better system is solely because I now live in a big city?

What is it about PR that leads columnists to write such absurd things? What are they afraid of?

Columnists and PR - What's the problem?

2005-01-31T01:02:00.000-08:00

Note: Originally posted to Crawl Across the Ocean on Nov 21, 2004

Columnists like to write about electoral reform, but they don't seem to like studying or researching it.

Here's a copy of the letter I wrote to Ian Urquhart of the Toronto Star after he published this column filled with half-truths, quarter-truths and worse.

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Dear Mr. Urquhart,

I am writing to you because I feel you have done your readers a disservice with your inaccurate portrayal of the Single-Transferable-Vote System (STV).

To begin with, your description of it as 'whacko' seems odd when you consider that it was originally promoted by the famed political scientist John Stuart Mill, is the recommended system for the group which has been studying electoral systems longer than anyone (Britain's Electoral Reform Society), has been successfully in use for over 50 years in stable democratic countries, and was overwhelmingly chosen by the Citizen's Assembly members in B.C. after long and careful consideration of all the alternatives.

Furthermore, you imply that STV is a rejection of compromise when in fact the opposite is true. Our current system has a large number of ridings with one person elected per riding. Party List PR has only one riding (the entire country) with a large number of people elected from it. STV compromises between these two extremes by having a smaller number of ridings than our current system (larger number than PR), with more people elected from each one (fewer people than PR). MMP compromises between the two extremes by effectively running the two systems in parallel, with some people elected under our current system and some under Party List PR.

By making this compromise, STV addresses your fear that "voters would lose their constituency-based representatives in the Legislature" by ensuring local representation. At the same time, it largely corrects the problems with proportionality, and strategic voting that plague the current system. Finally, it also avoids the problem of letting parties rather than voters decided who gets elected under a party list system like is used in much of Europe, while also being less prone to electing fringe/extremist parties than pure PR.

On this topic, your comment that "It seems tailor-made to elect extremist and fringe elements." is also untrue. Consider for a moment that the new assembly in Northern Ireland adopted STV for electing it's members and realize that you are suggesting we reject a system used in Northern Ireland, because it may elect extremists here in Canada! More to the point, even with 7 member ridings, a 'fringe' party would have to get at least 12.5% percent of the vote over a fairly large area (say the city of London, for example) in order to elect someone.

As an example, the Green Party, which received almost half a million votes in the last Federal election, likely wouldn't have won a single seat (or only a very few), even if 7 member ridings were used all across the country (they would have gotten more seats under MMP however - which makes your rejection of STV in favour of MMP on the basis of it favouring extremism a little odd as well).

The ranking of candidates from 1,2,3 etc. actually works against fringe candidates because all the members of the mainstream moderate parties are likely to choose other moderates as their second, third, fourth etc. choices. That is, not many people with a non-extremist first choice will make an extremist second (or third) choice.

"The B.C. assembly noted that the system is now in use in Ireland, Malta and Tasmania. Hmmmmm."

I imagine my parents, who immigrated here from Ireland back in the 60's, wouldn't be the only ones who wonder what you are implying with "Hmmmmm". Is Ireland not a successful, peaceful, democratic country? Have you checked to see whose GDP/capita is higher lately? Maybe you could clarify what it is about Ireland that is so different from us. Is everyone there whacko perhaps?

Anyway, It's not like the list of countries using our system is so impressive either, and if you can find any place in the world which has switched to it in the last 100 years, let me know (lots have switched away from it).

"If we end up with the B.C. model, that delay will be a blessing."

I find it amazing that you can reach that conclusion when you haven't made any kind of comparison of the pros and cons of STV with our current system. Especially bearing in mind that pretty much anybody who ever has made a serious attempt at such a comparison has concluded that STV is better than our current system.

As a journalist, you have a great deal of influence in your ability to reach readers and you also have an incredible luxury in being able to analyze political topics as a full time job, while most of us who are interested in these things have to do them on top of a full time job.

Bearing this in mind, I feel that you also have a responsibility to actually research the topics you write about in order to provide information which will inform rather than mislead - something you have failed to do in this column.

If you ever plan on writing about this topic again, I urge you to please visit and read the following links before you do so.

The Electoral Reform society (the section on voting systems is quite good):

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/ers/intro.htm

Dave Pollard's excellent post on the topic:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/10/26.html

The Wikipedia entry on STV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Transferable_Vote

If you made it this far, I thank you for your patience and look forward to your next column on the topic (assuming that you agree with me by that time, of course).

Sincerely,
Declan Dunne, Vancouver.