STV-Single Transferable Vote-Primer

When you vote at the Provincial election on May 17, 2005, you will be asked to vote also on this referendum: "Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform? Yes/No

Most newspaper editorials and columnists have panned STV as a system that is too complex, and bad for Canada and B.C. These criticisms are supposedly proven by the fact STV is used only in Malta-oh, and Ireland, Scotland, Australia... The claims come from people who are very content with the way our "First Past the Post" system delivers majority Liberal or Conservative governments, even though usually less than 50% of the population voted for them. They, no doubt, will vote "No" on the referendum!

If you think we should explore new ways of doing things, if you think parliaments or legis-latures should be comprised of parties in proportion to the votes each won, if you think we should search for less confrontational more cooperative governments, with a higher proportion of women in them than now, vote "Yes"!

STV may not deliver on all these points, but it could-and if it doesn't, we can change or modify the system again. What we know for certain is that the present First Past the Post system delivers none of these benefits, and never will.

What is new with BC-STV?

• Electoral districts (ridings) will have more than one MLA (2-7 adjoining ridings will be grouped, two in geographically large ridings, up to seven in cities).
• You will be able to vote for more than one MLA, and between 2 and 7 MLAs will be elected in these grouped ridings.
• The proportion of parties in the legislature will resemble the proportion of voters who voted for them (called "proportional representation").

What you will have to do to vote using STV:

• Rank your choices for candidates on the ballot -1, 2, 3, 4, etc., that's all!

Is that too complex?

True, you will have to know something about the candidates to make the most of this system, but if that's too complicated, you can simply vote 1 for your favourite candidate, or 1, 2,… for all the candidates from your favourite party.

How are votes analysed? Ah, now, that does get a little complex! But reflect! You can drive your car without understanding the intricacies of internal combustion engines, and the same goes for BC-STV. A brief description of the analysis is overleaf; if you want more information, see the handout "If You Really Must-STV, a Worked Example".

STV WASTES NO VOTES! In most voting systems, votes in excess of the number to win, say votes in excess of 50% + 1, are "wasted", because they have no effect on the final outcome-the candidate wins whether she has 50.5% of the votes or 93%. With STV no vote is wasted, because if a candidate garners a "surplus" of votes (more than needed to win), all of her or his ballots are re-examined and a proportional value of the second choices is assigned to other candidates-remember, we will be electing between 2 and 7 candidates with this system. The mechanics may be complex, but the results are completely fair and not a vote is wasted!

The redistributed "surplus" may still be insufficient to elect another of the candidates. In that event the candidate with the lowest number of first-choice votes is dropped, and the second choices on those ballots are redistributed (this time at full value). Again, every vote counts (provided second preferences are marked!), even if a voter's first choice is for a candidate who is unlikely to win. In our current "First Past the Post" system, where only one choice is possible, such votes are wasted, or, alternatively, people vote for their second (or third) choice because their first-choice candidate will not win.

GREATER VOTER CHOICE. STV provides voters with more choices. A political party can propose a slate of candidates on the ballot, but it is the voters, not the party, who then choose the party representative(s). Voters can also express their preference for a second party over a third or fourth, if they wish, by listing their priorities for candidates of parties they like first, and ranking candidates from parties they don't like last.

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. What is the purpose of combining neigh-bouring ridings? There are a couple of purposes. First, there is a greater chance that at least one of the people elected will be from the party you favour, and will have similar values to yours. You are more likely to have a representative in your area who will lend you a sympathetic ear.

Equally or even more important, however, is the fact that combined ridings provide the means of achieving "proportional representation". Proportional representation is where the distribution of seats among parties in the legislature matches, or comes close to matching the distribution of votes for those parties among the electorate. The pie chart in the Final Report of the Citizens' Assembly demonstrates clearly how "proportional representation" differs from the results of our current "First Past the Post" system:
So the analysis of the votes is indeed a little complex. However, people in Ireland, Scotland (in the lower house elections), Aus-tralia (for the senate) and yes, even Malta use this system or something similar in their elections. Are Canadians incapable of understanding com-plexities that citizens of other countries think nothing of?

Philip Symons, Feb., 2005