PR will increase voter turnout

Dear editor: This fall in B.C., a mail-in referendum on proportional representation needs just over 50 per cent to pass. Voter turnout is important.

It appears our present first-past-the-post voting system has not encouraged voter turnout. Voter turnout has been more and more dismal over the past number of election cycles.

The present system presents a simple ballot and a simple outcome. No need to get the most votes, just more than any one of the two or three other candidates. Thirty per cent can easily win a seat in the legislature. Discouraging outcomes dampen voter enthusiasm.

A proportional representation ballot would be less simple, but with pro rep, one need not bypass a good candidate or party in favour of one whose worth we doubt just to prevent a win by a candidate or party we reject.

A letter writer warned that in pro rep, MLAs selected from a party list are “answerable only to party headquarters.”

In B.C. today, unless elected as an independent, MLAs are under the party whip when the house calls a vote. MLAs generally fall in with party line.

I’m for proportional representation because I believe it will do us good to engage with a process that is bound to provide fairer and more robust democratic governance.

A pro rep system will draw more of us to the polls and that will be a good thing.

Dave Cursons, Cawston