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Your vote always counts, if you cast one

My voting record is intact. I have not missed any election — provincial, federal or municipal — since I came of voting age (let’s just say it’s been a long time).

My voting record is intact. I have not missed any election — provincial, federal or municipal — since I came of voting age (let’s just say it’s been a long time). As far as provincially is concerned, I once again have voted for a candidate who did not win. Having said that, never have I thought my vote didn’t count. It always counts.

With all the contortions and connotations being bantered about for electoral reform, remember one thing: We have had this plebiscite twice and rejected it twice. First-past-the-post has given us stable democracy for decades.

If you did the quick math, I don’t see how another system would have changed anything. By percentages, the B.C. Liberals would have had a razor-thin victory with the NDP right behind and the Greens with the balance of power. These systems that mandate everyone must win something is grade-school thinking and does nothing to further our governance.

In the spirit of the NHL playoffs, it would be akin to the Canucks being able to take 42.75 per cent of the Stanley Cup home because they won three games in the best of seven against the Bruins.

Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver said it himself in the days ahead of the vote. A vote for the Green Party is a vote for the Green Party — full stop.

Good policy and hard work will get him where he wants to be. It already has. Run with it.

Murray Ostler

Campbell River