Dear Editor:
Using ranked, run-off, preferential ballots to elect candidates and party leaders makes a lot of sense, as the winner usually will have the support of the majority of the voters.
However, using it in a general election, without a provision to separate the party vote from the candidate vote, easily produces disastrous results.
A good example would be the single transferable vote (STV) ballot promoted in several B.C. referendums, which had no provision for separating the two votes.
Without that separation, the party vote and candidate vote travel together, every time a ballot is transferred from a losing candidate to the voters’ second, third, or fourth choice candidates, increasing the party vote for each of these parties.
When all candidates finally have been elected, the total vote for the parties who received all those extra ballots will have increased disproportionally, artificially increasing the popular vote for the winning parties, while reducing it for the losing candidate’s parties.
That is why Trudeau prefers an alternative ranked, run-off, preferential style ballot, because it will most likely produce the same distorted results as a First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) ballot, and continue to produce majority governments, real and fake.
To use an STV ballot as a proportional Representation (PR) ballot it must have a separate box for the party vote, that does not transfer with the candidate vote.
To keep it safe and simple, all we need is a proportional ballot where voters mark an X in a box to indicate what party they want to form the government, and another box to vote for the candidate they want to represent them in that government.
Multi-Member Proportional ballots (MMP) used in New Zealand and Denmark, consistently award the parties the number of seats they should have, according to the popular vote.
Andy Thomsen
Kelowna