BC-STV is a proposed voting system recommended by the
Citizens' Assembly on Electoral ReformThe Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is a group created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system...
for use in
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada.The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada...
, and belongs to the
Single Transferable VoteThe Single transferable vote is a system of preferential voting designed to minimize "wasted" votes and provide proportional representation while ensuring that votes are explicitly expressed for individual candidates rather than for party lists...
family of voting systems. BC-STV was supported by a majority (57.7%) of the voters in a
referendumA referendum , ballot question, or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal...
held in 2005 but the government had legislated that it would not be bound by any vote lower than 60% in favour. Because of the strong majority support for BC-STV, the government elected to stage a second referendum in 2009, but with increased public funding for information campaigns to better inform the electorate about the differences between the existing and proposed systems.
In 2003, the Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell, with the agreement of the opposition New Democratic Party, established a
Citizens' Assembly on Electoral ReformThe Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is a group created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system...
, mandating it to propose a new electoral system, which would subsequently be put to referendum.
BC-STV is a proposed voting system recommended by the
Citizens' Assembly on Electoral ReformThe Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is a group created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system...
for use in
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada.The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada...
, and belongs to the
Single Transferable VoteThe Single transferable vote is a system of preferential voting designed to minimize "wasted" votes and provide proportional representation while ensuring that votes are explicitly expressed for individual candidates rather than for party lists...
family of voting systems. BC-STV was supported by a majority (57.7%) of the voters in a
referendumA referendum , ballot question, or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal...
held in 2005 but the government had legislated that it would not be bound by any vote lower than 60% in favour. Because of the strong majority support for BC-STV, the government elected to stage a second referendum in 2009, but with increased public funding for information campaigns to better inform the electorate about the differences between the existing and proposed systems.
Background
In 2003, the Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell, with the agreement of the opposition New Democratic Party, established a
Citizens' Assembly on Electoral ReformThe Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is a group created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system...
, mandating it to propose a new electoral system, which would subsequently be put to referendum. The assembly designed and recommended a system that it named BC-STV (British Columbia Single Transferable Vote), and a
referendumA referendum , ballot question, or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal...
was held in conjunction with the
2005 BC electionThe 38th British Columbia general election was held on May 17, 2005, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia , Canada. The BC Liberal Party formed the government of the province prior to this general election under the leadership of Premier Gordon Campbell...
.
STV Referendum gag law
The law governing STV advertising has changed from the last 2005 referendum. Although it is included as a referendum on the May 12th, 2009 ballot, STV promotion is banned from election advertising.
The
BC Electoral Reform Referendum 2009 Act Regulation Section.29.4 (STV gag law)
Referendum advertising must not, directly or indirectly, (a) promote or oppose a registered political party or the election of a candidate, or (b) form part of election advertising. Section.1 definition -- "referendum campaign period" means, in relation to the referendum, the period beginning on February 1, 2009 and ending at the close of general voting for the referendum.”
Information about the STV gag law is available at BC elections- Tel: 1 800 661 8683.
First referendum
The referendum was presented as a Yes/No question, with a Yes vote leading to adoption of BC-STV, and a No vote leading to retention of the existing single-member plurality system. However, the government also legislated that the referendum results would not be binding unless a
supermajorityA supermajority or a qualified majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level or type of support which exceeds majority. In some jurisdictions, for example, parliamentary procedure requires that any action that may alter the rights of the minority has a supermajority requirement...
of 60% of the voters voted the same way (and also formed a
simple majorityA majority, also known as a simple majority in the U.S., is a subset of a group that is more than half of the entire group. This should not be confused with a plurality, which is a subset having the largest number of parts. A plurality is not necessarily a majority, as the largest subset may be...
in at least 60% (48 of 79) of British Columbia's electoral districts).
While a simple majority of voters in 97% of the electoral districts (77 of 79) voted to support the adoption of the BC-STV system, in the province-wide popular vote 57.7% of the population voted to support BC-STV, falling just 2.3% short of the government-set requirement for the result to be binding.
Consequently, the results of the referendum were not binding on the government, and indeed the
government did not take any steps to adopt the preferred system. However, a decision was taken to
hold the referendum a second time.
Second referendum
A second referendum on electoral reform was held in conjunction with the
provincial electionThe 39th British Columbia general election was held on May 12, 2009 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The BC Liberal Party formed the government of the province prior to this general election under the leadership of Premier Gordon Campbell...
on 12 May 2009. The BC-STV electoral system was again voted on by the British Columbia electorate. To be binding, similar to 2005, the referendum required 60 per cent overall approval and 50 per cent approval in at least 60 per cent of the province's electoral districts. Partially addressing concerns expressed during and after the first referendum campaign, voters were able to consult a map of proposed electoral boundaries under the BC-STV system, and advocacy groups were given some public funding to campaign for and against the new electoral system.
The province's voters defeated the change with only 38.82% voting in favour.
Summary of system mechanics
Since
ConfederationCanadian Confederation was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed, officially beginning on July 1, 1867, with the new provinces of Ontario and Quebec along with two other British colonies, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which also became provinces.-Usage:Canada is a...
with Canada in 1871, British Columbia had a system of primarily single-member electoral districts with some multi-member districts. The 17 multi-member member ridings were eliminated in 1988.
Unlike the fully single-member system in place since 1988, STV groups all legislative seats regionally into multiple-member electoral districts. This is done so that seats in the region can be allocated in a way that reflects the distribution of votes among the electorate. For example,
RichmondRichmond is a coastal city, incorporated in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Part of Metro Vancouver, its neighbouring communities are Vancouver and Burnaby to the north, New Westminster to the east, and Delta to the south, while the Strait of Georgia forms its western border...
and
Delta'sDelta is a district municipality in British Columbia, and forms part of Metro Vancouver. Located south of Richmond, it is bordered by the Fraser River to the north, the United States to the south and the city of Surrey to the east...
five existing constituencies would be combined into one electoral district which would produce five winners, proportional to the votes in the multi-member district. It is very unlikely that all would be from the same party, in contrast to the situation in
the 1996 electionThe British Columbia general election of 1996 was the thirty sixth provincial election in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. It was held to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. The election was called on April 30, 1996, and held on May 28, 1996...
, when all five of these seats were won by the same political party.
Political parties may nominate as many candidates in an electoral district as there are available seats, although experience with STV elsewhere suggests that not all will do so. For instance, in Ireland a five-seat district would typically have about 10 or 15 candidates. Major parties will typically nominate more candidates in a district than will minor parties, as they will be hopeful of electing a larger number of MLAs.
The most important feature of the system is that each voter has only one vote, although this vote may be transferred if the voter's first choice is unsuccessful; to this end, the voter is invited to rank-order candidates 1,2,3..., although the voter is not required to do so.
A
quotaAn electoral quota is a election threshold.Types of electoral quotas:* Hare quota* Droop Quota* Imperiali quota* Hagenbach-Bischoff quota...
for the district is determined based on the number of valid ballots cast and the number of seats available in the district. All the votes are counted and sorted by the voters' first preferences. Those candidates with enough first-preference votes to meet or exceed the quota are elected. A multiple-step vote counting and transfer process is then used to determine the winners of the remaining seats in the district.
The candidates will be grouped by political party in separate columns on the ballot paper, as is the practice in the Australian state of
TasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is located south of the eastern side of the continent, from which it is separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania – the 26th largest island in the world – and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 500,000 ,...
.
Proposed electoral district boundaries
Under the current
first past the postThe plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies....
or FPTP system, British Columbians elected members from 79 one-member districts in 2005, but this has expanded to 85 for the 2009 election. Boundaries commissions, appointed after alternate elections, use census data to maintain a nominally uniform population level across districts (within court-mandated bounds) so that voters have approximately equal representation. Currently, districts have a mean population of about 50,000. However, there can be considerable discrepancies between electoral districts, because districts are permitted to be as small as 75% or as large as 125% of the provincial average, and even these bounds may be exceeded in special circumstances. Moreover, population migrations between redistrictings can lead to further drift away from uniformity. Vancouver-Burrard has the largest population at about 67,000 people and North Coast has the smallest population at about 27,000 people.
One of the criticisms of this method of is that in many populous communities, in order to create districts with a population of approximately 50,000, it may be necessary to draw arbitrary boundaries which do not necessarily reflect a
community of interestA community of interest is a community of people who share a common interest or passion. These people exchange ideas and thoughts about the given passion, but may know little about each other outside of this area...
.
The Electoral Boundaries Commission which reported in 2008 was charged with drawing up new boundaries for both the single-member system and the proposed new BC-STV system. Under BC-STV, much larger districts would be created that will elect multiple members. Proponents argue that this creates districts with a stronger sense of community and common interest, in which voters will have several MLAs and can get service or representation from any of them. For example, the 11 new single-member constituencies within the municipality of
VancouverVancouver is a coastal city and major seaport located in the Lower Mainland of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. The city is bounded by English Bay, Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River, the city of Burnaby, and the University Endowment Lands. Vancouver is named after Captain George Vancouver, a...
would be combined under STV to form two electoral districts, one West, one East. The five electoral districts within
RichmondRichmond is a coastal city, incorporated in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Part of Metro Vancouver, its neighbouring communities are Vancouver and Burnaby to the north, New Westminster to the east, and Delta to the south, while the Strait of Georgia forms its western border...
and
DeltaDelta is a district municipality in British Columbia, and forms part of Metro Vancouver. Located south of Richmond, it is bordered by the Fraser River to the north, the United States to the south and the city of Surrey to the east...
will be combined to form one electoral district. Each STV district is formed by amalgamating a collection of single-member constituencies; therefore the total number of MLAs per region, and the population per MLA within each region, is independent of the choice of system.
Foreign comparisons
The proposed
BC-STV system was chosen by the members of the Citizens' Assembly to best suit B.C. However, it has specific similarities to and distinctions from STV electoral systems currently being used in other countries.
- Unlike its use for the Australian Senate
The Australian electoral system has evolved over nearly 150 years of continuous democratic government, and has a number of distinctive features including compulsory voting, preferential voting and the use of proportional voting to elect the upper house, the Australian Senate.- Compulsory voting...
, voters will not be required to rank every candidate; the purpose of this provision is to avoid forcing voters to rank candidates they either don't know or don't support.
- If votes are transferred because a candidate has exceeded the quota required to win, all of that candidate's ballots are examined for transfer votes (Senatorial rules), unlike the method used for the Irish Dáil
is the principal chamber of the Oireachtas . It is directly elected at least once in every five years under the system of proportional representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote . Its powers are similar to those of lower houses under many other bicameral parliamentary systems and it is...
in which, after a candidate has reached the quota, only the last parcel of votes transferred to that candidate are examined for further preferences (the Hare method).
- In the case of a vacancy, a by-election is held using the BC-STV system. In a riding with a single vacancy, this is equivalent to the Alternative Vote
Instant-runoff voting is the American English term for a voting system used for single-winner elections, in which voters rank candidates in an order of preference...
system. This is similar to the Irish system, but differs from the system used in Malta and Tasmania, where the original ballots are recounted with the departing members' votes transferred to their next preferences.
External links