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VICTORIA — One of the experts consulted by the NDP on proportional representation says he can’t understand why the government picked two obscure voting systems for the referendum, and warned that voters deserve to see clear maps showing how the proposals will work in the real world.

Peter Loewen, the director of the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance, said B.C. runs the risk of experimenting with its core democratic system because two of the three options for change in the November referendum will be electoral systems that have never been used before.

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“What’s curious about the choice of system is two of the three have not been put in place, according to the report, in any other jurisdictions,” Loewen said Thursday. “So they are asking citizens to make British Columbia a site of huge experimentation in an electoral system.”

Loewen was one of four experts in democratic reform the government asked to review a draft questionnaire on voting systems in late 2017. He did not endorse the final questionnaire nor was he consulted on the selection of voting systems. The resulting public feedback from the questionnaire went to Attorney General David Eby. That feedback didn’t show a consensus on the type of voting systems, so Eby selected the three proposals released Wednesday along with the rules for the mail-in ballot.