Comments on: British Columbia’s election

By: Julien Lamarche

Julien Lamarche — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:10:26 +0000

@Bill Tieleman Re: "Thatâ€™s because STV is fundamentally a bad idea and no amount of selling it worked." No Bill. Its just because there's people like you in this world who won't mind putting FUD out there ahead of advancing democracy. BC-NDP would have gained seats with STV and you damn well deserved to loose that election.

By: Cognitive Sandbox » The continuing discussion of electoral reform in Canada

Cognitive Sandbox » The continuing discussion of electoral reform in Canada — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:18:00 +0000

[...] British Columbiaâ€™s election [...]

By: Brad Beattie

Brad Beattie — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 02:17:23 +0000

I supported BC-STV as I think it’s better than what we have now, but I agree with Bill here. A few things killed public support, as far as I can tell. (1) Riding amalgamation wasn’t something most people were willing to accept. People like their familiar notion of local accountability. (2) IRV, the core voting mechanism behind STV, can produce bad results in demonstrable cases. Google IRV and Condorcet for more info on that. (3) Pushing forward electoral reform provincially was biting off more than we could chew. People didn’t have a local example to grab on to, and may have been more willing to support the notion if, for example, we had it working in Vancouver.

Maybe we could have better luck if we started working on the municipal level, yeah?

By: Julien Lamarche

Julien Lamarche — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:04:27 +0000

There should be a Fair Vote Canada “Future Directions” conference in Ottawa in mid-June, although it has yet to be confirmed.

By: Chris Tindal

Chris Tindal — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:57:46 +0000

@Bill Tieleman Thanks for commenting. Do you have any theories on why Yes STV had so much more grassroots support in the form of donations and volunteers? It suggests to me that the people who support STV feel more strongly about their position than the people who oppose it, but I'd be interested to hear if you have some other ideas.

By: Mark Francis

Mark Francis — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:24:41 +0000

Why was STV rejected? Let me put it into a slogan

“STV: Change you can be confused over”

It’s the same reason why Harper was so successful portraying a coalition with more seats than him as undemocratic: Most people just don’t get it. They simply don’t even know what a minority government is. Almost every person on the street I talked to at the time thought Harper had a majority of seats.

Ignorance always knows best.

Anyway, Proportional rep is dead in Canada for the next 20 years. Get used to it. The ‘no’ side knows all too well now how to derail PR.

Pour yourself into vote swapping and eroding the power of political parties instead.

By: Bill Tieleman

Bill Tieleman — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:19:32 +0000

Chris – the truth is that the YES to STV side had 5000 volunteers and likely $250,000 more than our NO STV group did – yet it lost overwhelmingly.

That’s because STV is fundamentally a bad idea and no amount of selling it worked.

You can indulge in conspiracy theories and yes – sore loser comments – but the voters of BC figured out STV and rejected it.

Blaming me personally for “misinformation and spin” when we put the straight facts out about STV’s disastrous record in Ireland and Malta only guarantees that your side will continue to fail.

I hate to lose too, but denial of what happened won’t make it better.