Vote no to STV

Tomorrow is election day here in BC. So go out and vote you dumbasses.

Anyway, regarding the Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform, you should really vote no for the Single Transferable Vote system. I’m gonna assume that you are aware of the background, history, and context. If not, start here:

http://www.cbc.ca/bcvotes2005/features/stv.html

Firstly, opponents of the STV system have argued that the system is complicated. You should be wary of anyone that is condescending to the point that they believe you are incapable of doing a Google search. If you don’t understand STV, do a Google search. Now.

David Suzuki has used the analogy that you don’t have to be a mechanic to drive a car. A voter can list their choices on a preferential ballot without understanding the underlying mathematical formula used to dole out votes and still get a representative government. Suzuki is a smart man. Fortunately, even smart people have the right to be wrong.

We are not driving a car here. We are deciding on which car to purchase. And we should be well educated about the implications of our purchase.

STV is fatally flawed. It calls for larger districts with more MLAs per district. The total number of MLAs will remain constant.

This is similar to the at-large system that we use to elect city councillors. Any proposal that calls for the increase in size of districts is a non-starter.

We will have the same problems we currently have in the GVRD. When slot machines were placed in Hastings Park, the residents had no representative that they could fire on council. Their votes are diluted by Kitsilano and Kerrisdale.

Our fate will be the same provincially. Vancouver-Point Grey will dominate Fairview and Mount Pleasant. Candidates will only have to campaign in Prince George and may ignore Quesnel, Williams Lake and 100 Mile House. The ridings in central and northern BC are already huge.

(I can’t seem to Google refrences for the next set of numbers. They are based on arguments that Kennedy Stewart made when Vancouver was voting on electoral reform.)

Currently, it costs COPE and the NPA about $30,000-$50,000 to elect a candidate to Vancouver City Council. It is estimated that 1/10th the cost would be incurred if Vancouver had moved from an at-large system to a ward system. A candidate can knock on doors and make signs in your backyard and still get elected. When you increase the size of ridings, the cost a candidate incurs will increase. This will squeeze out independents and make parties even stronger. Vancouver City Council is a great example of this. All councillors in recent history have been members of COPE and NPA.

Larger ridings squeeze out minorities. Time after time, there have been Indo-Canadians elected in Surrey both provincially and federally. There has never been an Indo-Canadian elected to council. How is that representative?

Systems like STV work in places like Ireland because Ireland is much, much smaller than Canada in terms of land mass. It has a completely different population distribution and it does not have as culturally diverse a population.

Don’t get me wrong. I am proponent of electoral reform. The problem is that this is a feel-good proposal that doesn’t really solve any of the underlying problems.