Open Letter to Premier Gordon Campbell

Premier Gordon Campbell
Parliament Buildings
Victoria, B.C.

A PROPOSAL FOR VOTING WITH “PREFERENTIAL BALLOTING”

The voters of Ontario recently rejected a proposal for a “Mixed Member Proportional” system, believing it to be an unfair system. We agree. This system is very similar to the BC-STV system that the BC government proposes to take to referendum at the next BC provincial election. A similar negative result should also be expected here.
 

The BC Conservative Party has adopted a policy supporting, what we believe is, a much better system. That system is “Preferential Balloting” which is currently used by most political parties when choosing a Leader or nominating a candidate for election.

Simply stated, Preferential Balloting allows voters, instead of placing an ”X” beside the name of their preferred candidate, to place a “1” beside their first choice, a “2” beside their second choice, etc. The winning candidate must have at least 50% of the votes. If not, the last place candidate drops out and his/her number “2” votes are allocated to the remaining candidates. This process is repeated until the leading candidate has at least 50% of the votes.

The Preferential Balloting System is easy to implement and easy to understand. It is also superior to the BC-STV system because it is far simpler, and will probably be supported by more voters, than the BC-STV system.

The Preferential Balloting system would eliminate the current undesirable situation which encourages voters not to “split the vote” and to vote for the Party with the best perceived chance of defeating the voter’s least preferred Party or candidate. The Preferential Balloting system encourages voting for the Party with the best policies and candidates. This system would also avoid the creation of large “Multiple MLA Constituencies” and would prevent the undemocratic situation of having unelected MLAs.

Therefore, we suggest that the referendum conducted in 2009 include the “Preferential Balloting” system as the option to the current “first-past the post” system.

Kindest Regards

Wilf Hanni
Party Leader
British Columbia Conservative Party

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites