Preliminary Voter Turnout Higher than Originally Estimated
Victoria, B.C. – 61.5 per cent.
Elections BC estimates that was voter turnout for last month’s provincial election.
The figure is based on the estimated number of registered voters on May 9 and the number of valid votes and rejected ballots cast at all voting opportunities. Voter turnout was originally estimated at 60 per cent.
Now that final count is complete, Elections BC says that 1,985,523 British Columbians voted in the election, an increase of 171,611 from the 1,813,912 who voted in the 2013 provincial election.
In that election, voter turnout was 57.1 per cent of registered voters.
Final voter turnout figures for this year’s election will be available in late August after Elections BC has processed all voter registration transactions that occurred during the election period.
While the 61.5 per cent turnout was higher than in 2013, it was well below the 77.66 per cent of registered voters who cast ballots in the 1983 election. That total is the highest over the past nine provincial elections.
Graph courtesy Elections BC
Comments
Since it was such a farce this time around, I won’t be voting next time. What for, as who I vote for doesn’t really matter. When it comes to a point where two parties can join together as one for convenience sake and run the province with two parties I get disullionsed. Now, thinking about being an anarchist is appealing, as I can understand why people go this route, and no it is not such as you see in the movies! I have a couple of gym friends who are anarchists, very intelligent people who don’t vote. Now I see their points!
Anarchy gets too close to Freemen on the land, in my humble opinion.
All elections are is a poll taken on election day of a much larger group of people than any polling company accesses.
If 100% of eligible voters would be included in he election day “poll”, the outcome would not be significantly different than if it were 60% turnout or 49% turnout.
A redistribution of riding boundaries would have a much greater impact.
Assume for a minute that you had 100 people in a room that were trying to decide what to do (doesn’t really matter what it was). 40 of them were dead set on option A, 30 were dead set on option B and 30 were dead set on option C.
Why should the group of 40 be able to dictate to the other 60? Wouldn’t it make more sense if the two groups of 30 could agree on a fourth option, D, and move forward as a group representing the majority of people in the room?
That is nowhere close to the election scenario we are looking at.
We are not voting on % to start with, so your assumption is a popular vote assumption.
We are still electing in an elected seat environment.
So, group A has elected 43 seats. Group B has elected 41 seats. Group C has elected 3 seats.
The way it works from there is that issues are selected and actions of how to deal with them are proposed. Each of the groups can vote on the proposed actions. The can vote as a group or they can vote as individuals.
A simple majority of votes will approve the action and the group will see to it that they are implemented.
An agreement to agree in the future is not an agreement that has any value, whether it is in an group of 100 or 4 million.
If, on the other hand, a true coalition is formed which has a termination of the end of the term of government and is formed BEFORE an election and the coalition policies are brought to the people for their reaction on election day, that is a totally different matter. That is the way it works with many countries faced with numerous parties trying to get seats to express their constituents’ interest.
The US, on the other hand, virtually forces people into two parties, which could be considered similar to joining a coalition of the right and a coalition of the left.
But we saw what has happened there when the right wing “coalition” was the first to break down with their tea parties ….. and allowed an incompetent, charismatic, sociopath to move forward against too many trying for the position. The party was so disjointed that hey allowed an unvetted outsider to upset the system and the world gets to pay for that Party’s failure to do its duty to guard the nation from such an event.
Would be interesting to see if having a formal coalition before the election would’ve changed the minds of NDP and Green voters. My hunch is that it wouldn’t have, and we’d be in the same position we are now. To me, this just reiterates that parties aren’t overly willing to work with each other. It’s all about teams and having power.
All posts totally understandable, but I still don’t like the reasoning that because the Liberals squeaked out a victory of sorts the other two parties combined to buck them and now you have 2 so called leaders! The people had three parties to choose from and 1 party won, leave it at that. I feel democracy is questionable when this type of action takes place. It nullifies my vote. I still will not recognize the ‘ruling’ party(s)! What is the new name: NDGP, NGDP, etc. Lots of acronyms for this new ? Party! LOL!
Remember, they are not a coalition by their own words. They are not one party.
Any government formed under their “agreement” is an unstable one.
This minority is a true minority and could be led by either the BCLiberals or the NDP. The government could fall just as quickly in either scenario.
What some people are not considering is that there is a whole upper level of administration which will change hands as a result of new ministers from another party taking over. Deputy Ministers will be let go and replaced …. for how long? a year? Two years?
That costs money and inertia and costs uncertainty in the provincial population all on a shifting foundation.
Sort of like buying a product from a dealer you heard rumours about leaving town, leaving you stranded with local product warranties. Better to wait to buy that product when a new representative dealer for that product comes to town.
We elected a government of 87 MLA’s, organized in three parties. No one of these parties can govern alone, but any two can form a group with enough seats to govern, for a time. That’s democracy; no-one’s vote was nullified or wasted. There are two party leaders in the NDP-Green group, but there will only be one premier.
It’s still possible we could have another election; nothing is assured yet, which is disconcerting three weeks after the election was held.
CL
You people are hilarious…if the green joined the liberals you would be saying nothing
If the Greens joined the BCLiberals then people would be on here saying neither party had a majority popular vote, other than in their ridings.
Your conjecture cannot be supported by any reasonable person.
As well, if the Greens joined the BCLiberals it would be 43+3= 46 seats to 41 seats. Take out a speaker from that group and it would be 45 seats to 41, a margin of 4.
The proposed scenario is 41+3+ 44 seats. Take out a seat for the speaker and it is 43 seats to 43 seats. No margin. If everyone is present in the house at the time of a vote and everyone votes according to party and side agreements then it is a tie vote. The speaker gets to cast the tie breaking vote. This government could have a record number of speaker votes.
They could also bring in an outsider. If one person on the government side would vote against the the motion, the speaker would again have a tie braking vote. A non-elected representative would have that authority, unless he/she would not because they are non-elected. I do not know the rules about that.
In either case, the BCLiberal and Greens would be a much more stable government. The assumption I make is that the BCLiberals would not bring an issue to the house except with the agreement of the Greens.
In either case, the Greens have a lot of power. It would be better if there were a 4th party.
Better still, if the Greens and NDP had formed an actual coalition, especially one going into the election period.
We have seen the problems with the US system, and now we get to see the problems with the BC system.
that should be 41+3=44 seats in the 4th paragraph.
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