First past the post: unfair and unreliable.
For 150 years, British Columbia has used the "first past the post" or "winner takes all" voting system. While still used in Britain, the US, and Canada, most other countries have moved to fairer election systems in which voters are free to support the candidate or party that best reflect their values.
In BC, half the voters support a losing candidate and voters who support smaller parties typically never win any representation at all, not even vicariously through a winner elsewhere in the province.
First past the post is an adversarial system designed to produce majority governments. It was never designed to serve a diverse population or to encourage cooperative politics.
For BC, we have constantly had awkward results.
In 2001, the result was so lopsided that 43% of the votes only elected 2 MLAs and BC had no official opposition.
In 2005, over 13% of voters voted for smaller parties that received no seats, and half of British Columbians are represented by an MLA who they did not vote for.
There are many problems and frustrations with how we vote:
- Seats won often do not come close to matching the popular vote. One party usually wins over half of the seats while receiving less than half the votes.
- Only voters who live in one of the few swing ridings get a serious campaign; the rest or the province is often ignored.
- In the many "safe seats" around the province, MLAs have very little accountability and lack any real competition at election time.
- Voters are presented with a false choice and feel they have to vote strategically against a party, instead of supporting their favourite candidate.
- Local communities often feel disconnected with their MLAs and have no voice between elections.
- Those who support smaller parties do not have any representation in the legislature.