Proportional Representation (BC)

Received.  I have been following it all along so it makes sense to me.  For people (perhaps a majority) who don't understand how we currently do things it is practically impossible.

I'm voting no because no matter how bad FPP is, PR will be worse. I'm interested in efficient, effective government (yeah, oxymoron) and PR will just have different hands in the cookie jar with more process and less progress.

I'm fully prepared to pass all the power on to the new generation but, be prepared to pay for your decisions - they are not free. YOU, not me, are going to pay for all the Groper's free spending and all the BC union buddy cost over runs.

Martin N. wrote:

I'm voting no because no matter how bad FPP is, PR will be worse. I'm interested in efficient, effective government (yeah, oxymoron) and PR will just have different hands in the cookie jar with more process and less progress.

I'm fully prepared to pass all the power on to the new generation but, be prepared to pay for your decisions - they are not free. YOU, not me, are going to pay for all the Groper's free spending and all the BC union buddy cost over runs.

even if any of this bs wasn't, at least any cost over runs would go into workers pockets not million and billionaire money launderers and scammers feeding off the tax payer's lives.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Here's the guide that's apparently being sent to voters.  Seems straightforward enough.

Curious thing, though.  It says that if the three PR options combined get 50%+1 of the vote, the PR system with the greatest support becomes the new system.  So theoretically, if the results were to be:

FPTP:  49%

PR#1:  18%

PR#2:  17%

PR#3:  16%

... then PR#1 would become the new system, based on being the first choice of only 18% of the electorate, while FPTP would lose despite being the first choice of 49% of the electorate.  If they wanted to be truly fair (and stay true to PR), they could have just put all four systems on a ranked ballot.

That's not how the referendum is being run. The voters will be able to vote on both questions. The question about PR systems is a ranked choice vote where the winning selection will have to get over half the votes. A person could vote "no" on the first question and still vote for their preferred PR system.

@ Post 109

How does PR guarantee that women and minorities will no longer be underrepresented in government? Does PR come with some requirement that each party will send women and minorities to the legislature in proportion to their distribution in the general population?  

Information on Prop Representation (not suppplied by the corporate exploiters report-mill, the  Fraser Institute) can be found below.

Some organization that suppoort PR are listed at the bottom of this page:
https://www.fairvote.ca/

This page has a bibliography with active links providing much information:
https://www.fairvote.ca/resources/

FAQs/Mythbusters:
https://www.fairvote.ca/pr4bc-faqs-mythbusters/

Two major Canadian proponents who have made studies of PR systems are Dr. Dennis Pilon and Dr. Brian Tanguay:

Dr. Dennis Pilon is one of Canada’s top electoral reform experts, with two books and numerous articles and chapters on the topic. Dr. Brian Tanguay was lead author of the Law Commission of Canada’s 200 page report that was submitted to the federal Minister of Justice in March 2004 recommending Mixed Member proportional representation.

The Pro Rep Fact Checker investigates and reviews claims made frequently  in the referendum by opponents, proponents, and media columnists. The goal is to explain what the evidence actually says on each subject and how it applies in the BC context.

As Denis Pilon puts it,

"BC voters deserve to have access to a balanced and neutral evaluation of the claims being made by both proponents and opponents in this campaign. We look at the claims, compare them to the evidence from peer-reviewed studies and rate them. The Pro Rep Fact Checker will give voters the ability to confidently assess the validity of claims being made by both sides."

The Pro Rep Fact checker is live at http://www.prorepfactcheck.ca/

https://www.fairvote.ca/2018/09/21/experts-review-the-evidence-surroundi...

The site listed, Proportional Representation Fact Checker
www.prorepfactcheck.ca/ ,  is up and running though, it had 
been taken off by 2 Denial of Service cyber attacks shortly after launch, as described here:

Electoral reform under attack as B.C. prepares for referendum
Linda Leon
September 26, 2018

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/linda-leons-blog/2018/09/electoral-refor...

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

The question about PR systems is a ranked choice vote where the winning selection will have to get over half the votes.

Yes, that's why I said "first choices".  It's super if some PR option wins by being a lot of people's second or third choice, but what if a voter's second choice is actually FPTP?  How do they indicate that in such a way that FPTP would also receive the benefit of being a voter's second choice?

In this referendum there is no way for voters to indicate that FPTP is their second choice.

Also, the 3 PR systems will cumulatively get 100% of the first round votes in the first round of the PR vote.

Don't be confused by falsehoods posted previously in this thread.

If you choose Proportional Representation on the ballot and you really don't care which of the 3 options you can,  if you wish, leave the ranking section blank--Your vote for PR still counts and the option that has the most of votes is the one chosen.

From the BC Elections official guide:
 

If more than half the votes support
proportional representation on the first
question, the proportional system with the
most support on the second question will
be adopted.

If a proportional voting system is adopted it must be in place for provincial
elections called on or after July 1, 2021. A provincial election called before
this date would use First Past the Post.

https://elections.bc.ca/docs/referendum/2018-Referendum-on-Electoral-Ref...

In my opinion ANY of the three PR option will be much superior to FPTP:

All of the proportional systems on BC’s ballot are a huge improvement over our current system, first-past-the-post. 

All three systems share these attributes:

**Proportional results
**Retain MLA accountability to a specific geographic area (local or regional)
**Real names on the ballot – not just parties
**No region to have fewer MLAs than now
**No significant increase in number of MLAs
**5% provincial threshold to get proportional seats
**Simplicity for voters

https://www.fairvote.ca/bc-pr-systems/

The site also provides plenty of links if you want to establish a preference for one of the options.

Quote:

Didn't realize the anti-PR crowd actually live in Bizarro Columbia.

To be fair, the counter-campaign comparing Doug Ford to Geert Wilders and referring to him as a "far-right extremist" is a little loopy too.

Must be something in the water.

So Doug Ford is not a right wing whack job? I guess the Center of the Universe has different definitions than the rest of Canada. So Harper was a progressive?

So Doug Ford is not a far right extremist. No wonder we agree on so little. You can't even call a kettle black. However the fact that every socialist government in the world is evil or incompetent according to your fascist world view is a least consistent.

I think BC should opt for Rural_Urban proportional (option 3) on the paper for a  number of reasons.  Number 1 reason is that we in BC  will have an opertunity to see and participate in  2 different proportional systems.   This means that BC can be a testing ground.  I'm originally from Ireland where STV is the norm.   I was protestant in the south and I believe STV helped modify politicans's behaviour enough to keep extremists out of power in the 1960's through the 1990's.  STV does that because appealing only to a faction of 15%  or 20% and turning off everyone else will not get you elected. A candidate has to get second and 3rd preferences from other candidates voters to reach the treshold and get elected. This makes compromise necessary and also helps elect canditates who are capable of compromise.  

Second reason is that STV in urban areas will mean a kind of political amalgimation.  Candidates elected from a Victoria city wide electoral area,  will have to make decisions that benifit the entire area rather than concentrate on just their stronghold.  This might help solve or mitigate our  traffic problems. 

I am not famililar with the other system in urban rural(MMP) but I do know that STV has good proportionality in 5 seat ridings while in 3 seaters, it is not so good. Rural ridings in BC will be truely gigantic so I am not sure that STV can represent them well in 5 seaters.   In my view,  I don't think you can really judge a system until you try it.  I voted in 5 seat ridings over the course of local, national and european elections for about 15 years.  STV conveys a lot of info to the politicians, they can see precicely where they are in relation to other politicians in the eyes of the people, and change their actions a little to garner more votes in the following elections.  1,2,3 on the ballot paper conveys this information,  as opposed to an X in the current system that says nothing about the second and 3rd choices of the voter.  

Sorry, long winded and done.    Brian 

Thanks for bringing all this info here, Contrianna.    I've also found this MEVC society site a good overview of PR and the various models: 

https://voteprbc.ca/get-informed/

And here is a website from the other side, basically arguing PR is too complicated, and collapsing the differences between the various models:

https://nobcprorep.ca/

 

I filled out my ballot and voted for Pro-Rep with RUP first and MMP second.

https://elections.bc.ca/referendum/voting-systems/rural-urban-proportion...

I'm sold enough on PR that if I were asked to vote on it today I would vote yes. It doesn't mean I've become blind to the drawbacks and there are drawbacks. The drawbacks need to be acknowledged for pro-arguments to be convincing.  It also seems to be presented as the be all and end all of improving democracy when there are other equally significant moves that could dramatically increase the power of the people over politicians regardless of system. 

But not to get too off track, how is the battle for PR going in BC? Does it seem popular? 

Quote:

BC Liberals use PR to choose a leader

Is the system they use for leadership races actually proportional?  And if so, why, in a race for one position?  How can one position be "proportionally" allocated the way 338 ridings can?

Who is claiming that they use a proportional system?

Quote:

The system they use is considered by some to be a form of PR

I don't think those "some" are from around here.  I seem to recall reading, many times, that ranked ballot is not, in and of itself, proportional.

I also recall people pointing this out when it became clear that it was the preferred "electoral reform" of the Liberals.

I'm not sure I see any contradictions or hypocrisy if the Liberals use the same system internally that they proposed for federal elections (but that was never adopted because nobody else supported it, in part because it's not proportional).

Again, who's claiming that the Liberals use a proportional system?

Quote:

The Liberal's claim it is a proportional system.

Really?  They seem to understand that they're two different things:

Quote:

The ministerial mandate letter sent to Maryam Monsef, Canada's minister of Democratic Institutions, laid out the tasks she will be expected to complete in her new role.

Among other things, she was directed to "bring forward a proposal to establish a special parliamentary committee to consult on electoral reform, including preferential ballots [and] proportional representation." The goal is to make good on Trudeau's pledge that the 2015 federal election would be the last decided via the first-past-the-post system.

Quote:

Now you are claiming that the federal Liberal party and the BC Liberal party have the same policies and are one party.

I'm not claiming they're one party, but in this regard -- choice of electoral model for leadership votes -- do they not share the same policy?

Still curious who's claiming that the Libs -- federal or provincial -- are actually using a proportional system for leadership votes.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/john-horgan-i-voted-for-...

Voters can also choose to stick with the current first-past-the-post system.

That's the option chosen by former NDP premiers Glen Clark and Ujjal Dosanjh. Clark told Business in Vancouver this week that he prefers the current system because "I like to vote for the person who represents me."

That's a surprise. What do you make of it?

When will the results come in? Such an important vote and I'm not seeing much if any national coverage. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news Trump is the big news. He is, but the Canadian news is sorely lacking. It's mostly clickbait stuff. 

This is a pretty historic vote I would think. 

Pondering wrote:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/john-horgan-i-voted-for-...

Voters can also choose to stick with the current first-past-the-post system.

That's the option chosen by former NDP premiers Glen Clark and Ujjal Dosanjh. Clark told Business in Vancouver this week that he prefers the current system because "I like to vote for the person who represents me."

That's a surprise. What do you make of it?

....

Not really  a surprise , and it is re-stated very often.

The corporate-boosted "No" side and the corporate press love to promote the illusion that "even these major NDPers think this is a bad thing". 

You would think that what is more relevant (and usually carefully omitted in the telling) is who these operators actually work for now.

Dosanjh of course is a federal Liberal MP with de facto support for Trudeau's broken promise on the referdum on PropRep.

Clark is now the Chief Operating Officer for Jim Pattison Group owned by Canada's multi-billion dollar mogul, Jim Pattison.

Voter Turnout for BC’s Electoral Reform Referendum Exceeds Target Demanded by Opposition

Voter turnout in British Columbia’s electoral reform referendum has surpassed the number the official No campaign said was needed in order for their side to recognize the legitimacy of the vote.

According to data released Monday morning, Elections BC had already received over 1.3 million referendum ballots by Friday’s deadline, meaning voter turnout (41%) will surpass the magic number floated by the No side in the dying days of the campaign.

That number is expected to increase further when the final referendum results are announced later this month.

In the final weeks of the referendum, the head of the No campaign repeatedly stated voter turnout needed to exceed the arbitrary number of 40% in order for his side to accept the results.

Yet Bill Tieleman, president of the No BC Proportional Representation Society, says he is not prepared to recognize the legitimacy of the vote despite turnout exceeding his own magic number.

“It would be premature to determine the legitimacy of the referendum until all results are in,” Tieleman told PressProgress, adding that is going to wait until “all information about the vote is available.”

Despite Tieleman’s reluctance to even recognize the legitimacy of the referendum, by law turnout does not need to meet any threshold to validate the referendum and the results will be legally binding regardless of what the losing side says.

Meanwhile, BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson has been shifting his own goal post on the question of what he considers a “legitimate” turnout.

In November, Ming Pao News reported Wilkinson would “question the validity of the referendum result” if turnout falls below 30%.

During a Q&A session with a chamber of commerce a few weeks later, Wilkinson upped that number to “40%,” after predicting the final turnout would only reach “15%.”

well the no's won. i wonder if the no's who said  they wouldn't accept the results as too few voted are going to reject these results?

ya right.....

kropotkin1951 wrote:

These clowns will use any stupid argument. What voter turnout threshold do they think a municipal government in the province should have before they are allowed to make laws. In 2018 they ranged from 17.7% to 84.7%.  Andrew represents a Vancouver riding and the voter turnout in that city was just under 40%. Since the counsel and Mayor are left leaning I guess he would be happy to say they have no legitimacy.

https://www.civicinfo.bc.ca/election

I suppose there are a lot more clowns in BC than there are really smart people like you, krop. You just don't get it that the clowns don't want, by a large margin they don't want, really smart people solving problems we don't have.

I am sorry if this offends you but you and the rest of the save-the-worlders are completely tone-deaf to the will of the majority, prefering to scold rather than to build consensus. Your all-or-nothing refusal to negotiate will be the cause of a coming backlash against your methods. That is sad because your ideas are sound, if a few decades premature.