BC Election

Today BC voters head to the polls to decide who will govern the province for the next four years. While most polls show the BC Liberals in the lead, and Liberal win is far from a foregone conclusion. I am almost certain they will win the popular vote, but only think they are likely to win the most seats, not certain. After all, Gordon Campbell got almost 3% more than Glen Clark in 1996 yet still lost the election, so the NDP vote tends to be more efficient than the Liberal vote. Also, the NDP base is much easier to motivate to show up than Liberal supporters. As explained in my earlier post, I unequovically support the re-election of the BC Liberals and in fact fear what would happen if the NDP got in. Electing an NDP government is bad news in good economic times, but downright disastrous during a recession. For all of Campbell's flaws, he is the right person to lead us through these difficult times. Tomorrow I will blog on the final results which I hope is a strengthned BC Liberal majority although a BC Liberal win of any size would be fine by me.

On the issue of STV, I hope it gets defeated. One of the most fundamental things about voting is to ensure each voter understands how their vote is counted. Unless you are a political junkie or a mathematician, it is difficult to understand how the system works. I've tried to explain to people not as interested in politics as myself and the fact many could understand it shows the major problem with the system. Some may say this doesn't matter or voters should educate themselves better, but I disagree. If a voter thinks their vote is being counted differently than it is being counted, you can get an election result than no one wanted. MMP which was proposed in Ontario was bad enough, but at least I saw some logic to the system, while STV is one of the worst possible choices. Hopefully it gets soundly defeated.