BC referendum on changing electoral system

[mileslunn]

This year BC will have a mail in ballot about switching to some undefined proportional representation system.  Whether it will be a straight up a choice between keeping FTFP and a particular form of PR or a ranked choice between multiple forms of PR and FTFP, it is still undecided.  It will be a mail in ballot in November.  What are people's thoughts on this and how likely do you think it is to pass.  Also what if it is really close and large swaths of the province vote against it, could this cause problems as a clear win or defeat would resolve it but a close result probably means it won't be the last we here on it.  Any thoughts?

[mileslunn]

Is that constitutional in Canada?

It is a provincial so absolutely.  On a national level I believe switching to PR would be constitutional as long as the number of seats in each province is not less than what they had in 1976 and less than the senate.  It's changes to the senate which need constitutional amendment, but I don't believe switching electoral system does.  For one, BC used ranked ballots in the 1952 election, but then reverted to first past the post in 1953 so it has been done before.

[mileslunn]

Do we know if there would be more options on the ballot than STV or FPTP as presented above? If so, there is a good chance nothing will come from this, since there is little chance a single choice would get a confident majority with a 3+ way ballot. And of course, waiting on the vote and having a second round in this scenario to decide between top two creates an high uncertainty period where the narrow government majority could fall...

I think MMP is more likely than STV, since we rejected STV twice.  It would be an instant run off so if none got over 50%, the least popular would be dropped off and their second choices redistributed.  If the government falls before July 2021, the old system of FTFP will be used so only if they fall after July 1, 2021 does the new system take effect if it passes.

In terms of geographic breakdown, I suspect the Interior will be the highest negative against, rural Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland suburbs probably in between while I suspect Vancouver proper and Victoria proper should go heavily in favour.  It seems support for PR is heavily correlated with population density so the higher the population density of a riding the more likely it is to vote in favour.

[mileslunn]

The 2005 referendum was done after a lengthy citizen's assembly delegated on the matter, plus it followed two provincial elections which resulted in results being wildly off of the popular vote.

In 1996, the NDP won a majority with fewer votes than the Liberals and in 2001 the Liberals won 97% of the seats with 58% of the vote.

I suspect the odd result of last year's election will also help reform win.

I think more Trudeau's broken promise will motivate those who want change to come out.  The NDP winning nationally seems unlikely anytime soon and neither the Liberals or Conservatives will change it federally unless forced to so if implemented in BC and works well that will put more pressure on the feds to switch.  The results in the last election actually while not proportional were fairly reasonable in that the party that got the most votes (BC Liberals) got the most seats, but since they only barely won the popular vote, they only finished slightly ahead in seats and thus no majority.  The Greens who got 17% of the vote got seats and the 57% who voted for a progressive government got one.  Now had Courtenay-Comox gone BC Liberal then people might have felt differently.  Ironically the BC Conservatives did in some ways cost the BC Liberals a majority as they only ran in 10 seats, but two of those were Courtenay-Comox and Maple Ridge-Mission where BC Liberal + BC Conservative exceeded NDP vote.  Mind you NDP + Greens got more votes than the BC Liberals + BC Conservatives in the majority of ridings in the province.

[mileslunn]

Also, now that I think about it, would a mixed system work? Either make the BC parliament half elected by pure PR (say, party lists or STV) and half by FPTP, or making a "BC Senate" which is elected proportionally.

I guess that could be an acceptable compromise right?

Essentially that is what MMP would be: Look at NZ or Scotland, Germany... they use mixed FPTP electorates and PR seats (either national like NZ and Germany, or multiple member regions like Scotland)

I mean uncorrelated. As in, the PR seats aren't meant for correcting anything. I think the actual system is called Mixed Member Majoritarian and is what Japan uses?

Or just plain making a "BC senate" which is elected by PR.

It would probably be MMP rather than MMM the former being what Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales use while the latter being what Mexico and Japan use.  The former means proportional seats compensate for those who overperform in constituency seats while MMM means they act independent of each other so is not PR, but is more proportional than FTFP.  The one thing that may make it slightly less proportional as I suspect to avoid a backlash in the interior they will keep the ridings as is in the North so unless they have overhang seats, it might be possible for one to get a majority without a majority of votes by doing really well in the constituency seats.  If they didn't have overhang seats, Merkel would have a majority with 1/3 of the popular vote.

[mileslunn]

If you have a MMP system, with enough proportional seats to ensure that the overall result is proportional to the provincial list votes, it would be unnecessary to worry about using ranked choice voting in the single member ridings or to be concerned about the exact riding boundaries. Even if the single member seats produce a grossly disproportional result, this would be corrected by the list seats.

The problem here is to do this you would either have to make the provincial legislature a lot larger which might be a tough sell (i.e. costs more tax dollars) or you would have to make the ridings bigger so there are fewer constituency seats.  The latter would be a non-issue in the Lower Mainland, but a major issue in the Interior as many of the Northern ridings are larger than some European countries and take several hours to drive across so making them even larger wouldn't go over well.  Most countries that use PR have much higher population densities so this is less of an issue.  After all BC has 1/17th the population of Germany yet 2.5x the landmass.

[mileslunn]

Anyone have maps?

Looking at the results I wonder how would the referendum have looked like if instead it was about making it a 2nd round election (a la France, or some American states).

I dont think it would make much of a difference to be honest.

Not the same question, but if the 2017 election had been conducted under those rules, NDP might have a clear majority.

Liberals won Fraser-Nicola, Richmond-Queensborough, Coquitom-Burke Mountain, and Vancouver-False Creek, narrow margins.

In a runoff, these could easily have flipped if Green voters only slightly favored NDP.

This would give a NDP 45, Liberal 41, Green 3 majority.

The NDP absolutely would have won a majority under those rules, although contrary to some others claim, I think BC Liberals would have still won in 2005, 2009, and 2013 but just barely.  Usually after a party has been in power for 16 years it is tough to be re-elected no matter what.  In fact most other parties that have been in power that long have suffered much worse defeats.

[mileslunn]

Whatever. FPP is still an undemocratic abomination.

A lot in the academic community would agree with this, but for the average voter in the street, I think most have limited knowledge of other electoral systems and since ours has served us well since 1867, there isn't a huge outcry to change.  I think Chretien's remark that PR is only great for unelectable professors was absolutely right on the money