BC-STV stands for BC-Single Transferable Vote. It is a voting system recommended by a Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform in October 2004 for use in BC. STV means the use of multiple-member districts and preferential ballots. That type of ballot allows a voter to rank the candidates, and it has proven to more fair than first-past-the-post. STV has proven fairness in past elections in Australia, Ireland, Malta and western Canada.
In the BC-STV system you would have to rank every candidate. That way you don't HAVE to vote for a candidate you don't know about or support. although of course your secondary preferences are not used unless and until your first preference has been elected or eliminated.
BC-STV was supported by a majority (58 percent) of the voters in a provincial referendum in 2005 but the government had legislated that it would not be bound by any vote lower than 60 percent in favour.
Because of the previously proven strong majority support for BC-STV and continued lobbying, the government held another referendum, in 2009. This time there was increased public funding for information campaigns to inform voters about the differences between the existing and proposed systems. The leadership of both the "yes" side and the "no" side were assigned by the government. This time 61 percent rejected change.
A third referendum that presented four options to voters held in 2018 resulted in a majority of voters voting to retain the present system. (more on this below)
Mechanics
The most important feature of the system is that, although each voter has only one vote, even if his/her chosen candidate is not elected, his/her vote may not be wasted but may be transferred to elect another candidate preferred over another, based on the voter's ranked preferences (if any).
The voter is invited to rank-order candidates, although they are not required to do so. The candidates will be grouped by political party in separate columns on the ballot paper, as is the practice in the Australian state of Tasmania. However, voters would be allowed to express preferences for candidates of different parties if they chose to do so.
the BC Assembly's Final Report went as follows: "If a voter's favourite candidate (#1) is not elected, or has more votes than are needed to be elected, then the voter's vote is "moved" to his or her next most favourite candidate (#2). The vote is transferred rather than wasted. The aim of this system is to make all votes count" (Final Report, p. 6).
Though of course, there is no practical way to ensure that no votes are wasted. In 1948 in Edmonton under STV about 10 percent of the votes did not find final homes with elected representatives, some were not filled out fully so became "exhausted" as the vote transfers were performed, some went to the last unsuccessful candidate whose votes were not transferred, some were set aside as spoiled because the voter misunderstood and used an X instead of numbers to rank the candidates.
But only 10 percent wasted compares well to the 49 to 70 percent commonly wasted under First past the post.
2018 BC referendum on electoral reform
Voters were offered four choices -- retaining the present system and three new systems each of which included two different types of elections/representatives. Only one of these six new electoral systems had ever been used in Canada before. That was STV, which had been used to elect MLAs in Alberta and Manitoba from the 1920s to the 1950s. (Those systems varied in small particulars from the proposed BC-STV system).
The four versions were expressed only in the broadest terms, and although I don't agree with much of the opposition to electoral reform I do agree with the criticism of the proposals that they were loosely worded.
Judging by the way the Brexit referendum and issue is progressing you can apprehend the way a successful referendum vote would have gone - long drawn out discussion and debate on how to establish the complicated new system. This would be concerning the boundaries of districts, whether small parties would be excluded from proportional representation, and the hundreds of others details, each of which would help or hinder one or other of the contesting parties.
A referendum is great as far as it goes but it devolves to the government to implement what the referendum calls for. and a government will find it difficult to implement a loosely-worded referendum especially if the government does not favour the change in the first place.
Under Canadian law a government can change the electoral system without referendum. And many governments have in fact done that -
BC brought in a form of Alternative Voting in the early 1950s.
BC discarded its mixed system of multiple-member block voting disricts and first past the post single-member districts in 1988.
Alberta and Manitoba brought in a dual system of STV/Alternative Voting in 1920s and then abandoned it in the 1950s,
in all cases without referendum.
As well extensions of suffrage (and restriction of suffrage in 1917) have also been done without referendum.
So referendums are not necessary and only serve as proof of support for the measure while in no way ensuring an easy adoption of the reform. If a government promises to bring in reform and is elected, that should be sufficient mandate to push ahead with reform such as electoral reform without holding a referendum.
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