ELECTORAL REFORM ANYTHING BUT SIMPLE
NDP government’s two-headed ballot is as contrived as it is confusing
When Attorney General David Eby crafted his report to cabinet on the public consultations for an electoral reform referendum, he faced a problem.
The consultations, though trumpeted by the NDP as “the largest in provincial history,” did not provide a clear direction on how the fall ballot-by-mail should be put together.
“There was no consensus from the public engagement questionnaire on the ballot structure,” to quote the report issued Wednesday over Eby’s signature. “There is no apparent consensus respecting which voting systems should appear on the referendum ballot.”
Happily for the New Democrats, Eby found a way to overcome the lack of clear input from the public.
“The website questionnaire (was) not treated as an opinion poll with the most popular responses always being reflected in the Attorney-General’s recommendations,” says his report. “The responses to the questionnaires are one of a number of forms of input considered by the Attorney- General.”
Eby cherry-picked the feedback, producing recommendations for a two-ballot structure that would appear to suit the NDP preference for proportional representation.
The first question would ask British Columbians to choose between the current first-past-the-post system or an unspecified version of proportional representation.
This despite the view, expressed elsewhere in the report, that such a matchup invites “an apples to oranges comparison” between “a specific voting system (FPTP) versus a concept (PR).”
Presuming the PR concept came out on the winning side, a second ballot in the same mail-out would offer a choice among three systems chosen by Eby: “Dual member proportional, mixed member proportional and rural-urban proportional.”
The first and third options are not in place anywhere. MMP was specifically rejected for B.C. by an independent citizens’ assembly on electoral reform because of a concern that it would undercut local representation.
Each option is described at length in appendices to the report. None would appear to measure up to Eby’s preference for a system that meets the test of “simplicity.”
His report also says that in the material provided to voters with the ballot-by-mail, the three systems should be “described in sufficient detail to ensure voters know what they are voting for.” But it is not clear that will be the case.
The 2009 referendum on electoral reform included maps of how electoral districts would change under the proposed system of single transferable votes (STV ). The presentation mattered to voters in the North and B.C. Interior, where ridings that already straddled mountain ranges and rivers were ticketed to become even larger under STV.
This time, no maps. Not enough time to produce them, said Eby. A while back his ministry gave the same excuse in rejecting a call for another citizens’ assembly: “We do not have time — we have been given fairly tight timelines.”
The timelines were imposed by Eby, not some mysterious outside agency. But there he was again Wednesday, touting “my actual and perceived neutrality throughout this referendum process.”
To quote what broadcaster Bill Good said recently about B.C.’s six-foot-seven attorney general, the only term less applicable to him than “neutral” is “short.”
As for the merits of his two-ballot system, one can readily come up with a scenario that would deliver a perverse outcome.
Assume the referendum attracts about the same turnout as the last provincial election, meaning two million voters from the 3.2 million or so names on the voting list. Assume, too, that on the first ballot, proportional representation carries the day by a margin of 55 per cent.
On those expectations, about 1.1 million voters would be marking the second ballot to choose among the three options. Eby envisions a runoff, where voters would mark second and third choices to ensure that eventually one option would emerge with a majority. Still, in a three-way split, the eventual winner might be the first choice of only, say, 450,000 of those marking the second ballot. Or, to put it another way, the first choice of about 15 per cent of eligible voters and maybe 23 per cent of those who voted in the referendum.
Eby is also proposing to leave some aspects of the new system to be decided only after the voters make their choice.
“These design details can have a significant effect on how a voting system works in practice,” the Eby report admits.
Eby would put the decisions on those after-the-fact design details in the hands of an all-party committee of the legislature, which would inevitably have a majority of New Democrats and Greens.
In the power-sharing agreement they signed a year ago this week, both parties pledged “to consult British Columbians to determine the form of proportional representation that will be put to a referendum” and then “campaign actively” for it.
Note the singular — “the form of proportional representation that will be put to a referendum.” Not the three versions of PR that will be put to a referendum in a two-headed ballot that is as contrived as it is confusing.
But that didn’t keep the Green house leader Sonja Furstenau from “me-tooing ” her way through a news conference that endorsed Eby’s recommendations in all major respects.
Premier John Horgan also defended Eby’s recommendations with enthusiasm during question period Wednesday, even losing his cool at one point in defending it to the B.C. Liberals.
So not much doubt that Eby’s deck-stacking is the way of the future for the fall referendum.
To quote what broadcaster Bill Good said recently about B.C.’s six-foot-seven attorney general, the only term less applicable to him than ‘neutral’ is ‘short.’