Dear STV-voting members

British Columbia is holding its second referendum for STV on May 12 2009.

The Cincinnati ballot for PR allegedly was derailed by some last minute
advertising to discredit PR, without there being any time to refute the
scares.
I put this at the head of this e-mail because any British Columbian
reformers
reading this should be aware of this trick and be prepared to forestall it.

Despite the biggest vote in the province's history,
the first STV referendum fell just over 2% short of the required 60%
threshold.
It far exceeded the other 60% threshold in terms of percent of provinces
with
a majority in favor, falling only just short of a clean sweep.

No doubt the most important work of promoting STV is with meetings,
especially reported meetings, and including the canvassers meeting the
people
and explaining the reform.
But Ive been following some of the discussions on the web and the quality
of STV proponents' evidence is generally very informed and to the point.
Much of it is spent on correcting misrepresentations, such as about STV
not having high female representation (by which is meant patriarchal Ireland
and Malta).
I was pleased to see how redundant I was, compared to when the Citizens
Assembly was first formed.
That isnt to say that members here couldnt contribute to what is bound to be
a very
tight result, the dice being so ludicrously loaded for FPTP.

The FPTP supporters, it seems to me, have held fire on the mythical virtues
of the
status quo. Probably, they know that people dont like FPTP. That may be why
they seem to be mainly campaigning negatively (in true FPTP fashion),
working on fear of the unknown, as some commenters have said.
They appeal to the herd instinct by saying STV is only used in a small
minority of
elections world-wide.
Not an argument, of course, and ignores just how widely STV is used, for
non-political
elections not controled by politicians, as well as in many political
elections.

Well, I'm sure youre at least as familiar as I am with all the dead donkey
arguments
that are trotted out against STV. Be assured they are all doing the rounds
in BC now.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Lung.