On May 17, British Columbians go to the polls for a vote and a meta-vote: the vote, on the new provincial government; the meta-vote, on whether to reform the way that British Columbians choose their governments. Right now, BC’s government, like those of the other nine provinces and three territories, is a parliamentary system, with the province divided into 79 constituencies, each of whose electors select one representative to send to the legislature. The representative who receives a plurality of votes in the riding wins. An advantage to this system is that every voter has, in theory anyway, a local representative to the provincial government. A disadvantage is that that government has the potential to be anything but representative: the most dramatic example of this in Canada was the 1993 federal election, which saw the Progressive Conservatives get over 20% of the popular vote – and fewer than 1% of seats in the House of Commons.”The proposal is to replace this system with single transferable voting (STV), a system already in use in Australia, which would broaden the consistutencies and allow voters to rank their candidates from most to least favourite. Each constituency would then send between two and seven representatives to the provincial legislature.”With the referendum on STV a mere three weeks away, it would seem that Teh Media would have a lot to say about this new system, right? Well, they do, and they’re all in agreement: STV is complicated, and Canadians don’t know much about it. And that’s about it:” * From the Vancouver Sun: [Pollster Angus] Reid predicted that the system of proportional representation will fail to get the support it needs to become law because it is too complicated.” “No one can explain what this is all about. I’ve got a PhD in stats and I can’t explain it,” he complained.” * More from Reid, on the polling company’s own site:” Very few adults in British Columbia are informed about a proposal to elect lawmakers in a different way, according to a poll by The Strategic Counsel released by CTV and the Globe and Mail. 42 per cent of respondents in the Canadian province say they know a little about the single transferable vote (STV) system, while 47 per cent know nothing at all.” * The Globe and Mail agrees, spending six paragraphs rehashing British Columbians’ ignorance before making some lame attempt to remedy it with an STV By Dummies, For Dummies approach, and concluding with a poll reiterating how ignorant we all are:” The STV system would ask voters to number the candidates on the ballots in order of preference.” By tallying alternative choices, candidates who in the current system might have gone down to defeat could win.” The number of ridings would be reduced and each riding would have more than one MLA.” Under the STV system, if a party received 40 per cent of the votes, it would obtain 40 per cent of the seats in the House. (Ed’s note: no, it won’t. STV will approximate proportional representation better than a parliamentary system, but it’s completely inaccurate to equate the two.)” * And here’s a bizarre and dreadfully formatted article from the South Delta Leader that raves about how much people are learning about STV. The article then links to some cartoons on a partisan website (see also, “Dummies”, above) that, according to a promoter of STV, “provide the

Dear Mr. Cellucci,”OUR brave men and women in uniform gave their lives so that we wouldn’t have to bend to the will of yours. Has it occurred to you that we take “our values and our freedoms” pretty seriously, too?