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April 11, 2005

Vote No if Uncertain on STV

On May 17th British Columbians might vote to change the electoral system. The alternative that could be adopted, termed BC-STV, is not generally understood but understanding isn't a prerequisite for voting. In 1991 over 80% of British Columbians voted in favour of adopting initiative and recall, features that are part of politics in California but are foreign to parliamentary democracies. It was necessary to set up a legislative committee to interpret how to implement those foreign concepts. The committee, chaired by Ujjal Dosanjh, its recommendations and the ultimate legislation were thoroughly criticized by Gordon Campbell, who promised in 2001 to make recall easier. That is one of several of his broken promises.

This time BC could adopt the Irish voting system without understanding what that means. The referendum question is "Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform?" A fairer question might be: "Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as described in pamphlets circulated to every household?" Turning the question into a confidence vote on the Citizen's Assembly is not fair. The only reason the option is called "BC-STV" rather than STV as used in Ireland is that the BC variation allows 2 member constituencies rather than a minimum of 3 members as required by the Irish constitution. In practice, large constituencies with up to 7 members give the most proportional results but nothing in the referendum process would constrain the subsequent boundaries commission on how many constituencies would be of each size (2 to 7 members). Even a Green Senator from Australia, recently in BC to campaign for the Greens and promote STV, admitted that there are problems if constituencies have different numbers of MLAs and vary in size from 350,000 to 100,000 voters.

The pamphlet distributed to every household by Elections BC says: "BC-STV is regarded as a system that gives voters more choices on the ballot at elections and maintains the link between MLAs and constituencies." Elections BC may have used the words "is regarded" because what follows those words is not necessarily true; they are reporting what proponents claim, not what is fact.

Some proponents of STV claim that the opportunity to rank as many candidates as appear on the ballot is a form of increased choice, but that confuses how ballots are marked with how ballots are counted. Under STV some voters never have their second preference counted, many never have their third preference counted, and most never have anything beyond that given even fractional weight. Some proponents also claim that parties could run full slates. That misunderstanding also results from not understanding how the count works. People have only one vote, no matter how many preferences they mark. On the first count all ballots are sorted by the first preference of each voter. In a five member seat a party that ran five candidates would have first preferences distributed between all five while an opposition party which ran only three candidates would have less internal competition and higher first vote counts. In a close race parties would work against their chances of electing candidates if they ran more candidates in a riding than the opinion polls showed as their percentage of public support. For example, if a party had 40% support in the public opinion polls, it could be expected to win two seats in a five member riding but if it ran three or more candidates it might not win any seats. That is why, in Ireland, where STV has been used for over 80 years, parties do not run full slates.

The parties, not the voters, determine how many candidates they will field in each of the multiple-member constituencies. That may look to some like more choice for the parties and less choice for the voters. The power of the party increases further when nominations, based on polling and proportional outcomes, become likely tickets to election. Instead of giving more power to voters, STV may make internal party politics even more important than it is now.

In the last election, the BC Liberals, the NDP, the Greens and the Marijuana Party ran candidates in each of the 79 ridings; 18 other parties plus independents also ran in some constituencies. In the 1996 election in the Republic of Ireland 166 members were elected to represent 41 constituencies which had between 3 and 5 members each. On average Ireland had 2.9 candidates for every member to be elected giving the Irish voters less choice than British Columbians had in 2001 unless one wants to define choice as ineffective and limited rankings.

The claim that BC-STV "maintains the link between MLAs and constituencies" is code language for a criticism of the German or New Zealand type of voting system where some members are chosen at large while others are elected from constituencies. But those systems are not on BC's referendum ballot. The choice is between the current system where every voter ends up represented by one MLA, a very clear line of accountability, or BC-STV where a voter could be represented by anywhere from 2 to 7 MLAs, with each being able to say the other is accountable. If that doesn't break the link between MLAs and constituencies, it certainly weakens accountability.

BC could once again adopt a foreign concept only to find that it doesn't work. Other than wasting some time and money, it didn't make any difference when attempts to use initiative and recall resulted in failure, but a yes vote for a new voting system will take effect no matter what the consequences may be. It could inflict long lasting damage starting with the 2009 election. This time it is important for those who have questions or who don't fully understand STV to make an effort to do so. Voters who are still uncertain on election day would be well advised to vote no.

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March 2, 2005

What the Citizens' Assembly Didn't Say