VANCOUVER—Voters in British Columbia opted to keep their current first-past-the-post voting system to elect their politicians, as Elections BC announced a resounding “No” result from its referendum on proportional representation Thursday afternoon.

The mail-in referendum was the province’s third failed attempt at electoral reform. Slightly more than four-in-10 registered voters took part in a mail-in vote dogged by fears about low turnout and empowering political extremists as well as confusion about the two-question, ranked-choice ballot.

“We live in a world now, compared to the 2009 and 2005 (referendums), that has more political uncertainty,” said political scientist Michael Prince, the University of Victoria’s Lansdowne professor of social policy, in a phone interview. “There were too many unknowns and lacking information.

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“And the fact there wasn’t a simple ‘yes or no’ question, and there were three options around proportional representation — two of which don’t exist — I thought that was a bit bizarre.”

It appears opponents’ arguments carried weight for many voters, though several opinion polls released in the final week — including one from Research Co. that predicted a statistically tied result — suggested that people returning their ballots near the end of the campaign leaned most heavily toward proportional representation.

By contrast, exit polling of 646 voters by the Angus Reid Institute suggested that although it had been neck-and-neck to the end, the one-third of undecided voters earlier in the campaign clearly made up their minds by Dec. 7.

“This came down very much to the status quo versus a desire for change,” said the institute’s executive director Shachi Kurl in a phone interview. “And ultimately, the desire for change was not strong enough. Two-thirds said they just don’t see a need for change.

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“The persuasiveness of sticking with the current system versus switching to a system that arguably caused confusion among voters was a factor.”

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The winning argument for “no” voters, Kurl said, was the stability of the current system. The ideals of a more representative democracy dominated reformers’ thinking but did not prevail.

Opponents had argued from the start the result would be “rigged” by the Green Party-backed B.C. NDP minority government, warning that the devil was in the details and many of those details could have been rammed through a Legislature committee.

Nearly 1.5 million British Columbians took part in the referendum, representing 42.6 per cent of registered voters. Around 6,000 voting packages arrived too late for the Dec. 7 deadline, and more than 2,461 ballots were “rejected.”

The exercise was budgeted to cost $14.5 million, said chief electoral officer Anton Boegman, but he added “it’s too early” for a final price tag as “there’s still bills that have to be paid.” But he expected it to “come in under that budget.”

The campaign kicked off on July 1, asking whether B.C. should switch to a proportional representation voting system — used in most wealthy countries internationally, it aims to match the popular vote to the number of seats won — or keep its current first-past-the-post system used in the U.K.

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And following the example of the referendum that transformed New Zealand’s system to mixed-member proportional in the 1990s, the ballot included a second question, asking voters to rank several alternative options for which proportional system they preferred.

“Multiple-option ballots are challenging for ordinary people,” said Jack Vowles, professor of history, philosophy and political science at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, in an earlier interview this fall. “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.”

The opposition decried that two-part question as confusing, logically flawed because it assumed status-quo supporters could also rank systems they opposed and because a very small number of voters could in the end decide how our democracy elects politicians.

The “BC Liberal team didn’t dare to expect this landslide support for our fight to protect B.C.’s democracy,” the party’s executive director Emile Scheffel said in an email sent to party supporters. “The NDP and Greens pulled every trick in the book to stack this referendum to their advantage — and British Columbians saw right through it.

“The ground troops in this campaign wore BC Liberal colours, and we should all take pride in this accomplishment.”

In the end, roughly 40 per cent of ballots had the first question answered but had what Elections BC deemed “invalid” answers for the ranking question. That would be in line with what the BC Liberals advised their base to do: boycott question two and vote “one and done.”

While critics suggested the ballot options were confusing, British Columbians have voted on a multiple-choice ballot before: in 2002, when voters were asked eight questions about whether they supported restricting First Nations’ ability to hunt in provincial parks, receive tax exceptions or expropriate private property.

Even a two-part ballot question with four alternatives was nothing New Zealanders couldn’t handle when they voted for proportional representation in three referenda. Voters there actually had five choices between two questions.

The final turnout rate was lower than the previous two electoral reform referendums — but was in sync with a decade of declining participation in federal, provincial and municipal votes.

And although some pundits and opponents had expressed dismay at the slow trickle of ballots received by Elections BC ahead of the Dec. 7 deadline — extended one week amid a Canada Post labour dispute — the independent provincial agency that oversees voting said that, in fact, daily trends had been higher than in both previous mail-in referendums for the majority of the mail-in period.

Horgan called the five-month-long debate over how British Columbia votes “an important conversation about the future of our democracy” in the province.

“This referendum was held because we believe that this decision needed to be up to people, not politicians,” he said in a release. “While many people, myself included, are disappointed in the outcome, we respect people’s decision.”

The agency found “no evidence of voter fraud,” Boegman told reporters Thursday, “something that we do take very seriously. We had a number of systems in place during the referendum to ensure the security of the process.”

Referendum opponents had posted to social media that apartment lobby recycle bins were full of discarded ballot packages early in the campaign.

Boegman said the agency will begin a “very comprehensive review” of the process for a report on how the referendum was conducted. But he dismissed concerns about rural — largely pro-status quo — regions having more time to return their ballots after receiving them sooner as well as concerns about large distances between drop-off stations in ultra-low-turnout Surrey, Richmond and Burnaby.

Riding-by-riding turnout data earlier this month from Langara College economist and electoral data analyst Bryan Breguet suggested a strong correlation between when voters received ballots and the turnout in their ridings.

“There were no in-person polling stations, so that couldn’t have been a factor,” he said in response to StarMetro’s questions about why some ridings saw much lower turnout than others.

“We did stagger the mail out of voting packages … over a two-week time period … The pattern we used to mail out voting packages was consistent with previous vote-by-mail events.

“Of course the early returns were likely from those regions of the province that received their packages early. But I don’t have any understanding at a deeper level than that as to why some voters decided to participate and other voters didn’t.”

The B.C. No Proportional Representation Society argued that any of the proportional options on the ballot would be a risky move for the province, potentially giving extreme fringe parties a foothold in the Legislature, as has happened in some countries with the system.

Additionally, opponents argued that proportional systems tend to lead to less stable coalition governments made up of many small parties, as opposed to two main parties in our current system that alternate power every few elections. And critics said rural voters would be sidelined by larger riding sizes and a watered-down vote that would concentrate power in cities.

But backers of proportional systems argued the number of seats in a Legislature should reflect the actual number of people who voted for their parties. So if a party gets 30 per cent of the vote in B.C., they argue that party should have roughly 30 per cent of the seats. Under the current system, because only one MLA is elected per riding who got more votes then their rivals, a party with millions of votes in every region of the province could be completely shut out of the Legislature.

“While we are disappointed with this result, we respect British Columbians’ decision,” said Green Leader Andrew Weaver in a statement. “The B.C. Greens remain committed to the principle of representative democracy … We will continue to champion policies that will strengthen B.C.’s democracy and make it more responsive to and representative of the people of B.C.”

First-past-the-post fans say it’s the most stable system. Because it tends to favour two-party systems with a single majority government, it generally excludes fringe groups, unlike proportional systems that foster fringe parties. These critics cite proportional countries bringing the far-right closer to power, such as in Austria, New Zealand, Germany or the Netherlands.

But numerous political scientists from B.C., Ontario, New Zealand, the U.K. and Australia have all agreed that no particular electoral system has a monopoly on extremists, particularly in this era of rising populist nationalism around the world.

But proportional representation’s fans counter that such can be the outcome in our Westminster system, citing the current minority parliament in Britain — where the Conservatives rule thanks to a deal with a formerly extremist militia-linked Northern Irish party that has just 10 seats — and recent victories under first-past-the-post of Donald Trump, the Brexit movement and in India and the Philippines.

Following New Zealand’s example, too, Premier John Horgan had promised the result would be put to another referendum after two general elections to see if voters want to stick with their decision.

But the question of how details of any new system would actually be implemented — and what a future ballot would even look like for voters — was a question that dogged the entire campaign, and one the opposition jumped on, citing what the BC Liberals called 29 questions unanswered before the campaign.

Some proportional electoral systems involve multiple ballots. Others involve voting multiple times on the same ballot for different types of MLA — for instance in mixed-member, for a local constituency MLA and a regional MLA.

A huge recurring question was whether proportional representation would include closed-party lists or open-party lists, the former being where political parties get to choose a list of candidates they put on the ballot as a block and who get seats to make the results proportional. An open-list system lets voters rank those party-supplied candidates one-by-one.

After mounting pressure to clarify, Horgan vowed midcampaign he would use his party’s majority to ensure only an open-list system, which tilts power toward voters and not parties, would be considered. But the opposition argued he was changing the rules in the middle of the game, adding to public confusion about the referendum.

“The idea of reforming our voting system, that’s off the table for the foreseeable future, or at least on the back burner if not right off the stove,” UVic’s Prince predicted.

“But there’s other things we need to talk about … issues about making the voting system we’ve got as accessible as possible, where there’s barriers, educating high school kids, voting age ... Voting turnout has not been great in recent provincial elections; how do we better engage the public in that?

“I think there’ll be another referendum in some time; the idea of a different kind of voting system is a powerful idea and Canada is an outlier, so the idea is bound to come back.”