BC-STV: Makes politicians earn your vote.

The Single Transferable Vote is the best electoral system for provincial or municipal politics.

With our current system, our political system is dominated by machine politics, in which the party with the most efficient get out the vote and messaging machine will usually win the majority of the seats. Campaigns are dominated by attack advertisements and elections often focus on wedge issues which parties use to try and discredit their own opposition.

It is rare that any politician will vote against their own party or stand up for a local issue. Opposition MLAs will have more freedom, but ridings who elect an opposition MLA are often unfairly cut out of government largesse and voters in the riding have no one to hold to account.

With the Single Transferable Vote, the dynamics of government will change dramatically, and the winner will be the voters. As a result of real competition for seats, politicians will be forced to keep constantly on their toes for issues that affect their constituents.

In a typical STV districts, 12-15 candidates will likely compete for 4 or 5 seats. Because of this, no candidate will be able to hide behind their party name or rely upon a larger machinery to guarantee themselves a position.

Those who get elected are those who make a niche in their community through their activism, hard work, and attention to community issues. They will need to carve out their area of support, some candidates may focus on being the best local MLA for a portion of the district, while others may target broader basis such as the business community of environmental issues.

It will no longer be enough for candidates to make some expensive election promise on behalf of their party every four years or to run a negative campaign, as with increased competition will reward politicians who stand up for their community, visit the most seniors homes and schools, and who earn a reputation as the MLA to go to when you need problems solved. This means that voters get real representation and their issues addressed between elections.

When an issue that does affect your community comes up, you no longer have to gamble with addressing your single MLA as to whether they will (or can) support it. Now, with four MLAs, you are far more likely to find someone to champion your issue and your concern. If it is a serious issue you may get two, three or even four MLAs standing behind it.

From a voters perspective, your concern could now have 4 out of 85 MLAs help accountable for the issue, rather than putting the pressure on one lone MLA is a sea or partisan bickering. This also puts pressure from members from across party lines to work together on the issue that affect your community as all could be held accountable for it. When the votes are counted, who wants to be seen as the lazy or less effective of your MLAs. Your MLAs may not agree on all issues, but there will be much more incentive to take a common stand when serious issues affect the entire community.

From a voters perspective, you can feel confident that going into the next election you have the ability to reward the candidate who you felt best helped your community by ranking them 1, while you could also give other candidates your second or third choice in case your first choice is eliminated or received more votes than they needed.

This really does make a single vote more powerful and more meaningful to politicians.

Each election, you will have the ability to support the existing MLAs, or if they failed to represent you, choose someone new to replace them.

With our current electoral system, we really have no way of getting new talent into the legislature unless a current MLA retires or the riding switches parties or getting an ineffective representative our except for voting for someone from another ideological perspective. With BC-STV, voters could have the opportunity to swap out the least effective MLAs to give a new voice a chance. This may be swapping a sitting liberal/ndp with someone from their party, or may be a Green or independent getting enough votes to make it in.

However, we may have all of the MLAs re-elected if voters in a district felt they all did a good job. As a voter, if I supported a candidate and knew that I was fairly and effectively represented, what more can I really ask for.