Talk:Politics of British Columbia

Additions to present and explain multi-member districts

I think these additions are important - multi-member districts are not common in Canada politics especially ones conducted with block voting. Their elimination was a major electoral reform brought in in the province.

Traditional voting system BC unlike other provinces in Canada elected governments from the start until 1986 under a system that had a large number of its MLAs elected in multi-member constituencies, 2, 3 or 4 MLAs being elected in one district with voters having as many votes as there were seats to fill. This block voting system was not used often elsewhere (one exception is some places in Alberta in 1921). The effect of the use of multi-member districts in combination with the first-past-the-post electoral system was that governments were elected with far higher proportion of the seats than their proportion of the polar vote (itself skewed due to some voters having more votes to cast than other voters).

Electoral reform Main article: Electoral reform Elimination of multi-member districts After the 1986 election, block voting in multi-member districts were replaced by voters only have one vote each and electing single MLAs for each district, as was the norm in the other provinces. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.150.208.33 (talk) 07:39, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

1952 and 1953 One of the last acts of the Liberal-Conservative coalition government of the early 1950s was to introduce an alternative voting system, which was used in the 1952 general election and 1953 general election. The purpose of this system is to ensure that the winner has the the first (or later) preferences of a majority of the voters - it is not an attempt at Proportional Representation.

Rather than voting for one or more candidates by marking an “x” on their ballots, electors would rank their choices for the candidates running in their constituency by placing numbers next to the names of the candidates on the ballot. If a candidate received an absolute simple majority of votes, that candidate would be elected. If not, the candidate with the least number of votes was dropped and the second choices were allocated among the remaining candidates. This procedure would be repeated until a candidate received a majority of votes.

The presence of multi-member districts such as Victoria City with 3 MLAs in conjunction with the Alternative voting system called for an innovation where the district's slate of candidates was split into three "ballots," each with one candidate from each party. The weakness of the AV system at achieving proportional representation is shown by the fact that the three Victoria City seats were taken by one party (Liberals) although almost two-thirds of the first votes went to other (non-Liberal) candidates.[3]

The 1952 general election resulted in the election of enough candidates of the new Social Credit party to form a Socred minority government, with the CCF forming the official opposition. The Liberals were reduced to four members in the Legislature. The Conservatives (who changed their name to “Progressive Conservative” in tandem with their federal counterparts) were reduced to three.

The Socred minority government lasted only nine months. The alternate voting system was again employed for the ensuing general election. The result was a Socred majority. During this term of office, the Socreds abolished the new voting system and returned the province to the traditional voting system.[citation needed]

Pre-Party Period 1871-1903 requires writeup

'Nuff said, except that party politics are not the only kind of politics, which is the assumption built into the current article. Noted here for later writing, and for anyone else to offer material (Fishhead64 pls note). Skookum1 23:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Man no mention of all our scandals, damn, B politics is like 1999 general election 77-2, bingo gate, glen clark casino etc.

You've put a note in the 1871-1903 section about 1999. Wake up, and put your notes where they belong. As for scandals, the two you've so Socreddishly invoked are the tip of the iceberg and not "the worst scandals in BC's history" as NeoLibs and ex-Socred types always paint them; try out the 1871-1903 period, and don't try and sweep Social Credit graft under the carpet. I think one reason the Politics (and History) sections/pages aren't fully written is because of the volatility of the details; BC is a very political place and its history is too involved to write dispassionately or impartially, not at least without losing its flavour and in many cases its factual content. Bingogate and Casinogate have articles, y'see; The Coquihalla Graft Scandal doesn't (Russell Bennett snapping up all the land in the Nicola Valley before his brother announced the construction of the Coquihalla) and the Solidarity Crisis (with Bennett breaking the constitution in order to stay in power) both don't have articles. Glen Clark is a mere fly in the ointment by comparison.....Skookum1 16:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)