Fear-mongering by fans of FPTP

Dear Editor: The fundamental principle of democracy is that the will of the majority should prevail. It is not that the party with the largest minority should have authoritarian, one party government control and rule unfettered of effective challenges to, or serious moderation of, any of its policies for four years.

This is what the current system almost always delivers and it’s unfair and basically undemocratic.

It is the system Jon Peter Christoff claims to prefer (Courier letters, Aug. 22).

This is why the fans of the current, firstpast-the-post system don’t laud its fairness or strong democratic function. They can’t, because those essential features aren’t part of FPTP. Instead, they resort to arguing its many debatable features and parroting fearmongering claims about the evils of proportional representation.

So rather than listening to the apologists for the current system or even to what I say, learn why we need to modernize our voting system to a proportional one and what would be better with a new system, by visiting: www.fairvote.ca/first-past-postmust-go. For an impartial assessment of all electoral systems on the referendum ballot go to the independent, non-partisan people who run all voting in the province, Elections BC, at www.elections.bc.ca/referendum/voting-systems. Terry W. Robertson

Kelowna