Little support for electoral reform, UNBC survey finds

A new survey conducted by undergraduate students at UNBC on the topic of electoral reform may be cause for political watchers in B.C. to sit up and take note.

The online survey, which drew in 1,360 completed responses from all regions of the province, is a rare gauge of political opinion on the subject of electoral reform in B.C. The survey was conducted by 16 undergraduate political science students of a Canadian Politics and Policy class at UNBC. Most notably, the survey found that 50.9 per cent of respondents favoured the current first-past-the-post electoral system, although responses varied by region.

According to a report summarizing the results, the online survey was conducted between March 14 and 26. Responses were collected through the sharing of an internet link of the questionnaire, delivered through Survey Monkey, an online survey app. The link was circulated in a variety of ways, including through social media. Screening questions were used for controls and to protect the integrity of the research.

A referendum on the subject is scheduled for the fall and has already been a topic of heated debate in Victoria.

Respondents in the Okanagan and the Interior, who together accounted to 16 per cent of participants, had the highest support for proportional representation. The remaining regions of the province, including the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, strongly favoured the current system. Northern B.C., which accounted for the largest number of the survey’s respondents by a large margin, saw 49.9 per cent support for the first-past-the-post system and 33.8 per cent in favour of proportional representation.

As with all regions, a significant amount of northern participants (15.3 per cent) were unsure which system they preferred.

The survey also indicated that opinions on the subject of electoral reform broke down along partisan lines.

“More than 75 per cent of those that identify with the B.C. Liberals supported the status quo,” wrote the authors of the survey in the report.

“Almost 80 per cent of B.C. NDP supporters and more than 90 per cent of Green Party adherents supported change to proportional representation,” the authors added.

The report received higher participation from B.C. Liberal supporters, at 50.2 per cent, while 15.1 per cent supported the B.C. NDP.

Green Party supporters accounted for 12.3 per cent of respondents.

According to UNBC political science instructor Jason Morris, who oversaw the work of the students, the idea for the survey grew out of a similar survey undertaken by the provincial government in February.

Students felt that the province’s How We Vote public engagement process was confusing and overly long.

“It was very poorly done, in the opinion of our class, in terms of how a properly designed survey should be done,” Morris said.

“The students wanted to try to do a better job, not just to poke sticks at the government but to show that what they learned, they could apply and do in a rigorous manner.”

The survey received significantly more support – and recirculation – by B.C. Liberal MLAs than those of the B.C. NDP.

“The class only received assistance from the B.C. Liberal Party and got almost no responses to any contacts, from any party, besides the B.C. Liberal Party,” the report said.

While some B.C. NDP staffers took to circulating the survey through social media, B.C. Liberal MLAs such as former attorney general Suzanne Anton and Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond enthusiastically circulated the survey’s link on Twitter.

Respondents also tended to skew as either being in the older or younger end of the spectrum. Fifty-eight per cent of respondents were over the age of 45, but a significantly high number (16.8 per cent) were in the 18-24 age range.

Interestingly, the current delivery of the upcoming referendum seems to have been identified as the least popular amongst respondents. Most respondents favoured an online referendum, but in-person voting also drew significantly more support. The November 2018 referendum will be conducted via mail-in ballot.

Morris said he plans to present the survey before the B.C. Political Studies Association’s annual conference in May at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. He said the student survey is notable, in part because few polling companies seek out large samples of political opinions from B.C.’s north. The survey gathered 605 responses from the north.

“A professional polling company would be charging $8,000-$10,000 for that kind of information. It’s a great resource!” Morris said.