BS: Single Transferable Vote, anyone?

Subject: BS: Single Transferable Vote, anyone?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 08 May 09 - 08:35 PM

During the general election next week here in the Canadian province of British Columbia we will be asked if we would like to change our voting system from the usual "First Past The Post" or "Winner Take All" system to a form of proportional representaion known as "Single Transferable Vote" or STV. In STV you get to specify which candidate would be your first choice, which your second choice, and so on. It is used in Australia for the upper house, in Malta, and in Ireland.

I favour proportional representation because it allows marginal parties like the Greens to get a toe-hold in the legislature and I was going to vote for STV but now I'm having second thoughts. I have recently heard a plausible non-reactionary activist state that STV is a phony proportional rep system and, for example, has led to decades of one-party rule in Ireland. Our local centre-right "natural ruling party" supports STV, which also makes me wary.

Can any Irish, Maltese, or Aussie 'catters advise? What do other BC-ians think?

Subject: RE: BS: Single Transferable Vote, anyone?
From: GUEST,Wordrow
Date: 08 May 09 - 08:49 PM

The upside of proportional representation is that minority views get represented. The downside is that utternutters get a platform. The alternative is that all parties cluster round a a mediocre electable centre, as in the UK.

It's worth the risks- it's even possible that the Murdoch media won't know which prejudice to push, when there are several, and local, internet- based campaigns will have the chance of success.

Take what;s on offer, and sort out a better system later.

Subject: RE: BS: Single Transferable Vote, anyone?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 08 May 09 - 09:32 PM

"Take what's on offer, and sort out a better system later."

This view is often mooted in letters to the editor in our local press. The current system, where a party with 35% of the popular vote gets gets to vaunt its "mandate" for five years, is so obviously wrong that any alternative looks good. I still lean gently towards voting for STV, but a week ago I was an ardent proponent.

Subject: RE: BS: Single Transferable Vote, anyone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 May 09 - 08:00 PM

STV isn't in itself a proportional representation system (and it isn't the system used in Ireland).

The idea of STVI isn't so much to ensure representation of minorities but rather to make less likely the situation where a party that most people detest will slip through and win in a first-past-the-post election because the votes of the people who detest it is split between other parties. (For example neither Thatcher nor Blair ever got a majority of popular votes.)