A referendum on electoral reform took place by mail-in ballot between October 22 and December 7, 2018, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. 61.3% of voters supported maintaining the first-past-the-post voting system rather than switching to a proportional representation voting system, which was supported by 38.7% of voters. This was British Columbia's third referendum on electoral reform, following ones in 2005 and 2009.
Voters were asked two questions: first, what electoral system should be used to determine election results—the existing first-past-the-post (FPTP) system or a proportional representation (PR) system; and second, what type of proportional voting system should be used if PR were chosen. In the second question, voters were asked to rank three proportional representation voting systems: dual-member proportional representation, mixed-member proportional representation, and rural–urban proportional representation.
The referendum fulfilled an election commitment by the British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) during the 2017 election. Their platform promised a referendum and that the government would actively campaign for electoral reform. Results were released by Elections BC on December 20, 2018.
Background BC has a long history of changing its electoral system. For BC's first election in 1871, the majority of ridings were elected using an "at large" system (multi-seat districts using plurality block voting). This is the way city councillors are elected in BC to this day: a voter gets as many votes as there are seats to be filled in the riding. Outside the multi-seat districts, seats were filled through first-past-the-post voting.
Over its history, BC modified its electoral system at least 15 times without a referendum. These reforms usually changed the number of seats or districts, but there have been changes to the voting system used as well. From the start, BC used a mixed system of block voting and FPTP, then it used the alternative voting system (in both single- and multi-seat districts) in the 1952 provincial election, then it reestablished the previous mix of "at-large" (block voting) and first-past-the-post voting. FPTP was brought into use across the province in 1991, after the last "at-large" (multi-member) voting districts were abolished due to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that found them unconstitutional.
Previous referendums Before the 2001 provincial election, the BC Liberal Party committed to appoint a Citizens' Assembly to investigate electoral reform, hold consultations, and prepare a report recommending whether a different electoral system should be adopted. The commitment was driven in part by the anomalous provincial election result in 1996, in which the BC New Democratic Party won reelection as a majority government with 39.5% of the vote and 39 seats, despite gaining a 3% smaller share of the popular vote than the Liberals at 41.8%, which translated into 33 Liberal seats. In December 2004, the Assembly released its report recommending that the province adopt BC-STV, a BC-specific variant of the single transferable vote (STV) system. On May 17, 2005, a referendum was held in conjunction with the 2005 general election, in which voters were asked whether the province should adopt the recommendation of the Assembly to replace the first-past-the-post electoral system with BC-STV, or maintain the current system. While 57.7% of the electorate voted in favour of BC-STV, including a majority of voters in 77 of 79 ridings, its support failed to reach the 60% threshold set by the government and it was not adopted.
Following the 2005 referendum, British Columbia held a second referendum on electoral reform in conjunction with the provincial election on May 12, 2009. It was the most recent referendum on electoral reform that has been held in British Columbia. As in 2005, voters in 2009 were asked to provide their opinions on the BC-STV electoral system proposed by the British Columbia Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform to ensure more proportional representation in the provincial Legislative Assembly. British Columbians were asked which electoral system should be used to elect legislators: the existing first-past-the-post electoral system or the proposed BC-STV system.
The adoption of BC-STV in the 2009 referendum was defeated, with 60.9% voting against the reform and 39.09% of voters supporting the change.
Intervening federal developments During the 2015 federal election, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada campaigned on the promise that it would be the last federal election under the first-past-the-post electoral system. The party's platform stated that a Liberal government would form an all-party Parliamentary committee, and introduce legislation within 18 months enacting electoral reform. On December 1, 2016, the House of Commons of Canada Special Committee on Electoral Reform released its report recommending Canada hold a referendum to adopt a proportional representation voting system for federal elections. Several months later, the government announced that it was no longer pursuing electoral reform.
Origin of third referendum During the 2017 provincial election, both the NDP and the Green Party campaigned for PR and included the policy in their election platforms. On May 29, 2017, approximately three weeks after the election resulted in a BC Liberal minority government, the NDP and Green caucuses signed a supply and confidence agreement. The agreement included a section on PR, in which the parties agreed to put the issue to a referendum and that both parties would actively campaign for PR in the referendum. On June 22, 2017, the Liberal government tabled its throne speech, adopting the opposition parties' policy to hold a third referendum on electoral reform. On June 29, 2017, the BC Liberal government was defeated in a confidence vote. Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon then invited the NDP to form a minority government with Green support. On November 30, 2017, the Electoral Reform Referendum 2018 Act was passed into law. It required the referendum to be held and authorized Cabinet to make various regulations.
Consultation and implementation Between November 2017 and February 2018, Attorney General David Eby conducted a public consultation entitled "How We Vote". On May 30, 2018, he released the report on the consultation and recommendations concerning how the referendum process should be conducted. Cabinet accepted the recommendations shortly thereafter, in early June. Later in June, Vote PR BC launched their campaign for proportional representation, canvassing in cities across the province.
Elections BC reviewed the referendum questions in June. On June 18, Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman wrote to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly advising that in his view both questions were simple and clear enough for voters to understand. He also made recommendations for small changes to the questions. On June 22, 2018, the government released the regulations governing the referendum. The regulations adopted the changes to the question proposed by the Chief Electoral Officer, and set down other rules governing the campaign.
ICBA lawsuit
On June 28, 2018, the Independent Contractors and Business Association (ICBA)—a lobby group for the construction industry— filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction to stop the referendum, or alternatively, to strike down the campaign financing rules governing the referendum. The lawsuit contains various complaints about the process, the referendum, and the systems on the ballot. In response, NDP MLA Bob D'Eith called the lawsuit an attempt to stop people from having a choice in their electoral system, and said ICBA does not want "ordinary people to have a stronger voice in the elections and I think they're desperate to hang on to the status quo". The Ministry of the Attorney General defended the legislation in court. The official campaign began July 1, 2018.
On July 17, 2018, ICBA's court application for an early trial date was dismissed by Justice Miriam Gropper of the British Columbia Supreme Court, in order to allow the government time to respond. Following the hearing, ICBA's lawyer, Peter Gall, told reporters ICBA would be seeking an interim injunction.
On July 24, ICBA filed an application seeking an interim injunction to halt campaign financing rules and prevent ballots from being counted. The application was heard by Justice Gropper on August 7. In her decision handed down several weeks later, she dismissed the application calling ICBA's allegations about the referendum "rhetoric", "conjecture" and "exaggeration". In mid-September, the ICBA announced that they would be seeking leave to appeal Justice Gropper's ruling on the interim injunction. That same month, the British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union was granted intervenor status by the court, siding against the ICBA.
The appeal of Justice Gropper's judgement concerning the interim injunction was heard on November 2. Justice Fitch of the British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that there was no merit to the ICBA's argument.
Ballot structure and details Voters were asked two questions in the referendum. The first revolved around what electoral system should be used to determine election results: the existing first-past-the-post system or a proportional representation system. The second question explored what type of proportional voting system should be used if PR is chosen. This involved voters ranking three proportional representation voting systems: dual-member proportional representation, mixed-member proportional representation, and rural–urban proportional representation.
Question 1: Which system should British Columbia use for provincial elections? (Vote for only one.) The current First Past the Post voting system A proportional representation voting system Question 2: If British Columbia adopts a proportional representation voting system, which of the following voting systems do you prefer? (Rank in order of preference. You may choose to support one, two or all three of the systems.) Dual-member proportional (DMP) Mixed-member proportional (MMP) Rural–urban proportional (RUP)
Proportional voting systems on the ballot The referendum asked voters to rank three proportional representation voting systems in order of preference. Voters ranked one, two, or all three systems. The three systems were: Dual-member proportional (DMP) Mixed-member proportional (MMP) Rural–urban proportional (RUP)
Dual-member proportional (DMP) Dual-member proportional is an electoral system designed to produce proportional election results across a region by electing two representatives in each of the region's districts. The first seat in every district is awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes, similar to first-past-the-post voting. The second seat is awarded to one of the remaining district candidates so that proportionality is achieved across the region, using a calculation that aims to award parties their seats in the districts where they had their strongest performances.
DMP was invented in 2013 by a University of Alberta mathematics student named Sean Graham. The system was intended as a possible replacement for first-past-the-post voting in Canadian national and provincial elections. Whereas campaigns to adopt MMP representation or the single transferable vote had recently been defeated in a number of Canadian provinces (such as the 2005 and 2009 British Columbia referendums, the 2005 Prince Edward Island referendum, and the 2007 Ontario referendum), the intent behind DMP was to gain broader acceptance by retaining salient features of first-past-the-post voting. These features include a one-vote ballot, relatively small districts (compared with STV), and a single tier of local representatives (in contrast to MMP).
Mixed-member proportional