How we vote

The Citizens' Assembly might recommend an alternative to our current system of first past the post elections. The 158 randomly chosen citizens will be selected using what is called a stratified random sample. That means that the selection is random within certain categories so as to assure that two people are chosen from each of 79 provincial constituencies and that men and women and various age groups are represented in roughly the same proportion as they are in the total population. Without asking anyone about their political preferences or past voting behaviour, we can also expect that the 158 people will roughly reflect political preferences and past voting behaviour of the general population. Notwithstanding mythology about high Canadian voter turnouts, the fact is that almost half of the eligible voters did not vote in the 2001 BC election.

At the time the 2001 election was called there were 2,023,999 registered voters. By the day of the election, May 16, 2001, the list grew to 2,254,920. On voting day, 1,599,765 voted. On the face of it that would make it appear that almost 71% of eligible voters voted, but not so fast - it is only 71% of registered voters that voted. We can estimate the number of eligible voters by going to the census. In 2001 BC had a population of 4,095,900. In order to vote a person must be a Canadian citizen aged 18 or over. BC had 3,206,620 people aged 18 or over in 2001. Exact numbers don't exist on how many of those 3.2 million people were ineligible because they were not citizens, but it is certainly less than 10%. So at a minimum, 2,886,000 people were eligible to vote. This means that the voter turnout was between 50% and 55%. In other words, almost half of those who could have voted chose not to.

One might assume that if the Citizens' Assembly is chosen at random, almost half of its 158 members will not have voted in the last election. However, it may also be true that those who chose not to vote are more likely to decline any invitation to participate in the assembly. Based on the 2001 election, at least 600,000 people declined to participate by not registering to vote (Gordon Gibson estimated 800,000), and a further 650,000 people declined to participate by not voting even though they were registered to vote.

It is not clear whether the names of those selected for the Assembly will be public so that they can be lobbied like politicians, or whether they will be protected like jurors. Gibson obviously contemplated that the Members of the Assembly would be treated like politicians when he noted that prospective Members would have to consider "the fact that Members will inevitably become known in their communities and receive attention from the media as to their history, etc." That could result in sufficient people excluding themselves from the selection so as to make the Assembly considerably different than one which enjoys the protection of a jury. Nevertheless, without that exposure, it would be difficult to engage and educate the public on what options are available, an important part of the entire exercise.

One of the challenges for the Citizens' Assembly is to recommend a system that might encourage more people to register and vote. That probably means convincing people that voting matters, and that the new system they recommend will make it matter more. BC will be a better place if the Members of the Assembly succeed in that task.