A new study released by the Broadbent Institute shows broad support for electoral reform in Canada, and suggests that British Columbia's federal political landscape would change drastically depending on what, if any, new voting system replaced the current one.

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The federal Liberals made a campaign promise to change the way Canada votes, but the specifics are yet to be hashed out by the new government.

Canada now uses the first-past-the-post system, in which members of a riding vote directly for their Member of Parliament and their choice ends there. The leader of the winning party becomes prime minister.

But advocates of electoral reform suggest there are better alternatives, such as proportional representation and rank balloting.

Under proportional representation, the number of seats a party gets in Parliament reflects the percentage of the popular vote it receives nationally. Another option is a form of that system called mixed proportional representation where people vote for a local member directly and cast another vote for the party.

Ranked or preferential ballot works by having voters rank the candidates in order from most preferred to least preferred. When a candidate reaches 50 per cent they are declared the winner, and if a voter's first choice is eliminated for lack of votes their second choice is counted as their first.

Each choice would have a different effect on British Columbia, according to numbers crunched from the last election and included in the study.

Desire for change

In the 2005 provincial election, a referendum to switch to a new system of voting similar to the preferential voting idea was narrowly defeated in B.C., falling two per cent short of the 60 per cent of votes it needed to pass.

To gauge Canadians' thoughts on electoral reform now, the left-leaning Broadbent Institute had Abacus Data conduct a survey of 2,986 Canadians online between Nov. 3 and 6.

The study showed 83 per cent of those polled believed the nation's electoral system needs drastic or at least some changes. Forty-one per cent wanted minor changes, 33 per cent wanted major changes, and nine per cent wanted a total overhaul.

"The vast majority of Canadians would like to see some change to our political system," said Rick Smith, executive director of the institute. "Given the choice they'd like to see more proportionality in our parliament. They'd like to see election results more closely approximating the popular vote parties are receiving."

But what system, if any, Ottawa chooses to replace the current one could mean a lot for B.C.

Using the election results from 2015 for ridings where the candidate did not win with 50 per cent of the vote, the study calculated the votes each candidate received using the preferential system.

According to the results, if a preferential system had been used in the Oct. 19 election, the Liberals would have gained an additional 12 seats in the province. Five of those seats would have come at the expense of the New Democrats and seven from the Conservatives, it found.

Data on what the outcome would've looked like under a proportional system in B.C. were not included, but in a phone call David Coletto of Abacus Data said that based on dividing the number of votes per party into seats available, the Liberals would have lost two seats and the NDP would have lost three in the province.

The Greens would have picked up two and the Conservatives three, he said.

According to the survey, if the country had voted under a proportional representation system the Liberals would have lost more than 45 seats across Canada, with the NDP gaining more than 20 of them and the Greens picking up 11.

Political interference a threat: Cameron

While an appetite for electoral reform is clear, changing the current system would present many challenges, said University of British Columbia political scientist Maxwell Cameron.

One "paradox" of electoral reform, Cameron said, is that the parties with authority are those who have done well under the existing system.

That leads to little incentive for big changes or even little tweaks that benefit the ruling party, he said. "Electoral reform is too important to leave to the politicians."

Cameron said an all-party committee should be formed to discuss what the government hopes to achieve through the changes it makes, including how big of a role it wants proportionality to play.

He said the survey provides an important snapshot of what people think today about electoral reform, but overall the public needs to gain a better understanding of the different options.

Though the issue and options are complex, Smith of the Broadbent Institute said the survey showed a preference for proportional representation is already evident.

The survey showed the mixed proportional system had the most support among respondents who said they want change, with pure proportional representation in second place.

Ranked-ballot came in with just one per cent more support than the current system nationally, but was the last choice of all the options by 11 per cent.

"Any advocate for ranked-ballot is going to have a tough row to hoe," Smith said.