How about not having a party run system where an unelected candidate becomes premier by party appointment? It goes to show that its all about the parties and their corrupt backroom dealers, and not about the independence of the people who’s names are actually on the ballot.

If the candidates had the freedom to actually represent the wishes of their constituents more people would see a reason to run and vote. Elections would actually involve local issues.

If we want a more representative democracy than the first thing that needs to be done is to pass a law that only sitting elected MLA’s can sit in cabinet. Cabinet positions should be chosen from the whole of the elected legislature regardless of political affiliation. The legislature should have primacy and not an unelected party appointment with executive powers over the legislature.

Then and only then will we have politicians that respond to voters, rather than representing their parties to the voters. With freedom to represent more will speak up on issues, and more accountability in government will follow, and therefor more trust in the system as a whole will engender greater ownership of the political scene by all stakeholders in the province.

People need to know that their vote actually counts for something. Once it does we will see politicians that reflect the wish of the citizens that vote and then more will vote.

Oh way that a poll? Probably wrong!

So, let me get this straight. To determine what the results would have been if there had been 100% voter turnout in an election in which the pollsters were so totally wrong that just about everyone questions their competence, we rely on the very same pollsters to tell us, once again, what we should think.

Does anyone see the irony in that?

Certainly do ammonra.

All of the above. Can’t believe I actually agree with these guys n anything. ;)

None of the options in the poll directly supports such a conclusion. You may conclude that 18% falsely thought NDP would win and they did not go and vote or 35% thought their vote will not change the outcome.

We won’t know that outcome unless they introduce mandatory voting. You can securely buy stuff using your credit card and we should be able to use our new BC health cards to vote online. BC health card has all the needed information for voter registration. The questions are:

Q: Are new BC health cards secure enough?
Q: Do the governments want full participation of voters?

Actions speak louder than words” is a good maxim to understand.

That is as true with polling as anything else.

Try running a pollabout how to run an awareness program about something like giving for wildlife conservation or the starving children of the world to figure out which promotional program will cause more money to come in. Such polls are not very predictive.

It seems that polls dealing with issues that may breach the privacy of the voter as seen from the voters’ presepctive are getting less and less predictive as well.

BTW, I find the last question interesting. Was there a similar question re thinking that a party other than the NDP would win? There should have been!!

There’s great irony in that, ammonra.

No matter what kind of changes are ever made in an effort to enhance ‘political’ democracy, there will never really be any difference so long as people are denied ‘economic’ democracy.

If some individual or group of individuals is in a position to financially deny other individuals a living unless they vote the way he, or they, want them to, ballot-box ‘political’ democracy is a farce.

Voting is very easy to do. If people couldn’t be bothered to participate in the process, who cares what their excuse is?

“who cares what their excuse is?”

Obviously those who like to conduct polls, especially if they get paid for it. ;-)

“we should be able to use our new BC health cards to vote online”
I dont know that online voting would do much for voter turnout. There are alot of people who do not even know what party is in power right now. (they do know who won American Idol though). I dont think online voting would get them off the couch and interested in politics.

Pretty sure the people of BC don’t believe much of anything anyone involved in BC politics has to say anymore.

We have already mail-in-voting system, and special online mail-in-voting using special e-ballot is a natural progression of the concept of:

“Eligible Canadian electors may apply to vote by special ballot. With a special ballot, you can vote by mail from anywhere in the world.”

This news story should have started with the words; “Once upon a time..” in the end it really is nothing more than a fairy tale.

Obviously there were a lot of people who don’t care about politics and were happy with the status quo – don’t need to vote everything is good – not having enough experience or understanding of what a change in government would or could bring.

When our area jobless numbers get seriously bad is when we would see a bigger voter turn-out.

Voter apathy is nothing new to us or other countries.

What self respecting person would want to be a politician with likes of some of the critiques they are continually barraged with.

Brainy quote:
“Democracy is being allowed to vote for the person you dislike the least.”

There are more than a few people out there who would like my country governed by mobs and petitions. Not me.

We need to vote in independent people in each riding on the basis of what they would do for the riding and BC. They could then form a Government with other indepedents, and then elect a Premier.

Political parties, and party politics should be relegated to the trash heap.

Personally I don’t think people who are not educated on the current political scene should vote. I think its their right not to vote and a duty as well if they don’t know enough about the candidates. Its up to the candidates and the media to inform voters so that they can make an informed vote and thus increase voter turnout. The media really needs to take a share of the blame for low voter turnout when all they do is report slogans and don’t drill down on policy and hold politicians to account for their promises. We need to get away from elections based on party branding alone.

As for voting online. I don’t like it because it would be abused. I don’t have faith in Elections BC to be able to run a tight and verifiable online vote. I think we already gave up to much with the Diabold machines we use to count votes (its totally corrupt IMO). The only vote that counts IMO is the paper ballot hand counted and verifiable.

IMO each voter first and foremost should have a random tracking code tied to their ballot so as to go online and verify that their vote is correctly counted… once we can do that we could consider an online vote.

You want people to take a test before they vote?

If cabinet positions are chosen from both parties then there will be no opposition and no critics from the other party. Why would one be a critic of their own party decisions, would make it easy for the sitting party to say “it is their fault we gave them a chance so vote us in again” and who would you be voting for? You would feel pretty violated if you voted for the NDP and they made all the elected Liberals cabinet ministers… You only say that now because the shoe is on the other foot

Inherent rights are not subjected to a test. Nor should be the right to chose or not to chose. If all someone knows is party signs, slogans, and smiles… then I think they should not be pushed to vote because of peer pressure.

Now if one was going to say we should have free civics classes, or free tuition for college level history classes, as part of the operating cost of a democracy… then I would be the first to vote for that.

The problem (slinky) with assuming politics is us against them is that it promotes extremism and the pack mentality of group think zombies that feel less restrained by a sense of accountability for their actions, because after all they are just following the party line.

In a legislature of equals everyone is a critic and all should have individual accountability. Ideally they would all be elected on their own merits, because its those merits of the center that would win the nonpartisan support of their peers needed to make cabinet.

Ideally parties should be limited to their allegiance outside of the legislature, and inside the legislature all working, brainstorming, and consensus building for the common good of all stakeholders in the province.

IMO the opposition should be in a Senate that is elected and represents the regional balance, as well as the official opposition to the legislature. 8 equally represented regions would be ideal for BC and would act as a balance against the Vancouver-Victoria majority in the legislature.

I also think a transferable ballot that requires a candidate to get 50% to get elected is essential for legitimacy in a democracy. Then we would have true democratic consensus making with everyone at the table of government, all engaged and with a sense of being part of the process… and voter turnout would most likely increase.