Proportional Representation (BC)

oh fo Martin your such a phoney piece of work. 

oh it most certainly isn't the supporters of PR who are lacking critical thinking skills.

it's sad so many buy into the nastiness and propaganda paid for by the corrupt.

if you're expecting to change minds by - what did you call it above- anyhow doesn't  matter, pot kettle.

phoney

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Interesting how nearly identical the results of 2009 and 2018 are, despite different governments, different questions, different processes, different decades, etc.

Well, if the BC Liberals hadn't set the ridiculous 60% thereshold for yes side to win the 2005 referendum, the 57% yes vote that year would have been sufficient to implement PR, and there would have been no need for the 2009 and 2018 referendums.

Left Turn wrote:

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Interesting how nearly identical the results of 2009 and 2018 are, despite different governments, different questions, different processes, different decades, etc.

Well, if the BC Liberals hadn't set the ridiculous 60% thereshold for yes side to win the 2005 referendum, the 57% yes vote that year would have been sufficient to implement PR, and there would have been no need for the 2009 and 2018 referendums.

To put the issue into perspective for you enough people were gulled by slippery politicians, hidden agendas and weasel worded choices. I have always thought the BC NDP set it up to fail just as the Liberals did in 2009. The only time the political parties stayed out of it and it was left up to Citizens it passed. In Canada BC could separate with a 50% + 1 vote but to change the electoral system it had to be 60%. 

Politicians love power and FPTP gives  politicians with minority support absolute power. The BC NDP is so stupid they think they are going to win the next election and that is why they didn't want to see any change.

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I have always thought the BC NDP set it up to fail just as the Liberals did in 2009.

From what I've read, a bunch of others seem to think it failed because it was a bit too transparently set up to win.

Assuming that by the third time, BC voters had at least some idea what PR is and whether or not they preferred it, the rest of the referendum advantaged PR by a wee margin whenever possible, and I can't really see where it was designed to advantage FPTP.

There's no "critical" thinking that makes an undemocratic electoral system defensible.  There's nothing intrinsically superior about false majority governance.

Debater you are right that PR is also flawed. The problem is that we do not live in a democracy but like the rest of the Western world, including the UK, we live in a world of non stop propaganda from a global oligarchy. Electing peolpe under any of our liberal "democracies" requires them to be able to jolt a plurality of people out of the status quo bullshit they are fed daily.

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As usual no cite just your deflection from actually having a discussion.

I didn't link to anything because it was just some other people's opinions.  And they were only interesting because they were the exact opposite of "the government rigged this in favour of FPTP".

Regarding the things you cite, most seem to have nothing to do with choices the government could make.  The first two are exceptions (though they're pretty similar to one another) -- the government's choice of second question and options.

Seems to me we did discuss the "mystery box" second question, but only the "naysayers" like myself or Rev. Pesky seemed to have any problem with it.  Prior to the vote, did YOU feel that the government should have provided one concrete (or, three concrete) options to FPTP? 

Supporters seemed to me to be OK with not giving too many details, but how do you remember it?

..there are more ideas in the piece. i posted 3.

We deserve a better debate on electoral reform

Now that first past the post remains the status quo in BC— is it time to think about broader transformation?

Here’s a fact: most people know politicians don’t have the best interests of the electorate in mind. We know that major reforms that are needed are never taken up by those in power. We are well aware that elections are not the best way to carve out the change we need. The results matter, of course. Who wins determines what gets worse (sometimes better), but no one really think voting is enough or appropriate.

Yet, real electoral reform is rarely proposed or debated. We need to talk about a broad range of reforms that actually deal with the issues so many of us care about. One doesn’t have to agree with all or any of them, but the debate has to expand beyond the currently limited terrain. Some ideas include:

Truth in campaigning: Politicians make all kinds of promises on campaign trails, and then break them without any repercussions. They know full well that the electorate would have forgotten by the time the next election comes around. And even if memory lasts, the changes would have been deeply integrated and hard to reverse. See, for example, Doug Ford in Ontario who has broken promises and pushed through laws he never mentioned. We need mechanisms to ensure truth, and accountability if they don’t.

Voter eligibility: There are over a million and a half people in Canada (at least) who aren’t citizens and therefore can’t vote. That’s 1 in every 35 people. Why are they excluded? And if they are, who represents their interests? And just so it’s clear — yes, they pay all the taxes.

Colonialism: The public electoral system is about putting into place the leaders of various levels of government that further and continue the unending work of colonialism in Canada. After all, Canada is a construction and an imposition created without consent. It’s ongoing theft of land and resources from people that STILL LIVE HERE. What does it even mean to vote to have people continue to perpetuate that system?

..or motivated to be more precise in what they promise. vagueness could become a liability.

It would appear that they do, as well as a "Citizens' Initiative" procedure, both endorsed by a referendum.

I suppose the one downside of a recall vote is that it wouldn't really apply to a PM or Premier, insofar as we don't directly vote for them.  The best anyone could do would be a recall vote by their constituents in their home riding, but even if successful it wouldn't guarantee a new PM or Premier, and it wouldn't be open to every voter in the country/province.

As far as recall goes, we already have elections at least every 4 years so voters already get a chance to remove and replace their representatives four years after every election. Maybe having elections every 3 years would be a marginal improvement?

I think electing representatives by lottery would be a majour improvement but that's not going to have any chance of happening for the foreseeable future.

I think lowering the voting age to 16 would also be an improvement.

I think replacing FPTP is still the best way to improve our electoral system and hopefully Quebec and PEI will be doing that soon.

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I think lowering the voting age to 16 would also be an improvement.

In what way would it be an improvement?

I've seen this suggested before, and it seems to me that either:

a) we'd get a new cohort of voters who would more or less mirror the ones we've got (i.e. some would vote Con, some Lib, some NDP, etc., etc.)

b) we'd get a new cohort of voters who would preferentially vote for the left (or the right)

If it's "a" then nothing really changes except the total number of ballots.  If it's "b" then it's just a partisan attempt to get more votes for one side or the other.

I suspect that if we had reason to believe that 16 year olds would massively support the Conservatives, we'd have little interest in their suffrage.

As far as representation by lottery, is that pretty much what it sounds like?  Representatives chosen at random, like jury duty?

Mr. Magoo wrote:

a) we'd get a new cohort of voters who would more or less mirror the ones we've got (i.e. some would vote Con, some Lib, some NDP, etc., etc.)

b) we'd get a new cohort of voters who would preferentially vote for the left (or the right)

If it's "a" then nothing really changes except the total number of ballots.  If it's "b" then it's just a partisan attempt to get more votes for one side or the other.

I suspect that if we had reason to believe that 16 year olds would massively support the Conservatives, we'd have little interest in their suffrage.

There are two basic arguments for suffrage at 16, one of which I find mildly persuasive, the other of which I find extremely persuasive. First, some have argued that getting into the habit of voting early in life (say, when it can be encouraged by high school teachers and peers) is more likely to produce long-term engaged voters. The more persuasive argument is to flip it on its head and say that everyone should be allowed to vote unless there's a compelling societal interest in disenfranchising them, and that while it's easy to make the case a 6-year-old shouldn't be able to vote, it's much harder to make that case for someone who's old enough to drive a car. If nothing changes except the total number of ballots, well, so be it. "It wouldn't affect the outcome" isn't a persuasive argument for disenfranchising women or First Nations, so why should it be for 16-year-olds, especially when you can be sentenced as an adult (under the right circumstances) at 14?