STV-Single Transferable Vote, Principles and
The Citizens' Assembly

On May 17, 2005, you will vote on a referendum that asks: "Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform?"

Importance of your vote. This could be the most important decision you ever make in a political voting booth-certainly on provincial matters. It is more important than electing your Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) because STV will change the way we elect our provincial governments, and that in turn will change their composition and, with luck, improve the way our politicians work. It's a change in governance, not simply of governors!

BC's Single Transferable Vote (BC STV) was chosen by the B.C. Citizens' Assembly, a body of 160 randomly selected citizens. They chose this form of STV after having held 50 public hearings, read 1,603 written submissions, studied systems used in other countries, and deliberated and discussed all this over a period of a year.

The principles or "values" that Assembly members used to evaluate different electoral systems:

• Fair election results that reflect voters' choices. Every vote should count and reflect the popular vote, i.e., result in "proportional representation" (see below).
• Effective local representation. B.C. is geographically and economically diverse. The Assembly agreed it was important that each distinct community have representation in the legislature.
• Greater voter choice. Voters should have some say in choosing the candidates from each party, rather than voting for a candidate chosen by the parties themselves.
• Reduced political power of parties. Party discipline quickly turns MLAs into party advocates rather than advocates for those who elected them. BC STV is an attempt to balance party and voter powers.

Minority and Majority Governments. BC STV will likely result in more minority governments than we have seen before. Some people prefer majority governments because they can ignore the opposition and ram through their preferred policies, "getting things done". Unfortunately, most majority governments represent less than 50% of the voters, which means the policies majority governments ram through may be desired by only a minority of the voters. The Free Trade Agreement is an example.

Minority governments require that the party with a plurality of seats (i.e., more seats than any other party) find partners among other parties to form a coalition to pass legislation. Minority governments require cooperation, and tend to reduce confrontation. Women generally (there are exceptions!) prefer negotiation and compromise over confrontation. We may well see more women in the legislature with BC STV. One of the most successful governments Canada has had was the minority government of Lester B. Pearson.

Drawbacks? No electoral system is perfect, and BC STV is no exception. 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.

What is "Proportional Representation"? Proportional representation means simply that the proportion of seats each party gets in the Legislature or Parliament is equal to the proportion of votes they received. For example, if the Provincial Liberals received 44% of the votes across the province (the "popular vote"), they would have 44% of the seats in the Legislature.

This is logical and fair, yet it is a far cry from what the "First Past the Post" (properly the Single Member Plurality) system has been giving us. In the last election the NDP obtained 22% of the popular vote, but got only 2.5% of the seats (two seats) in the legislature. This uneven and unfair outcome is the usual result from the First Past the Post system. And if you think the First Past the Post system is simple, try explaining that odd outcome to someone!

BC STV will give a seat in the Legislature to small parties that capture only three percent of the popular vote. Some people fear that this will allow far-out ideas from fringe parties to influence our policies and laws. If one reflects on the power of "back-bench" politicians, this fear can be dismissed!

Significance of the Randomly Selected Citizens' Assembly. The Citizens' Assembly was selected randomly from voters' lists in every riding. A dozen or so voters were selected, and then asked if they wished to participate in the Assembly. Those who said "yes" had their names put in the metaphoric hat, and one man and one woman from each riding were chosen to sit on the Assembly. There are 79 ridings, so this resulted in 158 members on the Assembly. The Assembly members themselves noted that none of them was a First Nations person, so the random process was repeated among First Nations peoples, and a man and a woman selected to give the Assembly a total of 160 people.

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!

Given the same thorough information, and opportunity to absorb it over a year, you and I would more than likely have come up with the same recom-mendation as did the B.C. Citizens' Assembly. That's a very powerful argument why you and I should support BC STV!

Philip Symons, Feb., 2005