The dream of proportional representation dies again; long live pro rep

I campaigned during the first and second referendums we had here in BC regarding proportional representation.

We won the first one. 58% of voters voted yes for the Citizen Assembly recommendation to implement the Single Transferrable Vote. But the BC Liberals had set the “binding” threshold, arbitrarily, at 60%. And the Liberals here in BC are especially right wing and I wasn’t surprised when they held firm and didn’t implement it. After all, they benefit from First Past the Post.

In 2009 the yes-for-PR vote went down. We only got 39% of the vote. The total number of votes also went down; from 1.7 million in 2005 to 1.65 million in 2009 (a 6% drop in eligible voters). I took it pretty hard. As I recall, many core NDP’ers voted against STV in 2009.

Anyway, 2018. Ugh.

Bleh.

The total votes dropped to 1.4 million. And 61% voted to keep our existing two party system, First Past the Post. Frack.

One no-voter told me that they voted against PR because they want more independent MLAs in office. ¹

This exit polling suggests there were two groups of people who were high percentage no-voters: 1. right wingers, 2. old people. And this time, NDPers came out strong in favour of proportional representation.

Frack.

In 2018, 845,175 BC’ers voted to keep FPTP.

In 2005, 1,009,193 BC’ers voted to replace FPTP. The 2005 referendum was more decisive.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯