Vancouver Sun

Vancouver councillor calls for random, not alphabetiz­ed ballot lists of candidates

- JOANNE LEE-YOUNG jlee-young@postmedia.com

Of all the things, it’s often the “ABCD bias” that gets debated after many a municipal election.

Do last names beginning with the first few letters of the alphabet have an edge? Could it be that an Aaron Appleby has an unfair advantage over a Zack Zenin because voters are more apt to pick from the top of an alphabetiz­ed list?

Along with others, Vancouver city Coun. Andrea Reimer thinks the answer is yes.

And now that she isn’t running in the next election and can’t be seen as trying to shuffle up her last name for her own gain, she is putting forward a motion to have ballot names be listed randomly, rather than alphabetic­ally.

“I cannot tell you the dozens and dozens of times (over a period of 20 years) when I have been trying to recruit people to public office — whether it be saying to someone, ‘You would be a fantastic councillor or school trustee or mayor’ — and the No. 1 thing they say is, ‘Well, with the ABCD (alphabetic­al listing of names), do I really have a shot?’ ”

Says Reimer: “It’s hard to imagine that as we work toward trying to improve democracy and we are looking at campaign finance and electoral reform, that it’s this that is top-of-mind.”

Apparently, she says, 60 per cent of Vancouver’s current councillor­s have names starting with A, B, C or D, even though only 33 per cent of the council candidates who ran in the last election and byelection had last names starting with those letters. More compelling for Reimer is that listing names alphabetic­ally may also be disadvanta­geous to last names in an ethnic or cultural way, and be “particular­ly negative on people who have last names that are Chinese, South Asian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese or Latino — among others — as people from these cultures are much less likely to have last names that start with A, B, C or D.”

“For Chinese names, there are few Ws or Zs. For (many) Scottish names, they will be right in the middle of the pack,” she says.

After the last municipal election, former Vancouver Sun reporter Chad Skelton looked at the issue, asking, “Do people with ABC surnames really get more votes?”

He analyzed vote totals for more than 3,000 candidates for mayor, council and school board from across B.C. and concluded the data said no, but perhaps, “there are a lot more people on the ballot with those surnames.” Analysts jumped in with their takes and sent in academic studies, including ones about ballot order in British municipal elections, which showed that, in fact, it does matter where a surname places a candidate.

Says Bryan Breguet, who teaches economics at Langara College and makes election projection­s: “There is a fairly strong case that ballot order matters, but either way, you can reverse the burden of proof. Why would you be against a random list?”

“My own feeling is that there are academic literature studies which feel conclusive and others that don’t,” says Reimer. “But if there is any possibilit­y of a bias, whether it’s a perception or if there is real harm, why not just do it?”

In fact, Reimer’s longtime sparring partner on council, NPA Coun. George Affleck, agrees with her: “For every study that says there is a bias, there is another that says there isn’t.”

He jokingly signed his email reply to Postmedia News: “George AAAAAAflec­k,” but says, in all seriousnes­s, that he had been drafting his own motion, asking for the same thing. “I might get a bump (from my last name being at the top), but I also work hard, and I raise money, and I expand my network, so I don’t want people thinking I’m here because of my name ( beginning with an A).”

Reimer says the Vancouver Charter, which thought that alphabetic­al bias might be a problem, allows for candidates to be ordered by one random draw.

Beyond doing just this, she thinks there are additional options that would “truly randomize ballots,” such as doing 20 draws to allow for more ballots with differentl­y ordered names.

There is a fairly strong case that ballot order matters, but either way, you can reverse the burden of proof ...

 ??  ?? Andrea Reimer
Andrea Reimer

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