British Columbia Will Soon Vote on Whether to Use Proportional Representation

The voters of British Columbia will soon vote on whether to retain their current election system for provincial legislative elections, or to switch to proportional representation.

The ballots has two questions. The first question asks voters to choose between the status quo or proportional representation. The second question asks voters to choose which type of proportional representation system they favor. Three alternative types are on the ballot, and voters are free to choose more than one. The three types are: Dual Member Proportional, Mixed Member Proportional, or Rural-Urban Proportional. This wikipedia article explains each type.

Also on the ballot are municipal elections. The election is conducted by mail ballot during the period October 22-November 30.


Comments

British Columbia Will Soon Vote on Whether to Use Proportional Representation — 40 Comments

  1. status quo = ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymanders and legis-exec tyrants in the *parliamentary* regime.

    1/2 or less votes x 1/2 gerrymander districts = 1/4 or less CONTROL

    — the *or less* happens often in the regimes with multiple larger parties

    — as in most provinces in Canada — including B.C.

    MAJOR snowing in most of B.C. in such time period —

    ie one more machination to reduce voting ???


    PR and AppV
    TOTAL Separation of Powers

  2. All 3 PR systems mystify BASIC PR —

    Party Seats = Total Seats [odd number at least 3] x Party Votes / Total Votes

    The wiki FAILS to note BASIC PR — so confuses the question.

    There is some STONE AGE AREA fixation in all 3 alleged systems on the ballots.

    Human VOTERS vote — NOT rocks and tress in any AREA.

  3. THE “SAINTE-LAGUE PARLIAMENT SYSTEM” for seat allocation in all multi-seat districts
    By Mike Ossipoff [Peace and Freedom] in 1992

    http://www.usparliament.org/stv.php

    Divide the election’s total number of votes by the number of seats. This is the 1st quota.

    Divide this quota into each candidate’s votes, and round off to the nearest whole number. That’s that candidate’s seat allocation.

    If, due to rounding, this awards a number of seats different from the desired number of seats, then adjust the quota slightly up or down until when paragraph two is carried out, it will award all seats.
    * * *

  4. And this is where both Ogle and DemoRep prove their stupidity on simple mathematics. All three systems ARE proportional. Mixed-Member being the best out of the three…. Here’s how mixed-member works:

    The voters get two votes… one for a party, and one for a local representative. First the seats are awarded to the local representatives that fulfill the required threshold (you can use plurality, instant run-off, or even single non-transferable or single-transferable). From there you look at the party vote and determine how many seats each party should receive. Say it looks like the following:

    NDP: 42% of the vote
    Green: 10% of the vote
    Liberal: 38% of the vote
    Conservative: 7% of the vote
    Libertarian Party of BC: 2.5% of the vote
    Christian Heritage: 0.5% of the vote

    Threshold is 1.25% of the vote or one riding/district seat.

    (We’ll use the existing 81 seat number that BC currently has for its legislature)
    Seats totals would end up looking like this:
    NDP: 34 seats
    Green: 8 seats
    Liberal: 31 seats
    Conservative: 6 seats
    Libertarian Party of BC: 2
    Christian Heritage: 0

    Then you look at how many seats each party won in the ridings/districts; say for example sake:
    NDP: 20
    Green: 3
    Liberal: 17
    Conservative: 0
    Libertarian Party of BC: 0
    Christian Heritage: 0

    You then award the following number of seats to each party using their party list:
    NDP: 14
    Green: 5
    Liberal: 14
    Conservative: 6
    Libertarian Party of BC: 2
    Christian Heritage: 0

    These numbers are determined by taking the party vote and using simple subtraction against the total amount of seats each party won in local ridings/districts. i.e. for the NDP 34 total seats (determined by the party vote) minus the 20 seats they won from the riding elections equals 14 seats needed to get to the required party proportion.

    Not really that complicated people. The only thing is if a party wins more seats in ridings/districts than their party vote entitles them to have, you simply add more seats to the total seats of the legislature to pull the proportions of the other parties back into alignment. Those are called “overhang seats”. Out of all the countries and “sub-countries” (Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales, etc.) that use mixed-member proportional the most seats that have EVER had to have been added was 3. 95% of the time, zero additional seats are added, because they’re NOT needed.

    The results under “pure proportional” as Ogle would call it, or party-list proportional with ZERO local representation (as used in Israel, Sweden, and Switzerland – all fairly small countries I might note) would look like this:
    NDP: 34 seats
    Green: 8 seats
    Liberal: 31 seats
    Conservative: 6 seats
    Libertarian Party of BC: 2
    Christian Heritage: 0

    Wait so they’re the same? Yep. The difference when you use mixed-member…. you keep roughly half of the representatives as LOCAL representation, who actually have a vested interest in representing the local population. If you’re perfectly okay with nearly ALL of your representatives coming from city centers, and none from suburbs or rural areas then “pure proportional” is fine…. the odds of running into the need for overhang seats is zero. But I personally, and I would hope most sane people, would prefer a system where representatives actually have a vested interest in representing local populations instead of simply representing the parties own interests, which usually devolves into oligarchy and representing only lobbyists interests. After all, the parties own interests would become about getting re-elected and you do that by raising money. You raise money by giving into every lobbyists whim. And the infinite cycle of representing lobbyists continues.

    As a matter of fact, it could be argued through the use of gerrymandering we in fact have a hidden party-list proportional election system right now in the United States; which is why we have legislatures that only represent lobbyists. The only fix is mixed-member proportional.

  5. The LOCAL fixation stuff is TOTAL STUPID nonsense — used to brainwash folks for 700 plus years —

    gerrymander districts in formation of the English House of Commons in late 1200s.

    A legislative body exists ONLY because ALL the voters can NOT assemble in person and vote on bills, etc.

    State legislative bodies = STATEWIDE laws.

    National legislative bodies = NATIONWIDE laws.

    The *overhang seats* may produce an even number of seats = possible gridlock ties on life/death stuff.

    JUST ENOUGH brainwashed folks on this list to prevent REAL reforms ???


    REAL PR = Majority Rule [DEMOCRACY] and minority representation.

  6. Under pure proportional representation (PPR) the voter may vote for a name because the candidate resides nearby or they may vote for a name across the Province, it’s up to the voter to decide.

    Need not make sub-districts or party lists because that makes the results not proportional.

    The “mixed member proportional (MMP)” is for party bosses so they can provide the party’s list and block out newcomers, outsiders and names opposed to the bosses alone determine who the winners will be by composing a list.

    If you want the results to be exact you must use ranked choice voting (RCV) otherwise slate voting will give the majority faction(s) super-majority.

    It must be all open seats at-large get elected simultaneously while using STV, otherwise the threshold rises.

    Any rise in the Hagenbach-Bischoff quota blocks names of candidates.

    Party bosses want MMP so they can block names from being fairly elected.

  7. Last week in Sweden the Women’s Initiative Party and the Pirate Party reached the national Hagenbach-Bischoff quota but they were denied because of an arbitrary threshold far above the Hagenbach-Bischoff quota was established.

    Germany and Israel also established unfair arbitrary thresholds and so their country’s assemblies will never be fair and truly proportional.

    The only fair threshold in elections for pure proportional representation is the Hagenbach-Bischoff quota method.

  8. @Joogle, DR

    If you were in BC how would you vote?

    1. Vote for ONE.

    [ ] Retain FPTP
    [ ] Proportional Representation

    2. Rank your three choices.

    [ ] DMP
    [ ] MMP
    [ ] RUMP

  9. JR —
    ANY SECRET ballots in BC ???

    1. PR

    2. Write-in – Basic PR
    Above Sep 23 1:13 PM

    The 3 PR choices on the ballots are all defective.

  10. Some people seemed to be upset that the proposed options are not pure proportional representation. So what if they are not? What’s important at the end of the day is that the greatest number of voters feel represented in some way. Let BC try their experiment their way, and we’ll see how they like it.

  11. If MAJOR (often FATAL) defects exist on paper, then only a matter of time before MAJOR CRISIS stuff happens —

    Buildup to 1689 Revolution in England.

    Buildup to 4 July 1776 in Brit colonies.

    Buildup to July 1789 in France.

    Buildup to April 1861 in USA — Confeds attack on Fort Sumter in SC.

    Buildup to 30 Jan 1933 in Germany — ie Hitler in POWER.

    Etc.

    The corrupt/evil HACKS love their POWER — until each such CRISIS happens.

  12. USA regime — TOTAL timebomb ROT on Paper

    2017-2018 USA GOVT — MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER MATH = OLIGARCHY V2, 4 JAN 2018

    GERRYMANDER LOWLITES MINI SUMMARY —

    IN 2016, 31.1 PERCENT OF THE VOTERS ELECTED 218 R USA REPS OF 435 TOTAL.

    IN 2012-2014-2016, 16.7 PERCENT OF THE VOTERS ELECTED 50 R USA SENATORS OF 100 TOTAL [plus R VP in 2017-2020]

    IN 2016, 26.1 PERCENT OF THE VOTERS ELECTED R PREZ TRUMP/VP Pence. [in 28 of 50 States]

    PR and AppV

    NO half-ass defective *reforms*.

  13. JR, United Coalition USA is focused on national US Presidential Electors being elected under PPR, these will be precedent setting for all countries worldwide including Canada, frankly I can’t put that much study into non-PPR voting systems and answer your question.

  14. The USELESS brain dead media are too evil moron STUPID / LAZY to do the minority rule gerrymander math on election nights (or later with official stats)

    — so the timebomb buildup pressure continues to increase.

  15. @DR,

    The referendum in British Columbia will be my mail, so there is no certainty of secrecy.

    No write-ins. So you support PR, and whatever method the BC voters approve.

  16. @DR,

    Are you familiar with representative town meetings? In larger towns, it is recognized that the entire town can not meet, so each area elects representatives to town meetings.

    What is the advantage of elections over random selection in choosing a representative body. If you were doing random selection wouldn’t you geographically stratify?

    Why does a legislature need more than one member? You could elect him or her statewide?

    If you wanted pure proportionality, you would let each voter vote for their representative. All persons receiving votes would become members of the legislature, with their vote weighted by the popular vote they received.

  17. JR

    IF any of the 3 BC PR methods takes effect —

    THEN it will join the long list of DEFECTIVE systems —

    as in Europe, Israel, etc.

    How SUICIDAL/DEFECTIVE is Western *Civilization* ???

    DOOM on paper = REAL DOOM a bit later.

    Condorcet math since 1780s.

    PR math since 1840s.

    Separation of Powers – since at least 1600s.

  18. @Joogle,

    How do you know the systems proposed in British Columbia are not “pure” proportional representation?

    Under your system, which you have never detailed, what is representation proportional to? What makes it pure?

  19. JR wrote –

    [A] Why does a legislature need more than one member? You could elect him or her statewide?

    [B] If you wanted pure proportionality, you would let each voter vote for their representative. All persons receiving votes would become members of the legislature, with their vote weighted by the popular vote they received.
    ——
    [A] MAJORITY RULE – Democracy LEGIS TYRANT —
    make him or her also MAJORITY RULE – Democracy EXEC/JUDIC TYRANT ???

    IE — ABSOLUTE LEGIS/EXEC/JUDIC TYRANT — HIS/HER WILL IS LAW — OBEY OR DIE !!!!!

    SEE EMPERORS IN OLDE WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE – ESP. AFTER DEFUNCT ROMAN SENATE WIPED OUT CIRCA 200 AD.

    SEE THE HITLER THE *LEADER* REGIME IN 1930S — A QUITE *LEGAL* TYRANT / KILLER IN CHARGE — JOKE REICHSTAG AND COURTS.

    HITLER REGIME DOOM IN 1945 — ABOUT 70,000,000 DEAD IN WORLD.

    REBUILT REGIME WITH PR IN OLD WEST GERMANY PART IN 1949.


    [B} ADVANCED ***EXACT*** PR — HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE ***MAJOR FIXATION*** OF HAVING ONE VOTE PER LEGISLATOR.

    COULD BE STANDING PROXY PR — NEW IN, NEW MOVERS IN, OLD PASS OUT, OLD MOVERS OUT

    — NO REGULAR ELECTION DAYS.


    OLDE EARLY NW TERRITORY TOWNSHIPS — LOW-LOW-LOW POPULATIONS

    ALL THE ELECTORS-VOTERS MEET IN PERSON AND ELECT TOWNSHIP OFFICERS AND VOTE ON MAJOR TOWNSHIP ISSUES.

    VESTIGE PARTS IN SOME STATE LAWS.

  20. 2017 BC ELECTION
    PERCENT OF TOTAL VALID VOTES

    87 WIN 50.7

    3 GRN 2.1
    43 LIB 24.2
    41 NDP 24.4

    282 LOSE 49.3

    ADVANCED STUDENTS CAN DO THE TOTAL VOTES / PERCENTS FOR EACH PARTY
    — BUT — BIT MISLEADING SINCE ALL PARTIES DID NOT HAVE CANDIDATES IN ALL GERRYMANDER DISTRICTS.

    RIGHTWING VOTERS — BIT MIA IN LEFTWING B.C.


    PR AND APPV

  21. How Proportional Representation Works

    http://www.usparliament.org/stv.php

    JR, the equation written by Mike Ossipoff is the same one which I first started promoting in 1992 in Santa Cruz California.

    The link above has the equation by Ossipoff and by me, “Method #1” and “Method #2”, the same equation I spoke about at BAN headquarters in 1993 and as candidate in special election CA CD #17, on every ballot in California in my 1994 run for CA Gov, US President in 1996, when google copied my logo in 1997, and all other campaigns through 2012 when I won the MO primary.

    In 2018 Mark Herd, a CA State Libertarian exec, first coined the acronym PPR.

    We are still developing the wording for the mechanics of single transferable vote (STV) like in Cambridge Massachusetts because we lost or deleted the first instructions for STV by Ossipoff, written in 1992.

    So we refer to the STV statutes and proceedures of Cambridge Massachusetts, as we prepare the next updated wording for STV to replace Mike Ossipoff’s [Peace and Freedom].

    The world One Party, Green Party and Libertarian Party, will all three update the details of STV simultaneously and then we will label them PPR.

    Simply put, the Cambridge Massachusetts statutes are considered PPR.

    Not anywhere else in USA of which we are aware.

  22. @DR,

    What is the difference between electing one Democrat to a one member-legislature or 51 Democrats to a 100-member legislature?

    I think you are agreeing that weighting legislator votes by the exact number of persons who voted for them would be perfect, or at least excellent.

  23. @Joogle,

    Massachusetts has repealed the statutes under which Cambridge operates. The counting rules used in Cambridge are arcane, and almost impossible to correctly replicate in a hand count because they require serialization of all ballots.

    Elections to the city council and school board in Cambridge are nonpartisan. What are the results proportional to?

  24. The results should be proportional to the numerals marked on the paper ballots to elect and prioritize the names.

    Different civic groups and independents sometimes organize factions who may reach the 10% (plus one vote) Hagenbach-Bischoff quota/threshold in Cambridge Massachusetts.

    In regatds to the 1 Vs 100, a good analogy is “two heads are smarter than one”, now it’s 100 heads are smarter than one.

    The more the better.

  25. @Joogle,

    If Harry of the Harvard Harriers receives 12% of first preferences;
    Gloria of the Good Government League receives 10% of first preferences;
    and Edward of the Educated Egoist Elite receives 8% of first preferences,

    why should they be equally elected? That is not proportional.

  26. JR wrote –

    What is the difference between electing one Democrat to a one member-legislature or 51 Democrats to a 100-member legislature?

    I think you are agreeing that weighting legislator votes by the exact number of persons who voted for them would be perfect, or at least excellent.

    1 in 1 = 100 percent

    51 in 100 = 51 percent [body should have an odd number]

    exact number of persons — exact is exact (no need for other adjectives)

    — should be via Condorcet — likely in Districts in larger bodies.
    —-
    With special law for Cambridge, Mass repealed — is PR also repealed there ???

    IE – a statewide law now controls the Cambridge city council election system ???

    Related — see the about 15 Amdts to the 1780 (repeat 1780) Mass Const about the gerrymanders for the Mass legislature.

    See *Droop Quota* vs Hagenbach-Bischoff quota/threshold.

    With prior PR system in Cambridge about 10 percent of votes were *wasted* — did NOT elect anybody

    — PPR would violate exact PR math.

    ONE vote per Legis = at least 3 members — at least 1 in minority.

    EXACT Votes = at least 2 Members — at least 1 in minority.

    Legis body size — some connection of Total Voters / Total members

    — and legislative subjects jurisdiction — nation / state / local or just nation / local.

    Many smaller local legis bodies have only 4 or 5 members.

    PR and AppV — pending Condorcet.

  27. JR, the simple majority 50% (plus one vote) will always be the foundation principle in PPR, just as 10% (plus one vote) will always elect the first consecutively ranked name(s) to the nine-member Cambridge Massachusetts City Council in round one.

  28. @DR,

    Massachusetts has a number of different government plans for cities. See MGL Chapter 43, Section 1.

    Plan A and B Mayor and City Council. Plans A and B differ whether the entire city council is elected at large or by a mixture of wards and at-large.

    Plan C Mayor and Commissioners

    Plan D City Council, with one member acting as mayor, and a city manager (mayor is more head of state than head of government)

    Plan E City council elected by proportional representation, with selected mayor and city manager.

    Plan F like Plan B but with partisan elections.

    Plan E still exists but new cities may not adopt it, and supposedly it was made easier to qualify an initiative to repeal it. It was implemented in six Massachusetts cities, but was repealed in all but Cambridge. There were several attempted repeals, but it was voted down.

    The “wasted vote” is a bit misleading and if you think that the difference between the Droop quota and Hagenbach-Bischoff are material when the quota is around 2000 as it is in Cambridge you are wrong.

  29. @Joogle,

    If a candidate receives 13% of the first preference, and only receives 11.1% of the seats on the city council, that is hardly proportional.

  30. JR, once the candidate reaches 10% (plus one vote), the name is elected.

    Additional votes for the name of that elected candidate, then will go to the voter’s 2nd choice.

    The threshold is always 10% (plus one vote) to elect nine names, nine names always get elected with the same 10% (plus one vote) threshold and there is always a guaranteed voter satisfaction level of 90% (plus nine votes).

    Which part isn’t proportional?

    In PPR, the thresholds are always guaranteeing the same equal threshold for all the seats, the lowest threshold possible which protects equal treatment for all in every election no matter how many seats which are set by the cap on the seats.

  31. Twenty-seven candidates for nine seats in 2017?

    Three times the names as are seats for City Council?

    One thing is for sure. The interest in participation does appear to be slowed under pure proportional representation (PPR).

    According to the figures in the preceding post, the percent of voters which elected representation appears to be over 88%. That’s less that the 90% (plus nine votes) I had stated earlier but not by much.

    The 88% satisfaction level can’t be improved under any other voting system electing nine seats because PPR is the best.

    Google and the party bosses have done everything they can to keep their customers in the dark but the United Coalition USA has been using parliamentary procedures under pure proportional representation (PPR) for more than twenty-three consecutive years and PPR works best.

    http://www.international-parliament.org/ucc-p7-usa.html

  32. JR wrote-

    So you support PR, and whatever method the BC voters approve.

    —-
    Sorry –

    I will NOT support *whatever method the BC voters approve*

    — since ALL 3 methods are DEFECTIVE as stated several times.

    LOTS of political JUNK goes on — about which the voters have ZERO control —

    such as what HACKS rigged the BC question and picked the 3 DEFECTIVE methods.

  33. @DR,

    Your ballot indicated that you wanted BC to switch to PR, and you indicated no preference as to which of the three variants was chosen.

    The election officials are not going to hold your ballot to their forehead and try to discern what you really want.

    If you haven’t actually mailed in your ballot yet, you might want to change it.

  34. The now ancient comment was —

    If you were in BC how would you vote?

    1. Vote for ONE.

    [ ] Retain FPTP
    [ ] Proportional Representation

    2. Rank your three choices.

    [ ] DMP
    [ ] MMP
    [ ] RUMP

    —-
    Yours truly — NOT in BC —
    Theory Vote
    1. PR
    2. NOTA — for stated reasons above.

    Valid vote if only 1. PR is voted ???

    BC voters taking notice of NB gerrymander results / machinations ???

  35. Due to the actual use of MMP in Germany and New Zealand [ex- Brit gerrymander colony — that had a number of new Brunswick type gerrymander CRISIS results] —

    I rashly estimate that IF PR is approved, then MMP will be the PR choice.

    IF none of the 3 PR methods gets majority approval, THEN the EVIL ROTTED OLIGARCHY HACKS will have a field day rigging the system.

    Can the reborn 1865 USA Union Army/Navy make it to BC and liberate the area ???

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