#fptp

How funny it would be if Labour gets rid of the FPTP system because of pressure from Farage and his gammons, but instead of helping them win the next election it actually ends up helping the Greens instead.

Do you ever feel like your vote doesn’t count?

Across British Columbia, it’s not uncommon to hear progressive voters in rural areas complain their concerns aren’t represented while some conservative voters say the same thing because they live in an urban areas

That’s one reason British Columbia is currently holding a referendum on whether whether it should keep the current first-past-the-post system, which awards 100% of the power to politicians that receive a minority of votes, or switch to a modern  proportional voting system – used in 80% of industrialized countries around the world, including like Germany, New Zealand and Norway – where parties win seats based on the percentage of votes they receive.

Because BC’s first-past-the-post system is a “winner-take-all” system, political parties have little incentive to reflect the concerns of voters outside the core base they need to win elections, sometimes with as little as one-third of all votes.

Not only is this an unfair system, but it can also exaggerate differences between urban and rural ridings, leaving the false impression that all voters in rural areas lean right while all voters in urban areas lean left.