It's evident by the numerous letters recently submitted in favour of electoral reform that the proponents of the single transferrable voting system have orchestrated a campaign to once again breathe life into a dead issue.
They almost succeeded in 2004 when 58 per cent of voters voted in a referendum in favour of STV. Four years later, when voters were better informed, they rejected STV by more than 60 per cent because it was too complex. It required three pages of diagrams, formulae and mathematical calculations to even explain how ballots would be counted. "Electoral quotas," "transfer values" and "exhausted ballots" were all components of the proposed reform.
Successful candidates could be elected with as few as 12.5 per cent of the votes cast. Local ridings would have been replaced by large sprawling districts electing from two to seven parliamentarians from among 10 to 30 candidates, diminishing local accountability. Minority governments would almost certainly have become the norm, rather than the exception.
The reality is that the B.C. Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, after a year of study, rolled the dice and recommended an extremely esoteric voting system that garnered little support once voters understood it. A more reasonable alternative would have been a majoritarian system whereby successful candidates need to achieve more than 50 per cent of the votes cast to be elected.
That's a reform that most voters would support. It's one that recent letter writers should embrace, instead of beating a dead horse.
John Amon
Victoria
