2009 BC Election

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The 2009 BC Provincial Election is now underway and voting day is Tuesday May 12th 2009.

As a result I did some homework for myself and thought it would be of value to share.

Regardless of your political affiliation, remember to get out and vote and contribute to the democracy that makes Canada the great country that it is.

In particular please check out the info below on the “single transferable vote” referendum that will be part of the vote that you cast on the 12th.

Hope this is of value …

Nick

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WHAT ARE MY VOTING OPTIONS?

Check out http://www.elections.bc.ca/index.php/election2009/#VOS for voting options if you are not able to vote on the 12th.

And for advance voting locations see:

http://142.36.238.17/bcgeocoder/edfinder_phase5.php?ed=NVS

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WHAT IS THE VOTING HISTORY OF OUR RIDING?

For information on the North Vancouver / Seymour riding check out:

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WHO ARE THE CANDIDATES?

The candidates from the main parties running in NV/S are:

BC Lirberals

BC NDP

BC Green Party

BC Conservatives

And for all other parties information is available at:

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WHAT IS THE “STV” REFERENDUM ABOUT?

BC current uses a system of selecting the winning candidate called “first past the post”.  In a nutshell it means that after everyone has voted the person with the most votes wins the seat.  The challenge with this is sometimes this means that only a small % of a ridings voters actually end up selecting the winning candidate.

In 2004 the BC government put together a assembly of average citizens to review our voting system and recommend improvements to it.  The result was a recommendation to move to a news system of selecting winning candidates called “single transferable vote”.  In a nut shell this means that when you vote you indicate who your first and 2nd choices are.  Once voting is complete a first count is taken and the candidate with most votes is identified.  For any vote that was for another candidate the 2nd choice is then counted and a new tally is taken.  The results is that the winning candidate can actually be selected based upon much larger % of the eligible voters.  You can see a full copy of the recommendation and a much more detailed description of STV at:

BC Elections has an info page on this as well at:

There are also some great articles debating FPTP vs STV at:

 And a great list of all sorts of articles on STV at: