I want to start by saying that I neither advocate for or against BC-STV but I do believe that people should educate themselves before going to the polls. Tomorrow, in conjunction with the British Columbia General Election, voters in BC will have another chance to vote for or against and new election system called Single Transferrable Vote (STV). There are groups campaigning for and against this issue and there are some relatively neutral groups that are trying to provide unbiased information. I wanted to share some of the better resources that I’ve found while trying to educate myself:

1. Understanding STV
   

   This site has an excellent lay-persons description of how the system would work at a technical level and shows an example of how election outcomes would change from previous elections if this system was in place. There’s also some great information in there about how this proposal came before BC voters and a reminder that the last time this issue went to the referendum, more than half of the voters were in favour of it but the threshold was set at 60%. Check out the very detailed section where this person outlines how the 2005 election might have played out under this system with various scenarios [READ].

2. Ireland’s STV System
   

   In terms of use cases, one only needs to look to Ireland to see what an STV system in action looks like. They’ve been using it since 1922. As you can see from the above link, Ireland has debated doing away with the STV system on a number of occasions but when put to a referendum, people voted to keep the system. Obviously, the system works well enough for Ireland. How readily this would translate to BC is another matter and I leave that interpretation to you.

   Malta also uses the STV system as does Australia for its senate. There are many countries that use proportional representation as their voting system but these systems are slightly different that what is on the referendum. You can read up on Proportional Representation on Wikipedia with a full list of countries that use this system. [READ]

3. Advantages of Proportional Representation Systems
   

   The Electoral Knowledge Network has a good summary of the advantages of a proportional representation system (STV is a PR system). The main arguments for it seem to be that it translates the popular vote more accurately into seats won, provides more seats to minority parties and reduces wasted votes. There’s a strong campaign for BC STV that you can read up on if you’re interested. [LINK]

4. Disadvantages of Proportional Representation Systems
   

   Thanks again to the Electoral Knowledge Network, here’s a good summary of the downsides of PR systems like STV. The main arguments against it seem to be that it can lead to coalition governments (which have a bad reputation for lacking the power to push legislation through), it can lead to party fragmentation and it can give a platform to extremist parties. There’s an equally strong campaign against BC STV that you can read up on as well. [LINK]

Again, I see valid arguments on both sides of this argument and I do not advocate either side. I do advocate that everyone read some of these resources before going to the poll tomorrow so that you can make a more informed decision.