Wednesday, May 06, 2009

BC STV - a website where you try it out

I urge you to get better informed about BC STV and to let your friends and relatives know. First past the post is a relic from ancient times that has been abandoned in most of the democratic world because it is unfair and does not work well. BC STV is a voting system that will offer us:

  1. An end to strategic voting - you can not strategically vote in STV, you will never have to hold your nose in BC STV and chose the lesser of two evils.
  2. More choice - you will be able to chose who you like from the party you support.
  3. A fairer representation of public will - every MLA will have a positive personal mandate from the public and there will be more diversity in who is elected.
  4. There will no longer be any safe seats for parties, all 85 seats will be under competition with BC STV
  5. More responsive politicians - politicians that listen and act on local needs and concerns do well in STV

There are more benefits that come from BC STV, but that is enough for the moment.

Please take time to check out this website and try voting with BC STV.

4 comments:

Ted Godwin said...

It may be a relic but it is used in more democratic nations than STV is! What we need is some form of MMP.

Wayne Smith said...

MMP is a fine voting system, but it is not on the ballot. The BC Citizens' Assembly considered MMP and decided that STV was right for BC.

The choice on May 12 is BC-STV or more of the same. BC-STV is way better.

If we change the voting system on May 12, we will probably tweak it somewhat in coming years. If we miss this opportunity for reform, it may be a very long time before we get another.

Bernard said...

MMP is not a very good system as it dramatically shifts power to small narrow ideological parties at the expense of the mainstream.

MMP also does not get rid of strategic voting.

MMP also creates two classes of representatives.

MMP is the most complex voting system in the world, no one knows what impact their vote might have on the election and if they could have voted some other way to have 'better' impact.

In many ways MMP combines the worst of First Past the Post with the worst aspects of list PR systems.

I know of no country where MMP is working well.

s. said...

Thanks for the information! Knowledge is power :)