The Editor,
Re: “What’s the point of voting?” Letters, Nov. 28.
In last Friday’s paper, a letter writer asked, “What’s the point of voting?”
He answered his own question with “there is no point as politicians do not respond to voters.”
There is another option to withholding your vote, and that is to change the system to make your vote count in all elections.
Ten years ago, the BC Citizens’ Assembly considered the need for electoral reform and after a year of considering the issue, this representative body overwhelmingly supported proportional representation using the Single Transferrable Vote (STV) method.
This proposal narrowly failed to reach the 60 per cent requirement in the subsequent referendum. Voter disaffection with unrepresentative bodies at all levels of government as a result of our first-past-the-post voting system, requires that we revisit the Citizens’ Assembly’s conclusions and use the STV method for elections in B.C. and Canada.
I want my vote to count equally to yours (but not more) and to elect representatives based on all votes holding all elected members accountable to their constituents.
Richard Mathias
Richmond
