If you want to plunge into 2018 the hard way, I suggest you go online to engage.gov.bc.ca/HowWeVote and click on the top right-hand button that says: “Read About Different Voting Systems.” A polar bear swim would be more pleasant, and might even involve less gasping for air, but the information that’s now out there is vitally important for anyone in B.C. who takes voting seriously.

The provincial referendum on proportional representation, scheduled for next fall via mail-in ballots, could lead to a radical change in the way B.C. is governed. The process has already been criticized as heavily tilted toward PR, since it will require only 50 per cent plus one ballot province-wide to pass and has no minimum threshold for voter turnout, so that 10 per cent of the voters could call the shots. And both the NDP and Greens will be campaigning in favour of the change.

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The website features a questionnaire and promises, “Your input will help shape key elements of the referendum, including ballot design, choice of voting systems included, and public funding distribution during the referendum campaign period.”

Four possible replacement systems are described.

List Proportional Representation (List PR) would see multiple MLAs elected in large districts or the province as a whole, either in the order listed by the party or at the voter’s discretion. Single Transferable Vote (STV) would see multiple MLAs elected in each electoral district with voters ranking the candidates according to their preferences (1, 2, 3, etc.). A version of STV proposed in 2004 called for between two and seven MLAs to be elected in each electoral district.

Among the perceived weaknesses of both systems: reduced connection between ridings and MLAs due to the larger electoral areas; potential delays in forming government after an election (it took 208 days this year for the Dutch to form a coalition government, still far short of Belgium’s record 541 days in 2010-11); it can be difficult to understand how votes are turned into seats.

The same potential drawbacks would apply to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), though it would retain the current first-past-the-post system for electoral districts, which would be larger than existing ridings but smaller than the “super ridings” of List PR and STV. The other piece of MMP would allow voters to fill a second batch of seats from a regional or provincial list. This, however, would create two “classes” of MLAs and would be “challenging for voters to hold individual MLAs accountable if they can be included on [a] party list and elected despite not winning an electoral district seat.”

Mixed-Member Majoritarian (MMM), the last of the four, seems to be the worst of both worlds, in that it has virtually all of the perceived weaknesses of the other three PR systems but “does not necessarily produce closely proportional results overall.”

Indeed, in the only stakeholder submission posted to the site so far, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recommends dropping List PR and MMM from consideration but replacing them with two other systems.

Are you reaching for the oxygen yet?

The engagement closes Feb. 28 at 4 p.m. Take a deep breath and dive right in.