If you were in the Provincial Government when do you wonder if  your priority is the public’s priority?

I say this because the powers that be engaged in a hype beyond reason to promote the  new voting procedure known as proportional representation.  This was a mail in ballot which cost millions and very few returned them.  Instead of exploring where to go from there it was decided to extend the deadline to December seventh.

I think the date is interesting in that December 7th is officially known as “The Day Of Infamy”  as quoted by Franklin Roosevelt   when speaking about the attack on Pearl Harbor, but I digress.

There are implications, serious implications that go with this decision.  And certain rules dictated by ethics if nothing else in my opinion.

There is a problem when the public does not respond with urgency to a mail in ballot.  First why is there so little response?

Do BC Residents not like mail in ballots?  Or, is the voting system not important to the citizens?  Was the deadline extended because there is a danger of the initiative failing?

 

I think there is one other issue that comes to mind.  The pro PR side made such a fuss saying electoral decisions needed to be inclusive and fifty percent of voters was the magic number for a fair outcome.  If that is the standard then fifty percent or more of the ballots need to be returned in order to have a fair decision on the referendum.  If less than fifty percent of the  ballots are returned it should be an automatic fail and we all move on.

This was an expensive exercise to convince us there had to be some other way to count ballots when the original first past the post has worked for years.  This whole thing could backfire like eggs in a microwave, because some want an easy road for their ideas that they can’t convert into votes.  The other implication is this – will Andrew Weaver now bring down the government because his dream of a voice from the back door failed?

 

Fred Steele