STV or Not?
Some of you may not know, but the up-coming BC provincial election has a "referendum" question other than just electing the provincial government for the next four years.
British Columbians are asked if we should change the electoral system, from the First Past the Post to the Single Transferable Vote system.
Here is a link on all the details about the change:
http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public
I would like to know what you think of this referendum.
This is an interesting article, written by Norman Spector, in January:
http://members.shaw.ca./nspector3/globe92.htm
Here is a link from the "Yes" campaign:
http://www.fairvotingbc.com/Home.html
Personally, I agree with Spector. I think he made some very good arguments.
posted by X at 1:20 a.m.
5 Comments:
How the heck can you agree with Spector? His whole argument is thrown into the crapasphere as soon as he tries to link STV to anti-abortionists. Perhaps try linking Liberal candidates coming in the back door suck as MAry Pollack, and other nutcases.
Spector is fear mongering. While there are arguments against STV that are legitimate, Spector does not mention them. If you believe his argument, I'd have to say you're quite gullible.
I think the most important point of the whole STV debate is if the government will "force" to work with the "mainstream" or "fringe groups".
The current system will definitely work better if MLAs are able to voice their opinions, or even vote against the government without consequences of party discipline.
I've been following this whole STV debate for a while now at: http://stvforbcvoteyes.blogspot.com/
and I have to say that out of all the websites and newspaper articles and blog posts I've read, the column by Spector that you link to is probably the 2nd dumbest thing I've read on the topic (there was one article in the Tyee a while back that was worse).
In fact it irritated me so much it provoked what is probably the most rant-like post I've written since I started blogging: http://stvforbcvoteyes.blogspot.com/2005/02/time-to-pack-it-in.html
Anyway, as you can likely tell by the title of my blog, I favour a yes vote since I figure it will give more power to us, the voters, and also create a legislature where the number of seats each party has actually has some correlation to how many votes they get.
Vote no if you must, but please at least try to dig up some better 'No' source material (there's lots out there). Voting No because you think it will lead to anti-abortionists taking power in B.C. would really be a travesty.
Sorry, replace 'vote no' with 'support a no vote' in my last comment - I didn't notice your location prior to posting my comment.
The Spector article is a good start for "No voters". Obviously, there are a lot other stuff out there.
I don't consider Spector's article a "rant". Instead, he gave a better solution for better government (i.e. losen party discipline) without the implementation of a change of system.
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