[EM] British Columbia voting-method reform

VoteFair electionmethods at votefair.org
Sun Jan 14 11:09:18 PST 2018


British Columbia (in Canada) is considering changing their voting 
system.  Here is a link to that process:

https://engage.gov.bc.ca/howwevote/

Here is the first paragraph from that page:

"The B.C. Government has introduced legislation to hold a referendum in 
the fall of 2018, which will ask British Columbians to decide whether 
B.C. should keep its current voting system (First Past the Post) or move 
to a system of Proportional Representation. Countries around the world 
use different voting systems to elect their representatives. How a 
voting system is designed influences how a society is governed."

These are the proposed alternatives:

* List Proportional Representation (List PR)

* Single Transferable Vote (STV)

* Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP)

* Mixed-Member Majoritarian (MMM) (also called Parallel)

Alas, these alternatives increase control for political-party insiders 
in choosing which candidates win seats.  In other words, they compromise 
electorate proportionality in order to get party proportionality.

And apparently they are glossing over the important distinction between 
open-list PR and closed-list PR.  And some of these alternatives 
continue to use single-mark ballots.

I don't have time to get involved in this reform effort, so I'm hoping 
that other folks in this forum are interested in helping steer the 
decision away from the worst choices.

Richard Fobes


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