Campaign Costs Under STV in Ireland are Much Lower than in BC

BC-STV opponents claim that campaign costs would increase under BC-STV, but data that they themselves have gathered and posted shows the exact opposite.

In 2005, according to submissions made to Elections BC and posted by opponent group secretary David Schreck, the Liberals spent $7,758,375, the NDP spent $5,884,001 and the Greens spent $281,448.

In contrast, as reported by the Irish Standards in Public Office Commission, the amount spent by the Irish parties was considerably lower than this. The largest party, Fianna Fáil, spent €3,650,241 (at the exchange rate of the day, €1 = C$1.4612, this amounted to $5,333,472, or only 69% of what the Liberals spent). The second place party, Fine Gael, spent €2,809,474 (C$4,105,203), or only 70% of what the NDP spent. The Irish Greens outspent their Canadian counterparts at €553,859 (C$809,299), but of course they won 6 seats on 4.7% of the vote, so their ability to win seats under STV probably made it easier to raise money.

Note that these figures do not include the considerable amounts the parties raise and spend outside of election campaigns. For example, a recent story in the Tyee states that the BC Liberals raised $7.9M in 2008 and spent $8.5M, while the BC NDP raised $2.9M and spent $3.3M.

Another consideration is that in BC, parties spend much more in the few competitive ridings and largely ignore the safe ridings. In contrast, in Ireland all districts are competitive and parties have to spend comparable amounts of money everywhere.

In summary, for the same sized population, parties in Ireland spend less than 70% as much as BC parties to contest many more competitive seats. There is therefore no truth to opponents' claims that campaigning under STV will cost more than under our current flawed first-past-the-post system.