FPTP still the fairest system

Dear editor: Some observations on proportional representation.

Perhaps I'm not best at the math, but with the low threshold by the NDP-Greens, B.C. may have a new way of voting with perhaps 14 per cent of the returned ballots.

One thousand ballots went out, perhaps 400 are returned. (It is a referendum). From those 400 returned ballots, Eby said 50-per-cent plus one is just fine. So, perhaps 201 ballots choose PR. Now 20 per cent of the legible ballots are choosing a new way to vote.

OK, we evidently have three choices of PR. So perhaps it goes 140 votes MMP and the other two choices totaled 61 votes.

Tell me the math shows B.C. could have a new way to vote, complete with party lists, with perhaps 14 per cent of the returned ballots.

Give me 40 per cent of voters in a first-past-the-post system any day. Much more democratic than this exercise.

The choice of voting for a candidate and the next vote on the ballot is for a party without knowing ahead of time who the candidate will be is democratic how?

Combining ridings after the fact by an independent arbiter? The last thing Eby is is independent.

This process is nothing but an attempt by the NDP never to be wiped out 77-2 again.

If parties presented a well thought out, costed platform, what is wrong with voting for this option and in four years they are proven to be incompetent, they simply get voted out?

Careful what you wish for, a rise of say the conservative party, may well leave the NDP-Greens back in political hinterland again and this attempt to employ politicians without directly being voted in will have backfired.

FPTP is the best of the worst options currently available, and yes every votes counts, regardless which candidate one votes for. Chris Blann

Naramata

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