VANCOUVER—As British Columbians get their ballots for the province’s third referendum on how we elect our governments, a top U.K. electoral expert hopes voters here think hard about what kind of democracy we want.

Proportional representation’s opponents and supporters have tossed around names of countries where they say alternative voting systems have wrought either chaos or balance. So StarMetro asked political experts in those countries how things really turned out.

First, we turned to the origin of Canada’s current Westminster system of government: the United Kingdom. But even there it’s not so simple, said University of Strathclyde politics professor John Curtice.

“We actually have a Heinz 57 of electoral systems across the U.K.,” he said from his home in Glasgow, Scotland. “God almighty — some voters have used three or four electoral systems on the same day.”

As in B.C., the U.K. Parliament uses first-past-the-post, but the Scottish Parliament uses a form of proportional representation. Northern Ireland, like Ireland to its south, uses another one: single transferable vote (STV). And direct mayoral elections, including London, use another voting system still.

While critics of B.C.’s latest referendum exercise — which includes four variants — call it confusing and complicated, in fact the “crucial” choice is much more simple, Curtice said. It’s actually about competing “visions of democracy.”

“It’s an argument between, on one hand, a majoritarian vision of democracy that encourages accountability — a direct mechanism between the government and electorate,” he said in a phone interview, “and on the other hand, a vision where the purpose of elections is to come up with an assembly that represents the interests and views of the electorate. Those are very different objectives.”

On Monday, Elections B.C. mailed out 3.3 million mail-in voting packages, which must be received by Elections B.C. by mail or in-person at Service B.C. centres before 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 30.

B.C.’s ballot asks two questions: First, “Which system should B.C. use for provincial elections? The current first-past-the-post voting system, or a proportional representation voting system.”

And second, which of three different proportional representation systems is preferred, regardless of your first question’s vote: mixed member proportional, rural-urban proportional or dual member proportional?

Curtice thinks it’s helpful to decide each answer on its own, and “don’t get distracted by scare stories about what might or might not happen.”

“You need to first decide if you want elections to be about choosing your local representative, or choosing a Parliament that represents the electorate as a whole,” he said. “Only when you’ve answered that question should you decide which system before you best meets that objective.”

Having a two-part ballot question with four alternatives may be confusing to some B.C. voters, but it’s nothing New Zealanders couldn’t handle when they voted for proportional representation in three referenda. Voters there actually had five choices between two questions.

“Multiple-option ballots are challenging for ordinary people,” admitted Jack Vowles, professor of history, philosophy and political science at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. “To cast an informed vote, people are being expected to achieve a level of knowledge of electoral systems arguably beyond the expertise of political scientists who don’t specialize in the field.

“Just because the option choices are demanding is not a very good argument to vote first-past-the-post. Campaigners should be seeking to inform voters, not telling them they are too stupid to make a choice.”

Although B.C.’s independent Chief Electoral Officer vetted the ballot questions, the referendum’s sparked allegations from opponents that it’s “rigged” in favour of NDP and Green electoral success — particularly since details of how to implement the alternative systems or riding boundaries will be decided by a committee of their government.

But as they get their ballots, many voters have expressed confusion about its two-part question and four alternative voting systems on offer.

“It’s not as simple as just saying, ‘If you get 20 per cent of the vote, you get 20 per cent of the seats,’” explains Campbell Sharman, an adjunct professor in UBC’s political science department. “Each system has its own strengths and weaknesses.”

So what do experts say in countries practicing each of the systems on the ballot?

1. First Past the Post (FPTP)

The first question on the B.C. ballot is between the status quo or ditching it. So it only seems fair to examine the existing system for its pros and cons, experts say.

From the U.K., flag-bearer of the Westminster style of government, Curtice laments the fact that country’s centuries-old electoral system is known as “first past the post” at all.

After all, a party with as little as 20 per cent of the popular vote, he noted, could technically win the largest number — or plurality — of seats and form a government.

“There is no post,” he said. “That’s a great misnomer.

“There is no share of the vote you have to achieve in order to get elected, just a plurality of the votes. It’s not even a majority rule.”

More accurate is “single member plurality,” he said, where voters choose their local representative by whoever gets the most votes locally compared to other candidates, and whichever party can gain the most of those MPs’ support in Parliament becomes the government.

The major strength of that Westminster voting model lies in its mechanism tying each member of Parliament to their local constituents, he explained.

“Voters choose between alternative governments,” he said, “and at the end of their term it’s easy for voters to lay credit or blame and know who’s responsible. There’s a direct mechanism to change government.”

As former B.C. Premier Ujjal Dosanjh argued, when he came out swinging against changing electoral systems in June, “Our current first-past-the-post electoral system is not only simple, stable and successful, but it keeps extremist parties out of our legislature.”

That’s a recurring talking point for the No B.C. Proportional Representation Society, which released a video on social media this week depicting marching soldiers after the text “Germany right now” and an ominous warning: “We’ve all seen what happens when extremists with power start throwing their weight around.”

For Dosanjh, who’s had his life threatened for opposing religious extremism, the current system preserves stability because it generally requires successful parties to have broader appeal than in a single region. He cited the U.K.’s 2015 elections, where the far-right nationalist U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) won 13 per cent of the popular vote but only got a single seat.

“Had the U.K. used proportional representation, UKIP would have elected 82 MPs and played a huge role in that country,” Dosanjh told reporters. “But they could not convince voters in more than one geographic riding to elect them over other candidates.”

But the director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, at the University of B.C., says he’s “not persuaded at all” by that argument.

“I don’t think there is more extremism in a proportional representation system,” Max Cameron countered. “In fact, first-past-the-post tends to polarize politics, whereas under proportional systems you usually get centrist coalitions under enormous pressure to reach agreements, compromise and find middle ground.

“Honestly, if you have 10 per cent of your electorate voting for extremists, you have an extremist problem, not a pro-rep problem. Don’t think by engineering elections to misrepresent the public you’ve solved that problem. I think Trump is an extremist; I don’t see how first-past-the-post has protected us against him.”

That point’s echoed by an expert in another country that’s seen sweeping reforms to its own electoral system.

“Arguably, first-past-the-post systems make it more likely extremists will gain control of major parties that may form governments,” said Vowles in New Zealand, alluding to the current U.S. President. “You have an example pretty close to you.”

Another argument for the current B.C. system is its simplicity. Ballots are counted in each riding, and the candidate with the most local votes — even if not a popular majority — wins that district.

“As much as people like to disagree about it,” Cameron notes, “the reality is we all actually agree on what first past the post does: it creates majority governments.

“But we disagree on whether that’s a good thing. It tends to give us stable, two-party majority rule — but critics point out that the majority of the popular vote may not have the majority of seats, so you get things like strategic voting, swing ridings, and governments significantly out of whack with the electorate that only have their base behind them.”

2. Mixed member proportional

This option is by far the most widely used of the proportional voting systems, and the most commonly used in former Westminster-system countries. New Zealand, which has been using it since 1996, is a prime example — one that has been touted by cheerleaders and cynics alike.

Mixed member proportional is distinguished by its two different types of MLAs in the Legislature: At the riding level, District MLAs are elected using the current first past the post system. The second type of seats are held by Regional MLAs, who are assigned from a list of candidates chosen by political parties; it’s these Regional MLAs that help even out the proportion of the popular vote.

Some important details need to be ironed out in B.C., however. In one version of MMP, voters choose a single candidate, and that vote decides both the winning District MLA, and which party gets to be represented with the Regional MLA. In another version, voters have two separate boxes to mark on their ballot: one for a local candidate, and one for their preferred party at the regional level.

It’s the system used for the Scottish Parliament for years, where voters get two votes on their ballot. As a result, the Scots elect 73 constituency representatives, and 56 seats allocated proportionally from party’s showing in eight regions.

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“The system is roughly proportional, basically once you are around 45 per cent of the vote you have a good chance of getting a majority, which happened in 2011,” Glasgow’s Curtice explained. “We had eight years of coalitions, since then we’ve have minority governments again and again.

“One coalition governed quite happily for eight years with only the occasional row.”

The question is, is the system unstable or allow a small party undue influence over the government, as critics allege? Curtice said although parties are forced under MMP to “negotiate, duck and weave” when they don’t have a majority, that also happens under Westminster first-past-the-post systems — as is currently the case in B.C. where three Green Party MLAs are propping up the NDP minority government.

In first past the post, Curtice said “the bargaining all happens within the party, behind closed doors — it doesn’t happen in the public domain.”

But the fear of a series of minority coalitions hammering out deals — or risk going back to the polls — isn’t something to dismiss lightly, he admitted. Such negotiations have been Scotland’s norm, as well as New Zealand’s, since adopting MMP.

And critics rightly say that if parties, not voters, get to select their regional party lists, they will gain a significant amount of power in such a system.

“It’s a fair comment if you have a closed party list,” Curtice said. “But you could have an open list — it’s perfectly possible to allow voters to rank the party list provided.

“Parties tend to dislike that open-list system. And the thing is, in (first past the post) the objection applies just as much where parties run a single candidate they select.”

One benefit, UBC’s Cameron notes, is its long-standing use in Germany, New Zealand and many other countries similar to Canada. “The bugs have already been worked out,” he said. “We have models we can turn to.”

3. Rural-urban proportional

One option on the ballot that’s not been used, at least not exactly as proposed for B.C., is actually a hybrid between two systems: MMP, and another one familiar to many British Columbians who lived through the province’s two previous referenda — single transferable vote.

The STV, which involves a ranked ballot where voters mark multiple candidates in order of preference, is used to elect the Australian upper house of its Parliament, and the upper houses of most states. A different type of ranked ballot is used to elect the larger, lower house federally.

“I think as much by accident as by design, the Australian parliamentary system is more representative and more effective than the Canadian one,” said UBC’s Campbell Sharman, who grew up in Adelaide before spending most of his life in Perth. “But in Australia, the electoral system has one big problem: it’s not actually proportional.

“However, people do feel there’s somewhere in the system they can get their voice heard. I don’t think that’s true for most Canadians.”

In the proposed B.C. variant that involves a mix of STV and MMP — the so-called rural-urban proportional model — only densely populated urban and semi-urban regions would use a ranked ballot to elect their MLAs, and those urban ridings would be merged into larger regional districts.

If an urban candidate gets a majority under RUP, they’re elected. But if no one passes the threshold required, then voters’ second choice votes are redistributed to ultimately pick the winner, leading ostensibly to the more broadly favoured candidate becoming MLA.

Rural areas, however, would remain roughly the same size and use a mixed member proportional system to elect MLAs. Having two entirely different types of ballot and counting in a single province might seem unwieldy, but it’s actually the case in other places.

“It’s STV in the cities basically, and MMP in rural areas,” Cameron said. “It acknowledges we want local representation, especially in less-populated large ridings, so if we’re going to go to bigger ridings we’d do it only in the cities.

“But the downside is we’d have different electoral systems within a single province, and different ballots cast by voters depending on where they live.”

4. Dual-member proportional

The remaining option for voters is one that Elections B.C. notes “was recently developed in Canada and is not currently in use.”

That disclaimer might raise alarms for voters cautious about changing the way we choose our government based on an untested idea — as ex-Premier Dosanjh put it, “voting in absolute darkness.”

But in fact, the referendum’s dual member proportional option is a simple system meant to address concerns raised by rural and remote B.C. voters who fear they would lose their local representation.

That’s because dual member proportional voting was invented by a 26-year-old physics, math and politics graduate who understands those concerns personally. Sean Graham grew up in Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, and now lives in Edmonton.

“One thing that struck me is existing proposals didn’t do a good enough job incorporating rural communities,” the now-civil servant told StarMetro. “I felt we could make something that would be a better fit for Canada, with its massive geography and population concentrated in very small areas.”

Under DMP, urban and rural voters are in the same voting system but see a different ballot.

In densely populated urban areas, parties can run up to two candidates in enlarged ridings. But like today’s system, voters choose just one of them, or an independent if they wish. Whichever candidate gets the most votes in that riding becomes an MLA; the second riding seat is allocated to the party-nominated local candidate who won the most votes, based on the party’s overall performance in the province.

Meanwhile, in big rural ridings, voting happens the same as under FPTP, with one candidate winning with the most votes. There need not be an increase in overall MLAs, however, because the urban ridings can simply become larger to accommodate two MLAs each.

“Dual member proportional has been very transparent in addressing the primary concern of rural residents around the size of the district and keeping their local representation,” Graham explained. “In DMP, every MLA is a local MLA; for a candidate to be elected, just like under first past the post, you have to be on the ballot in that local community and receive support in that local community.”

The idea captured the imagination of UBC’s Max Cameron during a symposium at the school, where Graham explained it. And far from being complex, he feels it’s among the simplest of all four options.

“OK, it hasn’t been tried, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s a brilliant system,” Cameron said. “This guy came up with this brilliant idea — there’s something a little like it in Bavaria, Germany — that’s essentially a clever way of maximizing proportionality but retaining local representation, and keeping districts as small as possible.”

The idea obviously also captured the attention of the B.C. government, but Graham insisted it’s not strange to him to be the subject of such public debate. Prince Edward Island already included DMP in its referendum on electoral reform.

“It’s one of the rare cases where you actually can have your cake and eat it too,” jokes Graham. “Although I’m a bit biased.”

As Cameron quipped, “One thing electoral reform does is it attracts people who like puzzles.”

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