STV would not provide universally fair proportional representation for all B.C. voters. It would lead to more adversarial politics and it also could have unknown consequences in the parts of B.C., particularly our cities, with large ethnic minorities.
- Colleen McCrory, late B.C. Green Party Chair, 2004
The Single Transferable Vote electoral system is the most radical issue in the May 12 provincial election but doesn't come from either the B.C. Liberals or the New Democrats.
And although the B.C. Green Party adamantly opposed it until the 2005 referendum, they then flip-flopped and supported it.
I fought STV in the 2005 referendum and I am now president of No STV, the official opponent group, working with B.C. Liberals, NDP, Greens and others to stop STV.
So you could dismiss what I say - but consider the powerful arguments for rejecting STV.
STV would create enormous ridings of up to seven MLAs and 350,000 people that would take away local accountability and responsibility of MLAs to voters.
B.C.'s 85 single member ridings would be reduced to just 20 under STV, meaning instead of having your own MLA in your riding, you would have up to seven MLAs in a much bigger area.
Kamloops, for example, would be part of a giant electoral area stretching from Quesnel to the U.S. border and have five MLAs for that region - yet none would be responsible to any particular part of the riding!
And STV's complicated "fractionalizing" or chopping up your vote using a mathematical "transfer value" formula means you will never know where your vote really went.
STV will actually increase, not decrease, the power of political parties.
Candidates in large STV ridings have to reach far more voters, so they will be even more dependent on the party to get their names and message out.
Party nominations would be more like wrestling matches than an exercise in democracy, with thousands of members trying to do deals with each other to get nominated. And that would continue in the election.
Any smaller third parties or independents would have a horrendous challenge trying to reach up to 350,000 voters compared to the average single member riding size of 50,000.
That's why in Malta under STV no third party has been elected since the 1960s and no independent since the 1950s.
And in Ireland, the only other country using STV as a national electoral system, politics are nastier and more party-dominated than here.
On May 12, vote to keep our current First Past The Post system - and if you want change, work for something far better than STV.
For much more information, see www.nostv.org.
Hear Bill Tieleman Mondays at 10 a.m.on CKNW AM 980 's Bill Good Show. Email:weststar@telus.net Website:billtieleman.blogspot.com/
