Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons says he voted in favour of proportional representation and made rural-urban proportional (RUP) his first choice in the second question on the referendum ballot.
“It takes into account B.C.’s diverse geography and population, and uses two already well-used systems,” the NDP MLA, now serving his fourth term, told Coast Reporter Thursday.
Under RUP, large urban and semi-urban districts use the single transferable vote (STV) system of ranked votes to elect multiple MLAs, while rural voters use mixed-member proportional (MMP) to elect district MLAs under the current single-member plurality system (first past the post) and regional MLAs from party lists.
Simons’ party leader, Premier John Horgan, told reporters Nov. 1 that he had voted for PR and marked his top preference for the MMP system “because it is the most widely used internationally” and “that gives us the baseline to work from.”
The third PR system on the ballot is dual-member proportional (DMP) in which most electoral districts are combined with a neighbouring district and have two MLAs.
“No constituency will have less representation than it does now under any of the systems, and ultimately our governments will more closely reflect our population,” Simons said.
For more information on the voting systems go to elections.bc.ca.
Elections BC announced Nov. 23 that the voting period deadline for the referendum was extended by one week to Dec. 7. It cited the ongoing Canada Post service disruptions as the reason for the extension.
As of Nov. 23, an estimated 30 per cent of eligible voters in the province had returned their ballot packages, with 18.9 per cent screened for required information. A total of 8,670 screened ballots were reported for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, representing 22 per cent of eligible voters
