B.C. voters can choose from three new voting systems in the mail-in referendum on proportional representation this fall.
Attorney General David Eby has decided the ballot will contain two questions – the first being a choice between the current “first past the post” system for choosing MLAs, and a proportional representation system.
The second question will be a choice of three possible new ways of electing MLAs to the legislature.
How many people mail in their choices could decide how much weight the whole exercise carries, says a Maple Ridge member of the Fair Vote Canada committee studying the issue.
“If participation of that mail-in ballot is low, it really doesn’t give the referendum a whole lot of legitimacy,” said Peter Tam, a Green party member.
Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Bob D’Eith led the working group announced by the new NDP government last fall.
Tam says at least 60 per cent of eligible voters need to mail in a ballot in order to make the vote worthwhile. If half of that turnout supports a change, that still will be only 30 per cent of the overall electorate.
“In order to have a majority legitimacy, one, we need to have a lot of participation in the referendum and, two, the percentage needs to be needs to be higher than the bar they’re setting it at,” Tam said.
If the requirements for a yes vote are higher, people will be more willing to accept a change, he added. If not, the public and the Opposition, will continue to question any result.
In Wednesday’s announcement of the report on electoral reform, Eby said only a majority is needed in the first vote to allow responses to count on three types of possible new voting systems.
Those possible new voting systms:
• dual-member proportional, where neighbouring pairs of voting districts in B.C. would be combined into a single, two-member constituency, except for the larger rural districts, which would remain unchanged;
• mixed-member proportional, which combines single-member districts with party list candidates added to give each party the number of seats determined by their share of the provincewide vote;
• rural-urban proportional representation, with multi-member districts for urban and semi-urban areas, with voters choosing their MLA on a ranked ballot.
In rural areas, a mixed-member proportional system using candidate lists chosen by parties would be used.
The campaign period for the different systems will start July 1 with the ballots to be mailed in between Oct. 22 to Nov. 30.
The complexity of the options means voters will not have a map of the new voting districts when they make their choice. Eby said if voters choose to change to a new system, the voting districts would be determined by the independent Electoral Boundaries Commission.
B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson called the options an “alphabet soup,” some never heard of before. He said Premier John Horgan broke two promises, including one in last year’s election to offer people a simple yes-or-no choice.
The other was that regional representation would be protected in the referendum, which now will be decided by a simple majority of provincewide results, where rural regions are vastly outnumbered by cities.
If people actually vote for a new system, another referendum would take place, after two elections under the new system, asking the public if it likes the new system or wants to change back.
Eby said his recommendation is that parties that receive less than five per cent of the total popular vote would not get an MLA.
Advocacy organizations will have a spending limit of $200,000 each and political parties will be subject to the same restrictions as an election, with no corporate or union donations permitted.
Tam also wants somehow to increase voter participation, especially among younger people. “The decline is dramatic.”
A move to a single transferable vote system was rejected during a 2005 B.C. referendum because it didn’t receive the required 60 per cent threshold. A referendum on STV in 2009 also failed.
– with files from Black Press
