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INTRODUCTION TO THIS ELECTION'S REFERENDUM ON BC-STV AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT!
Okay. So you may have heard that on May 12th, in addition to voting for our representatives we also will have the opportunity to vote in a referendum for what electoral system we want BC's elections to use in the future.
You may be asking yourself, "uhhhhh what IS STV??? and what is a referendum???" which is something we have probably all asked ourselves when voting for the first time! Luckily, our friends at Elections BC have some historical information on exactly what a referendum IS and what this election's referendum will actually say!
According to Elections BC, ..."referendums are votes in which registered voters are asked to express their opinion on a matter of public interest or concern. Registered voters indicate their opinion by marking a ballot in response to one or more questions."
There was actually a referendum about BC-STV in 2005 as well, and while it was extremely close, BC-STV was not chosen by a majority of citizens. The BC government decided after this referendum that the majority of citizens had no idea what BC STV even was!As a result, the government is funding both pro and anti-BC STV groups to educate us all in a better way on what the system would mean!
In this election's referendum, voters will be asked this question:
"Which electoral system should British Columbia use to elect members to the provincial Legislative Assembly?
a) The existing electoral system (First-Past-the-Post)
b) The single transferable vote electoral system (BC-STV) proposed by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform."
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OKAY.....NOW GET TO THE POINT.... WHAT IS BC-STV?
According to the BC government's official website, BC-STV is a form of the Single Transferable Vote system. This means that overall, it was created to produce a more proportional result than our current system gives us. The number of seats a political party wins under BC-STV will be CLOSER to its share of overall votes than under our current system.
According to the BC Government's webpage, BC-STV is regarded as a system that...
"gives voters a lot of choices on the ballot at elections, produces largely proportional results,
is more likely to produce minority or coalition governments,
and maintains a link between multiple MLAs and voters in larger constituencies."
With BC-STV, we will elect between 2 and 7 representatives for our area (depending on its size and population.) Basically, we will vote under BC-STV by RANKING OUR PREFERENCES for the candidates we wish to support (1,2,3 etc!) To be elected, a candidate has to reach a certain amount of votes!
After all of our first choices (our top dogs!) are counted, the vote counters go to the second round, and voters' second, third, etc choices of candidates come into play.... continuing until all of the seats in the district have been filled.
For more info on our current system versus the proposed BC-STV system, check out the BC government's official page on it HERE.
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WHAT OTHER AREAS OF OUR LIVES ARE AFFECTED WHEN WE ELECT A CANDIDATE TO THE BC LEGISLATURE?
You may not have already noticed this, but the BC government actually takes care of a lot of things we kind of take for granted sometimes! Here's just a few, to start:
- Education- K- 12
- Advanced Education- Post secondary institutions throughout the Province
- Environment- From parks to climate change
- Children and Familiy Development
- Roads, Bridges, Ferries- Getting from Masset to Invermere and back to Tofino depends on the decisions made at the Leg
- Aboriginal Relations- Treaties and Reconciliation
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