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First-past-the-post election leaves BC more polarized - Fair Vote Canada (www.fairvote.ca)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31487063

While British Columbians wait with baited breath for the final results from BC’s provincial election, one thing is clear: First-past-the-post has robbed voters of choice, deeply polarized communities, and when it comes to the biggest issues facing British Columbia, resolved absolutely nothing.

BC Conservative leader John Rustad’s election night speech captured the sorry state of affairs:

“If we are in that situation of the NDP forming a minority government, we will look at every single opportunity from day one to bring them down …and get back to the polls.”

A leader whose party received 44% of the popular vote vowing to do everything in his power to ensure the legislature doesn’t work for the majority, gunning for the next chance to seize all the power with less than half of the vote, is a brutal, yet predictable outcome of first-past-the-post.

If the supposed advantages of our winner-take-all system are its ability to cater to the centrist voter, ensure “strong, stable majority governments”, prevent “backroom deals”, deliver fast results on election night, and keep out extremists, it has failed utterly on all counts―all at once.

BC’s election has exposed these claims for what they are: at best, misleading talking points from those who haven’t reviewed the evidence, and at worst, deliberately dishonest assertions from shallow politicians who consistently put their own ambitions of power ahead of the public interest when it comes to electoral reform...

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

In my area the Greens and NDP split 62% of the vote and so the Conservative candidate won with 38%. A ranked choice or similar scheme would have provided a more realistic representation of the electorate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're getting caught up in the rhetoric that causes the polarization in FPTP. They are different parties, you can't just arbitrarily lump all their votes together as if every Green voter would have voted NDP or every NDP voter would have voted Green.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

While I agree with you in principle, the Greens and NDP have far more in common than the Greens and Con or NDP and Con. In a ranked system the majority of votes would be NDP-Green-Con or Green-NDP-Con. I do not blame the Greens or NDP for going their own way, it is FPTP that is flawed and can easily lead to minority rule.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Love it.

We should adopt Single Transferable Vote. It's proportional on a local scale, so it keeps to geographic representation, but gives most people a local representative that aligns closely with their interests.

In short: Ranked ballot in multi-member ridings, with the favourites chosen proportionally to their vote share (after instant-runoff of "losers" votes shift to next choices)

Long version: 3-5 member ridings, divided impartially to best match demographics and logiciel regions (urban Vancouver, Vancouver suburbs, Northern BC, etc.) Each party can have as many people on the ballot as there are seats.

Voters get to rank all their choices either by individual member or by party. When votes are counted, anyone with 20/25/33% gets a seat. If nobody does, the person with the least votes is removed and their votes are redistributed proportionally to their next choice. Repeat until all seats are filled.

(It's slightly more complicated than that since there will usually be a few extra votes beyond what's needed to get to the threshold; unlikely to be relevant, but there's some math to use to give fractional votes to next choices.)

It's been used successfully in Ireland for over a century.

Advantages:

Roughly proportional representation
Local representation: works constitutionally, maintains urban/rural divide needed to pass political muster, everyone has local representatives to contact, and keeps representatives responsible to constituents (not their spot on the party list)
Gives choice to voters within their chosen party, too. Vote for the individual who's best, not just whoever the party places there
Needing 20%+ of the votes means truly fringe parties won't get elected to fracture things too much

Disadvantages:

Can't get election results until all ballots are processed
Ballots will be big, with 30+ names on them (but since people can still vote by party and get their vote fully counted, it can be filled out as simply as a ranked ballot)
If computer counting isn't trusted for some reason, hand counting is slower, with many rounds of vote redistribution to process in order. (But still very possible; obviously, Ireland didn't have computers a century ago!)
It's hard to explain in a 20-second sound bite, so people need 2-3 minutes of sustained attention to fully grasp it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Local representation is dead in this country. Might as well just count all votes and split the seats between the parties. Everyone just party votes and the vast majority of citizens just vote for the party with the leader the like.