Recall and initiative British Columbia adopted
recall-election and initiative legislation in the 1990s. These measures applied following the
1991 referendum. Only one recall petition was ever successful: that compelling MLA
Paul Reitsma to resign his seat in 1998 hours before he would have been removed from office.
Fixed election dates British Columbia was the first province in Canada to institute fixed election dates. In 2001 four year terms were institutionalized although exceptions are allowed. Previously,
British Columbia elections were like most parliamentary jurisdictions, which only require an election within a specified period of time (being five years in all jurisdictions of Canada). Later, elections were changed from a spring date to an autumn date.
Alternative voting systems 1870 to 1990 From its start as a province, British Columbia used a mixture of single-member districts and multi-member districts. The SMDs used
first-past-the post voting to decide the winner in each district; the multi-member districts used
plurality block voting to decide the winners. This mixture of multiple-member districts using plurality block voting election system and
single-member districts using the first-past-the-post election system was abolished before the
1952 election. In 1951, the Liberal-Conservative coalition governing BC was falling apart. One of the last acts of the coalition government was to adopt the
instant-runoff election system, which was implemented for the
1952 general election. To make the instant-runoff voting system work, single-member contests were used for each seat (even in multi-seat districts). Preferential ballots were used -- rather than marking just one vote for one candidate by marking an X on their ballot, as was done under first past the post, under IRV an elector marked their choices of candidates by placing numbers next to the names of the candidates on the ballot. (However the vote used to help elect just one candidate, at most.) If a candidate received a majority of votes in the first count, that candidate was elected. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes was dropped and the second choice marked on each ballot held by that candidate was used to transfer the vote to one of the remaining candidates. This procedure was repeated until a candidate received a majority of votes, or the majority of votes still in play. The coalition suffered a defeat due to receiving relatively few votes. Enough members of the Social Credit party were elected to form a Socred
minority government, with the CCF forming the
official opposition. The Liberals were reduced to four members in the
Legislature. The Conservatives (who had changed their name to “Progressive Conservative” in tandem with their
federal counterparts) elected only three. The Socred minority government lasted only nine months. The IRV election system was again employed for the ensuing general election. The result this time was a Socred majority. During this term of office, the Socreds abolished the alternative voting system and returned the province to the traditional election system that used both single-member districts where first-past-the-post was used, and multi-member districts where the
plurality block voting election system was used. This mixture of multiple-member districts using plurality block voting election system and
single-member districts using the first-past-the-post election system was abolished before the
1991 election, bringing single-member districts and FPTP into use universally.
2000s In 2004,
a Citizens' Assembly recommended replacing the first-past-the-post system with the
single transferable vote election system, to be implemented in 2009.
A referendum was held on May 17, 2005, in conjunction with
that year's general election to determine if voters approved of this change. Change received majority support (57% of the popular votes cast), but the government said it required passage by 60% of votes cast to make the proposal binding. A second requirement was a
majority of votes in 60% of the districts and 77 of the 79 districts achieved this, far more than the 48 minimum. The close result provoked further interest in
electoral reform, and the provincial government promised a second referendum on the issue.
The second referendum was held in conjunction with the
2009 general election but in that vote change garnered just over 39% of voter support, much less than the required majority.
2010s In 2017 election, the BC NDP campaigned on the promise to hold a referendum on switching to an electoral system of
proportional representation. In 2018,
a referendum was held with two questions on the ballot. The first question was a binary choice of maintaining the existing first-past-the-post electoral system or moving to a proportional representation electoral system. The second question asked citizens to rank three specific types of proportional representation:
dual-member proportional representation,
mixed-member proportional representation, and
rural–urban proportional representation. If a majority of citizens preferred proportional representation over first-past-the-post, this second question would determine which specific type of proportional representation the province would adopt. When the votes in the first question were counted, most votes showed a preference for the first-past-the-post system (61.3%) over proportional representation (38.7%), making the second question moot. Critics suggested that a major reason that proportional representation was defeated was the complexity of the second ballot question. Although much of the general public understood the difference between first-past-the-post and proportional representation, the subtle and numerous differences between dual-member proportional representation, mixed-member proportional representation, and rural–urban proportional representation (with its mixture of MMP and STV) were less easy to understand, possibly motivating many voters to vote to retain the existing electoral system. ==See also==