I'd say we don't get much value from voting. What's the point in me voting in North Vancouver? I can tell you right now it's going to be 4 Liberals.

It's a waste of everyone's time with FPTP because we all know the result.

from what i understand, STV was *the ONLY option* the citizens assembly talked about. People have written in letters-to-the-editor and called in radio shows about how they went to discuss other options, and were muzzled. It was basically a year long push by the stv proponents, who didn't even discuss other avenues.

are you kidding me?! under STV, more people than ever will vote their parties full slate of candidates. i don't have to know ANYTHING about my candidates, because 99.9% of people HAVE to follow their party. parties will become THAT much more powerful, because in order to get elected, you will need to affiliate yourself with one. what was the statistic? of all the nations that use STV, there have been ZERO independants ever elected? (i heard something like that on the radio, didn't research it to check it's validity though)

I can see it now. people with last names starting with the letters A or B or C will have the highest number of "1" votes .. and people with Z last names will have lower nubmered votes.

my friend actually suggested something that would take power away from parties. on the ballot, do NOT put any affiliations down. only their name. that way the voter has to at least know who they are voting for.

although a person like me, votes by ideology, and not by what a person has to offer. i'll vote for a mentally retarded 6 yr old if they are in the party that i want to win.

When alcohol was re-legalized after prohibition, bootlegging came to a halt pretty quick...

I can't decide who to vote for, I have likes and dislikes for all three major parties.

This is the only good thing I can think of that will come from STV, it'll show the NDP that when they run candidates against each other, their "proportional representation" system doesn't work and only results in their mandated candidates losing.

But the numbers are real cause we know BC is a 2 party system and the greens will only get a handful of seats. So if either the Libs or NDP end up with a minority, they have to cater to the Greens, and 42 or 44% of voters lose out while 10% win huge.

No thanks. Until there is a viable 3rd party, STV does not make sense. No chicken before the egg BS either that STV will create a viable Green party. If enough people supported the Greens it would show up in the popular vote, instead they only get 10%.

Accountability needs to be in ANY government, it doesn't come from votes.

Then move.

Even STV doesn't solve this problem if you live in an area with overwhelming support for a single party. The rural areas will be very similar.

I think the talk was about Ireland and Malta. Bill Tieleman wrote in the Vancouver Sun that Malta has not elected an independent since the 1950's.

BC has not elected an independent since 1949. The resources needed to compete against a major party are simply not available to people. STV could mean more independents elected, but wouldn't guarantee it.

On the ballot, candidates will be grouped by party. There won't be a lot list of names.

You're wrong. Ralph Sultan won in 2005 with the highest level of support for a riding. 68% of West Vancouver-Capilano voters picked him. No one else had that high a level of support in the province.

Even with that high support, and similar support across the North Shore, STV would likely elect 2 Liberals, 1 NDP, and 1 Green. Far closer results to real support than what we have now.

Rural ridings are less proportional because they are smaller. That was done intentionally to preserve local representation while still giving voters a choice.

Not much choices to pick from for me it is either GO GREEN or NO SHOW !

How am I wrong, you just posted that a Liberal candidate won overwhelming there, which was exactly my point.

I really hate the whining NDP voters about "my vote doesn't count". Its a 2 party system out here, either you're with the winning party or your not. FPTP, STV, or otherwise the NDP and Liberals have 42 and 44% of the vote respectfully and one will most likely take a majority of seats.

You mean it was done cause the NDP doesn't hope to win many rural seats with proportional representation.

I have taken note on trystv.ca that the districts were defined large enough to have enough MLAs that it gives the Greens a chance of winning at least 1 seat.

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Now here's a real STV question:
iIf Ralph Sultan wins with 68% and all he needed was 20%, then 48% will be transferred.

How? Randomly or statistically?

Lets say 50% of those who voted for Ralph picked a Liberal candidate next, 25% picked a NDP candidate next, and 25% picked a Green candidate next. I would assume that would be split evenly amoung the 48% transferred - please explain how that would work.

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Ultimately this is all moot. STV will fail and hopefully be history, cause there isn't a hope in hell of educating people on the issues.

whats so bad about the ndp? can someone clarify?

Let's recap....
The Fast ferries fiasco
They're proposing adding 3 billion to bc debt
increased liquor taxes
i'm not 100% sure, but many years that the NDP was in power they ran a pretty big deficit...they seem pretty fiscally incompetent, which to me is the most important issue.

Instead of the negative, how about the positive about the Liberals. Please read this:

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/...371/story.html

As for the NDP criticism of the Liberals, having moved from Ontario I can tell you what its like to have a "left" government in control.

The Ontario Liberals (unrelated to the BC Liberals, more like the BC NDP) dealt with it by adding a $500-1000 health care "fee" (aka tax) to every working person.

This is why we rightfully worry about the NDP increasing taxes, why the Liberals chose to cut services, as hard a choice as that is.

You are wrong because even in the part of BC where Liberal support is at its absolute highest, STV would allow other parties to be elected.

I don't know how they would do. In the 2 MLA Northeast riding the NDP would probably win 1 seat based on 2005 results. The vote was reasonably split.

Hardly. I don't think the Greens will be able to elect someone outside of the Lower Mainland. Anything less than 4 MLAs in a riding and their share of the vote is too small to elect an MLA.

Sure, no problem. Let's make it easier and just say Ralph got double the votes he needed. (Needed 20%, got 40%).

1) Ralph is elected. He has more than enough votes.

2) All of Ralph's ballots are sorted according to their #2 choice. (not a random selection and not just the excess)

3) Looking at a single vote, half of the value already went to electing Ralph. The unused half can be transferred to the #2 choice on that ballot.

So, if the #2 choice of Ralph's original 40% was split 20% Liberal, 10% NDP, 10% Green - the transferred amount would be 10% Liberal, 5% NDP, 5% Green.

Whatever.

Whatever keeps the other party's amount of seat down is good. If Liberal manages to get lousy later down the road, there will be overwhelming support for the other party; similar to how Liberal came into power 8 years ago.

The current system's crude. If not us, then I hope somebody in Canada gives STV a try so we can test it.

Everywhere else in life, ppl learn from before and find new and better ways of doing things. It's like we're still using those mainframe computers from 1960s when quad core CPUs are selling for $300. Think of how much better govt could be if we designed one based on what we've learned so far.

Maybe I'm out to lunch, I don't know.

Voter turnout is a good indicator of the political engagement of a society. If we have a higher voter turnout, we have more people who are engaged and who may actually want to be involved in politics - whether it's volunteering or running for political office.

Like most of us, I'll have to pinch my nose when I cast my ballot in this election. Elections shouldn't be this way - we should have leaders who are inspiring, intelligent, charasmatic, and so on. Instead, we have a leader who comes off as a whiner, a leader who's probably overstayed his welcome, and and old lady who should probably stick to knitting.

Even if the ndp had the better platform I couldn't bring myself to vote for carol James

I hate the NDP policies, yet hate ignorant voters even more.

Politics is not a popularity contest. Pick the candidate based on platform, not looks.

I'm on the fence.

The liberals are clearly the better economic choice, definately better for me in the construction sector.

But I can't stand Gordon Campbell. The liberals would be a whole lot easier to vote for if he wasn't their leader. It's STILL beyond me how the public basically forgave him for his drunk driving conviction. It was so awesome how he cried for the camera and said he grew up with an alcoholic father, and the public ate it up and said "It's okay gordo, people make mistakes".

Yeah well, you run a fucking province, YOU can't make mistakes, not like that.

And I can't stand his little leg humper Kevin Falcon either.


The NDP are the better social choice but yes they will blow money like before, on poorly thought out projects and social programs. And I can't stand Carole James either.

There's no hope. :(

Vote for a platform, not a person.

If you're going to vote for a person, try Jodie Emery, she's at least decent to look at.

http://www.greenparty.bc.ca/lisa-girbav

http://www.greenparty.bc.ca/files/20...a%20Girbav.JPG

Lisa Girbav is probably the hottest candidate running around. Just turned legal, too. :haha:

EDIT: From her FB profile!

http://profile.ak.facebook.com/v225/...60554_3720.jpg Someone hack into it for more! :D

http://www.cannabisculture.com/libra...ieJuly2006.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhsxE...layer_embedded

He was arrested in Maui many years ago while partying with radio personalities.

Big fucking deal. He didn't import drugs, he didn't kill someone while drunk (ala, Ted Kennedy), and he didn't use his power to get himself out of the situation. He took it like a man, and apologized in the end. The biggest part is that he hasn't done it again.

I'm all for holding these people to a higher standard, but one must also be able to let go of their past. The good things outweigh the bad, imho.


You can't stand the minister of transport in charge of building two new bridges, numerous roads, and is the man in charge of bringing our transportation into the future?

I don't get it.
But hey, that's democracy. I'd rather have this system where we can choose our leaders, than other system where the leaders are put in power due to family history, or supreme power.