[Marcarc]

This is an interesting topic so I'll jump in even though I'm not from the west. I and some few friends are trying to start an organization for New Brunswick to first, pressure the government to have a referendum on the issue, and second, to implement it. In New Brunswick it is not STV though, and some claim that was too complicated. In New Zealand there was still 30% I think who voted against PR and that was primarily due to the 'gloom and doom' scenarios that were espoused against it.<br /> <br /> A good percentage of the population will always vote against change. A good supply of supporters would no doubt be the people who have tuned out of politics completely. Of voters you have the people in party politics or are supporters of one party or another, all of whom will see their power diminished, so it's no surprise they vote no.<br /> <br /> In historical fact I see no reason why it shouldn't be set at 50%. I had a conversation with my father, who lives in New Brunswick, reads the Irving papers every day, yet had no idea what PR was. Anyway, it turned out that back in the fifties and sixties the method they used was a variant of proportional representation. You can read Patrick Boyer's books and see how many jurisdictions used to employ PR yet switched to our current system. No referenda was held on those changes, they were just adopted by the party in power. So a government should/could just as easily adopt PR without a referenda. <br /> <br /> I would very much like to hear from 'no' voters as well, since it is very relevant to the New Brunswick situation. If nothing else New Brunswick needs SOMETHING to give it some sort of identity, and being the first to incorporate PR would at least be something.

[Calumny]

[QUOTE]You can read Patrick Boyer's books and see how many jurisdictions used to employ PR yet switched to our current system. No referenda was held on those changes, they were just adopted by the party in power. So a government should/could just as easily adopt PR without a referenda.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Good point.<br /> <br /> I was finally able to get Boyer's 'Direct Democracy in Canada' through inter-library loan. Any other titles/authors to suggest?<br /> <br /> [QUOTE]<br /> A good percentage of the population will always vote against change. A good supply of supporters would no doubt be the people who have tuned out of politics completely. Of voters you have the people in party politics or are supporters of one party or another, all of whom will see their power diminished, so it's no surprise they vote no.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Quite true.<br /> <br /> Given that the BC vote and referendum were, as I understand it, conducted simultaneously, I found the numbers interesting:<br /> <br /> Total voters election: 1,762,475 <br /> <br /> Total voters referendum: 1,621,344<br /> <br /> It appears some 141,000 voters abstained from the referendum.<br /> <br /> I also found these numbers interesting:<br /> <br /> Total 'no': 690,789<br /> <br /> Total Liberal : 807,178<br /> <br /> These would seem to indicate that at least 117,000 of Liberal voters voted yes or did not vote.<br /> <br /> The dynamics are to my mind interesting. It would be interesting to know how many of the 'yes' voters voted yes because STV seemed a fundamentally more democratic system than the current and how many voted this way simply because it might be more advantageous for the party they support. That is to say, how many would change their view of STV due to changing fortunes of their party? <br /> <br /> Similar questions could be asked in respect of 'no'.<br /> <br /> As indicated in the tables below, the election results would have looked a bit different under a PR system.<br /> <br /> Actual results<br /> <br /> Leading/Elected % of Vote<br /> <br /> LIB------46---------------46.03 <br /> NDP------33---------------41.27<br /> GRN------00----------------9.11<br /> OTH------00----------------2.76<br /> DRBC-----00----------------0.84<br /> Total----79--------------100.00 <br /> <br /> PR results<br /> <br /> <br /> Leading/Elected % of Vote<br /> <br /> LIB------36---------------46.03 <br /> NDP------32---------------41.27<br /> GRN------07----------------9.11<br /> OTH------03----------------2.76<br /> DRBC-----01----------------0.84<br /> Total----79--------------100.00 <br /> <br /> The only party that would have 'lost' anything substantial would have been the Liberals, and the loss would have been the majority government they now enjoy.<br /> <br /> One thing I found interesting was that there were 25 parties running a candidate or candidates in the election. The 'other' above is composed of 22 of these parties + 'independents + non-affiliated. The majority of the 'other' votes are independent(s), MJ Party and Conservatives, with the rest ranging from 1,643 for the Work Less Party to 90 for the BC Patriot party.<br /> <br /> What I'm curious about is if anyone knows whether the 'other' vote would have, as indicated in the 'PR results table', actually resulted in any 'other' seats under STV and if so, how the allocation of these seats would be determined.<br /> <br /> [QUOTE]I had a conversation with my father, who lives in New Brunswick, reads the Irving papers every day, yet had no idea what PR was.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Are you implying our news media may be biased? <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/twisted.gif' alt='Twisted Evil'> <br /> <br /> Heaven forbid.<br /> <br /> <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/biggrin.gif' alt='Big Grin'>

[Marcarc]

Nice reply, those are some interesting numbers, I'll go through them in more detail later. I have no doubt that those who will vote for the leading party to win will also vote for against PR. Most polls I've seen show that canadians unfortunately prefer majority governments. We really are an immature political country, we have no idea even how to go about discussing these things. Many, like me, no doubt see it as a waste of time and have no faith in ANY politicians, however, I do think the process is at least positive. Someday the next generation is going to say 'if we can have a referendum on this, why can't we have one on that'. <br /> <br /> For books Patrick Boyer has written about four or five books and all are excellent. There is one other called "The future of direct democracy in Canada' which optimistically laid out all these ideas in 1992 and we see how far we've progressed from there. <br /> <br /> There are two issues here though. One side is the academic research on 'why our government isn't working' and there are lots of books on that. Specifically you can look at "the underground royal commission" for many excellent books, not surprisingly this is bigger out west. There is also "Does your vote count"<br /> <br /> On direct democracy there is remarkably little in canada simply because nobody is practising it. Richmond, BC supposedly has a citizens initiative but I can't find anything new than a couple of years old. Websites are better for initiatives in general. "IRI-europe.org" covers european topics, while "iandrinstitute.org" is the american version which has enough info to keep you reading for years. Greg Fossedal apparantly has an excellent book out on Switzerland, but strangely enough there is little on Switzerland academically. I was horrified when debating the direct democracy issue and the person I was debating (who is quite close to me) maintained "that can't be good, nobody ever has anything good to say about Switzerland". How do you debate that??<br /> <br /> However, the tool most useful right now is to go load up two browsers, one with babel fish and the other one to various swiss newspapers and government publications. There at least you can see it in action but little of it is in english.<br /> <br /> Since you aren't near a university your choices are limited, anybody near a university library can simply look up 'citizens initiatives' and usually there are a dozen or so. If it comes from a big publishing house they are usually quite 'anti' citizens initiatives, not surprisingly they want to keep the spread of it to half the states. Once too many states have it it would be hard for the federal government to discount it. I do have a comprehensive list somewhere, I'll post it in the future but I just wiped my hard drive so things are chaotic (or anarchic<img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/smile.gif' alt='Smile'> right now.

[Kory Yamashita]

It's nice to see we had some outside observers watching the STV vote here in BC so closely.<br /> <br /> What "went wrong" with the STV referendum is, as is always the case, a collection of several causes:<br /> <br /> 1.) The effort wasn't funded. While there were both "Yes" and "No" sides trying to get their message across, they weren't given the type of money necessary to properly educate the public. Just before the election, about half of BC'ers still didn't know what BC-STV was or how it worked. <br /> <br /> 2.) The effort had no steward. Normally such a major referendum issue would have been vocally supported by at least one major party (usually the one that introduced it to begin with). Gordon Campbell didn't bother - he wanted to claim responsibility if it passed, or say the electorate chose the status quo (which favours his party). Even the Greens, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain with STV, didn't avidly endorse it.<br /> <br /> 3.) STV is complicated. While voting is still relatively simple, the election night tallies would become a nightmare. Of course, in the wake of the US 2001 Florida scandals, this makes people extremely wary of electoral manipulations.<br /> <br /> 4.) STV doesn't achieve the goals of electoral reform:<br /> <br /> -It doesn't do away with strategic voting; it just makes it a lot more complicated. <br /> -Rather than making politicians more accountable, it is likely to make them LESS accountable (which of your 7 MLA's do you blame when sh*t hits the fan?). <br /> -It doesn't necessarily give a more proportional representation - that depends on how many candidates there are (all the example models worked fine with only 5 or 6 candidates, but considering that there are 26 or so political parties in BC, that's less likely to be the case in expanded constituencies).<br /> <br /> 5.) STV weakens the geographic representation of rural BC. Under STV, my constituency would be larger than France. Here, the economy is complicated. There are grave concerns in all the industries: forestry, aluminum smelting, energy import/export, fishing, tourism, mining, and on a local scale, agriculture. Imagine trying to choose 3 people who not only share your political ideologies, but who can also provide a good cross-section of experience in those industries AND simultaneously represent the public and service sectors. Here, STV would be an absolute nightmare. <br /> <br /> <br /> In all fairness, I did vote for STV because I believe that it is MORE democratic than FPP. However, it's quite clear from a rural standpoint that it is a system designed for the Lower Mainland and that it will result in the systematic neglect of the needs of individual rural constituencies. In my view, a Mixed Proportional system would be much simpler, achieve more of the stated goals of electoral reform, and maintain the token rural representation that we currently enjoy.

[Calumny]

Thanks, Kory.<br /> <br /> Nice to get your insights and hear from you.<br /> <br /> [QUOTE]Just before the election, about half of BC'ers still didn't know what BC-STV was or how it worked. [/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> I had the impression British Columbians received some sort of information package in this regard. If so, were there problems with the package information and/or the ability to pose questions to knowledgable sources re: the information provided?<br /> <br /> Given the situation you describe; the reality that most will stick with the status quo in the absence of evidence which proves beyond doubt that change will mean imnprovement and the fact that various ex-premier types came out against STV, I'm surprised the 'yes' side achieved 57%. This does seem indicate a substantial desire for change in B.C.<br /> <br /> In a different thread Marcarc indicated a certain leeriness towards a proposed N.B. PR referendum question being voted as part of the regular election process, as was apparently the case in B.C.<br /> <br /> I mulled this over myself in respect of the STV initiative. After considering the matter, I concluded that there would is no perfect time to ask the question and be reasonably assured that the votes received are based solely on people's objective view of the proposed change, as opposed to the tainting of that view by consideration of how the change might affect their party's fortunes.<br /> <br /> What is your opinion re: the timing for these types of referendum?<br /> <br /> <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/biggrin.gif' alt='Big Grin'>

[Marcarc]

Timing, as they say, is everything. I too was quite surprised to see such a high percentage in BC and was equally surprised when I later heard about the 60% mark. Then was even more surprised when I realized just how little I knew about the BC referendum. With umpteen channels on the television and the internet and still I am remarkably uninformed.<br /> <br /> Personally, I think canadians are so overworked it is difficult to penetrate that 'anti politics' armour that many have. I think the referendum of 1992 showed how much work canadians will put into a referendum when they know about it. That referendum was obviously a big deal and canadians paid attention. However, unless you're a criminal you've got to think that most couldn't care less about constitutional changes. Yet the timing was important as it was during a time when canadians were paying attention to constitutional issues-it was on the radar.<br /> <br /> Also, the referendum was held on its own and I believe it was even in the summertime? Maybe not. So everybody's attention was on it. During an election there are simply tons of other issues, and people just have so much brain power to lend to political matters, which generally they see as having little effect on them. <br /> <br /> Another point to consider though is just how much such votes are simply a vote against the government. This is perhaps why leaders were playing it cool on the issue, because it is yet another issue where they can be labelled. Politicians generally like to say as little as possible to avoid giving ammunition. One could quickly be labelled 'anti democratic' if one maintained that there was something wrong with the political system as is. During the 92 referendum I think that was also a big component, I think a lot of people voted no because the government wanted, in fact begged them to vote yes and by this time people despised the government.<br /> <br /> So the best case scenario when a society is having a referendum is to have it on its own when peoples attention can be focused on it. This would make it harder for the media to ignore as well, as most media is corporate owned and they typically don't like political change. <br /> <br /> In places like the states or switzerland when referenda happen all the time and are simply part of the system, then it's much more expedient to have them as part of regular or gubernatorial elections. However, Canada hasn't reached or approached that level of democratic maturity. People won't 'seek out' such information, no doubt because they distrust the source, that isn't something that changes overnight. However, the 60% gives me good hope that it could be faster than I anticipated once people look closer at direct democracy. <br /> <br /> Just to update then, I'm trying to find some historical notes on past elections, as I said I learned that New Brunswick had a variant of PR before, I'd like to find when and how it was switched, obviously it wasn't by referendum. So some Premier brought in our current system so I think part of our lobby should be the emphasis that only 50% be necessary. If the government claims that BC used 60% and set a precedent we can just maintain that BC also used STV and NB is not following that precedent. I'm no historian so if anybody knows an online source for past elections besides Elections Canada then let me know, or even a book about it.

[Brent Swain]

The reason many people here in BC voted agaist the STV was because it was very complex and was revealed too close to the election. People hadn't had time to learn more about how it would work , and not wanting to vote for something they couldn't understand, voted against it.As the vote neared and people began to better understand it , support for it grew, but notfast enough to get the required votes to pass it.We often had to depend on the recomendations of others who had the time to study it further. BC people are stilvery intersted in a better system . We just need further advaced notice of what the proposal will be so we can study it for a longer period of time, and debate and fine tune it longer.<br /> Brent