Alternative voting in 1950s was neither ‘bizarre’ nor ‘crazy’

Re: B.C.’s first minority government kick-started Socred dynasty, May 11

The alternative vote used in B.C.’s 1952 and ’53 elections wasn’t a “bizarre” or “crazy” voting system as John Mackie and David Mitchell suggest.

The merits of the alternative vote had been debated decades before in the House of Commons, and it had been used in rural Alberta and Manitoba since the 1920s. Australia adopted it in 1918, and they use it to this day.

The system asks voters to rank candidates on their ballots in order of preference, to determine which candidate has majority support.

It took “weeks” to determine the results in 1952 for the same reason we’re waiting today: Absentee ballots.

Opposition CCF Leader Harold Winch may have called the 1950s’ legislation weird, fantastic, shameful, “perfidious, infamous, ignominious and contumelious,” but only because it was designed to hurt his party.

At the moment, the alternative vote is the Trudeau government’s preferred voting system; it’s being used to conduct the Conservative leadership race; London, Ont., just adopted it; and it’s used to choose the best-picture winner on Oscar night.

While some polls from the 1950s suggested the alternative vote didn’t have public support in B.C., it wasn’t a bizarre aberration then, and it’s even less bizarre today.

Stephen Harrison, author, The Alternative Vote in B.C.: Values Debates and Party Politics