Based on the current results at www.trystv.ca, people who have tried the sample British Columbia Single Transferable Vote (BC-STV) ballots for the British Columbia election have chosen 59 men and 26 women out of 85 positions available. That's about 69 percent men and 31 percent women.
In the BC Legislative Assembly, there were 60 men and 17 women out of 77 sitting members at dissolution. That's about 78 percent men and 22 percent women. These members of the legislative assembly were elected under the antiquated First-Past-the-Post voting system.
While the poll on www.trystv.ca is may not be 100 percent accurate as the sampling is not random, supporters of the antiquated First-Past-the-Post voting system who claim that BC-STV will result in the election of fewer women are likely misleading the voters of BC. In the Australian Senate, about 35% of the senators are women. After about one or two BC-STV elections, it is likely that the percentage of women in the BC Legislative Assembly will increase.
Vote for BC-STV on May 12.
[Remember to try my sample STV pizza poll above and the FPTP polls to the right. Currently, the STV poll results show a range of chosen pizzas that will satisfy the meat lovers, vegetarians, and cheese-plus lovers. On the FPTP polls, the meat lovers are winning in each poll.]
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2 comments:
That's surprising - I thought the main mechanism through which STV would increase women's representation was that in multi-member ridings parties would nominate a diversity of candidates (And this effect isn't taken into account by this poll)
true, that means it will be even better when STV is adopted because every riding and every major party will have at least one woman or minority in each riding.
So women are doing better in this informal poll even with the currently skewed party selection process.
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