It's that time again...

Ah, I can barely contain myself. Tomorrow I head off to the advance polls to do my part in determining which oligarchy shall rule British Columbia for the next 4 years. However, as the election date approached this year, I found myself particularly intrigued not so much by the candidates or the parties, but rather by the concurrent referendum on whether we should adopt a new system of voting known as the Single Transferable Vote (STV).

For those who haven't had an opportunity to follow the debate, the simple explanation of BC’s version of STV is as follows:

• Each constituency now has multiple seats instead of just 1 (each riding has no fewer than 2 seats and no more than 7 seats).
  
• Province-wide the number of seats remains the same as before, but the ridings are enlarged to compensate (for example, Vancouver east could be 1 riding with 5 seats. However, a large swath of northwestern BC 50 times bigger could be a single riding with 2 seats. The initial theoretical boundaries seem to be based on population).
  
• Voters rank the candidates in order of precedence as to who they would most like to see voted in. You can rank as many or as few people as you like. (For instance, you could rank a member of the Marijuana party 1st, one member of Liberal party 2nd, another Liberal fella 3rd, and a member of the NDP 4th. You wouldn’t, but you could).

At this point it gets a bit complicated, but simply put, they tally everyone’s votes and if the person you voted for as your 1st preference has no chance of getting in, then they try your 2nd choice. If your 2nd choice has no chance, they try your 3rd choice, and so on, and so forth. This is a serious simplification so please no flaming about how ‘that isn’t how it works’, but that’s basically what it amounts to. If you want to learn more about the details, I’d recommend the following link:

http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/resources/deliberation/BC-STV-counting.pdf

This is a relatively simple, 2 page document that explains the basic process of vote counting and ranking. Oddly enough, I was directed to the first link by the “Know STV” site, a group who argue against the STV system, but it really helped me wrapped my head around exactly what happens and how. Perhaps they thought that the sheer complexity of it would scare voters away, but for myself it really helped me understand why the system could work out. I’m sure many people won’t care ‘why’ it works so long as it does, but the analyst in me simply has to know the wherefores before I can put my name to it.

So, just in case you haven’t had enough of all this election nuttiness, I give you my extremely informal, very tangential analysis of the pros and cons of STV. Skip this if you aren't partial to unprofessional, armchair style political analysis:

Benefits:

1. No risk voting: Quite frankly, I’m sick of voting for the guy who scares me less. This happens in both provincial and federal politics all the time. I’d have to say that right now, I’m not crazy about the idea of voting Liberal federally this time around. Martin hasn’t really wowed me and the whole AdScam thing has taken it’s toll on my patience. But vote for the Conservatives? Not likely. However, using STV, perhaps I could vote NDP, Green, or (brace yourself) even an independent as my first choice, while having a Liberal as my second choice. Finally an end to strategic voting! I could actually vote for someone I want to get in. What a concept.
   
2. Elections representative of the vote percentage: Under the present First Past the Pole system, you often end up with election results in which one party slaughters the others in terms of seats won, but didn’t really deserve it. Take the last provincial election in which the Liberal party obtained 57% of the vote, but ended up with all but 2 of the 79 available seats. On the flip side, the Green party managed to scrape together a respectable 12.4% of the vote, but didn’t win a single seat. Doesn’t really seem fair. Under STV, however, the combination of increased riding sizes, multiple seats per riding, and the ‘no risk’ factor could theoretically cause the percentage distribution of the vote to somewhat resemble the composition of our elected representatives. Long story short, it’s easier for people to combine voting power that has traditionally been spread out.
   
3. Minority governments(?): For exactly the same reasons as the previous point, I’d say it’s a fair bet that with STV we would end up with more minority governments. The more observant readers will note that I’ve put this one in both the positive and negative sections. This is because I’m honestly not sure what the net effect would be of minority governments in BC today. I’ve heard Canadian politics described as a ‘friendly dictatorship’, in which the guy we vote in can basically do whatever the hell he wants for 4 years. Perhaps if coalition governments became the rule rather than the exception, as they are in many parts of the world, we would end up with more balanced decisions. I think I’d cite Israel as a positive example of what a coalition government can achieve. In Israel you can end up with the more extreme rabbinical parties having a direct say in government, but honestly they’d have their influence anyways and at least this way it happens in the full public eye. Fundamentalists are always a bit scary, but they personally scare me less when I can keep an eye on them. The controlling Likud party itself leans fairly heavily to the right, yes, but it does so in a more secular way, and they’re balanced out by strong representation from the centre-left Labour party and several moderate/liberal parties. In a country with so many different voices screaming (and screaming loudly) to be heard, what kind of chaos and dissent would we see without such coalitions?

Disadvantages:

1. Less local representation: Seeing as we’re enlarging the ridings, it will almost certainly mean less local representation. In fact, you can pretty well guarantee that some fairly large, albeit sparsely populated, regions of the province will have no local MLA elected. By ‘local’ I mean anyone living within 1,000 km of you. We’re a big bloody province. In practice, this means very little to us urbanites living in the more populous regions of the province. Really, unless you happen to be in a cabinet minister’s riding when was the last time your local MLA had any influence on provincial policy? But for rural BC, it might make the more out of the way regions just that much easier to ignore. Overall, I would have to say that there is some risk to rural BC.
   
2. Specialty groups: This is the uglier side of combining voter power. For every Green candidate, you have a Marijuana party lobbyist. I’ve nothing really against the Marijuana party or their platform in particular, but I do object to electing single-issue candidates who will spend the next 4 years harping on a single topic with no real interest in governing the province. Think a provincial version of the Bloc Quebecois ;).
   
3. Minority governments(?): And here we have the nasty side of coalitions and minorities. A valid objection to minority governments is that in the worst case scenarios, no real change can ever be implemented, as no one party with a clear vision is ever strong enough to put that vision into place. Moreover, instability of government can also hurt the economic well being of a region. I suppose I’d use Italy as a negative example of the kind of catharsis that can occur with minorities and coalition governments. Between 1945 and 1993, Italy had no fewer than 52 governments, most of which lasted less than a year. Certainly not encouraging, but then Italy is a very fragmented country.

Hopefully this didn’t turn into too much of a rant, but in any case, assessing the good and the bad, I think I’m throwing my vote towards the ‘Yes’ side. I find the system at present to be profoundly dissatisfying and I think the risks are worth it to see some change.

Oh and for those wondering why I’m not simply waiting until May 17th like the rest of the province to vote, Flo and I will be heading off on a cruise to Alaska next week for some much needed vacation. Many pictures to come of the scenic inside passage and the dwindling icebergs of the North.