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Tom Monto

Block Voting - a bad idea

Updated: Sep 26, 2020

Block Voting (where voters may cast as many votes as there are seats to fill in multi-member districts) is the oft-overlooked third system of district voting.


Many know the term First past the post; some know pro-rep; but few mention Block Voting.

For example, you will be hard-pressed to find Block Voting in any discussion of BC elections, although for a century (excepting the early 1950s) in every election it used a mixture of FPTP single-member districts, and Block Voting in multiple-member districts.

It is not mentioned in the Encyclopedia of BC.


Regarding Wikipedia's coverage of BC politics, I made several attempts to get mention of BC's cancellation of Block Voting recognized as a form of electoral reform and finally gave up.

Why is it important to note that BC dropped Block Voting?


Because knowing the history of electoral reform shows us that the system is not locked in place, that it can be reformed, that it is humanly possible to make improvements to the system we vote under.

See my blog "The large number of provincial governments that have changed their electoral systems" for more information.


Block Voting is bad because it allows one single group - with a minority of the votes - to take all the seats. in 1921 the Liberal party voting block took all the Edmonton seats with less than 40 percent of the vote.


Thanks for reading.

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