More than a week after British Columbians headed to the polls, the only thing that’s clear about provincial politics is that we desperately need electoral reform.
Some will argue that first-past-the-post works great, or at least is as good as any other system. These folks will often also argue that we should just narrow our choices to a two-horse race and thus simplify things that way.
Except the problem with that is that clearly people want more than two choices (and we’d argue narrowing the field like that would be profoundly undemocratic, to boot.)
While we wait to find out if we’re going to have an NDP or Liberal government (absentee ballots and/or recounts could make a significant difference in several ridings, notably in Courtenay-Comox where just nine votes separate the two leading candidates), we hope the parties are seriously pondering these results and what the voters are telling them. Namely, none of the parties can truly claim to speak for a majority of voters in the province.
While the NDP and Liberals won an almost equal number of seats, the Green Party won just three. It’s an unprecedented number for the party, to be sure, but hardly indicative of the true amount of support the Greens garnered throughout the province. The Greens captured 16.74 per cent of the vote across the province, which would translate to about 14 seats if ridings were distributed through percentage of the popular vote.
Several years ago B.C. citizens voted in a referendum that narrowly defeated the introduction of a new, more proportional representation system called STV (single transferable vote). This system had been investigated and selected by a randomly chosen citizens assembly, who felt it offered the best of the alternatives available. We cannot help but wonder what the results would have been had we been that little bit more progressive.
At the very least it would have taken away the excuse from some non-voters that they don’t bother because their vote won’t count.
Because in reality, the only true way your vote doesn’t count is if you didn’t cast your ballot. So what are we afraid of?