Electoral-Reform Referendum in BC: “forced to be free”

BC Attorney General David Eby’s electoral-reform referendum tends toward a particular outcome; in other words, it is biased.

Instead of an independent Citizens’Assembly which administered the provincial referenda of 2005 and 2009, today’s referendum is under the auspices of the NDP Attorney General’s office itself.

Instead of one question, there are two, which is a way of circumventing the provincial law which declares that a majority vote is necessary to bring about particular electoral reform. Do I foresee a possible Supreme Court of Canada challenge in the future?

The first ballot question asks for a simple choice between our current of first-past-the-post system (FPTP) or “A proportional representation voting system” (PR).

The second ballot question asks to list your preferences from a selection of three PR choices – dual member proportional (DMP), mixed member proportional (MMP), and rural-urban proportional (RUP). But strangely there is no mention of FPTP.

Surely, if you voted for FPTP in the first ballot question, then you have no need to vote in the second ballot question.  But there is no category for FPTP in the second question, which suggests that electoral reform is already leading towards a predetermined outcome, so the FPTP voter is “forced to be free” as Rousseau might have it.

Instead of treating all electoral options equally and clearly, RUP, for example, suffers from particular obfuscation, because it combines two different PR systems, one of which was jettisoned by the last two referenda, making it unfair - and challenging for Joe Public to understand.

Instead of supplying the public with tried and tested PR choices for British Columbians, two such options on offer, DMP and RUP, have never before been implemented anywhere in the world.

  

The only plausible PR alternative is MMP, where the balance of proportional candidates are selected from a party “list”.  Could it be that the NDP government is actually angling for this particular outcome by means of subterfuge?

 

Surely provincial electoral reform could be brought to public consideration in a more transparent and fair manner.  What we have now is disproportionate representation by David Eby.