Is There A Better Way To Elect Our Reps?

By 250 News

Presenter, Dr. Dan Ryan, at UNBC's 'Cafe Scientifique' at Cafe Voltaire in Books & Co.

Prince George, B.C.- While he believes our electoral system is a good one when it's working as it should, the new Dean of Science and Management at UNBC says declining voter turn-out should have us looking at alternatives.

Speaking to a small crowd at Cafe Voltaire last night, Dr. Dan Ryan offered up what he admitted was a radical idea, but one, he thinks, has merits. Ryan suggested that turning from our current census system to one where a random sample of voters in each riding was selected to cast ballots could be less expensive and, perhaps, an even more accurate way of electing our federal representatives.

Ryan said the census system -- where every person eligible to vote -- can cast a ballot is an excellent one when everyone votes. But he pointed out that only 59-percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2008 election. "So this becomes a 'self-selected sample' (of voters) and the challenge with a self-selected sample is it may not be representative," said the Dean. "And this is what the job of the candidates has turned into -- it's not to speak to everybody in your riding, but it's to bias the sample -- it's to get the demographic that's going to vote for you out (to vote)."

Ryan said one solution would be to go to a mandatory vote like Australia. He said it would never be a complete census -- closer to 90- to 95-percent -- but much more representative of what the people want than what's happening in Canada with sucha small, self-selected group electing the government.

The statistician said a better way -- less costly and with a more accurate result -- would be to select a random sample of voters from those eligible in each riding. In a riding of 90-thousand, you would need 10-thousand people to cast ballots to get a result that would accurately represent what 95-percent of the people in the riding wanted, with a margin of error of one-percent. Ryan offered that the numbers chosen for the random sample would have to be fine-tuned based on the number of candidates running in the riding and the degree of accuracy and margin of error, but said, "The key point is that for less than 20-percent (of the population voting), we can get a more accurate sample than what we have at the moment."

Ryan easily admitted to the crowd that his 'Random Sample' system would probably be a hard sell because not everyone would get to vote in every election and "that would be a challenge because it's not the way we were brought up." And he said the political parties would hate it because they'd hold a rally and not know how many of their supporters would be able to actually cast a ballot. But Ryan pointed out it would certainly force candidates to speak to all demographics in their riding, including the 'disillusioned' -- a few of which would now be required to cast ballots.

And while he conceded his idea would require more faith than our current system in the people running it, he said with a well set-up polling company, it could be done. "'Would you believe them?' I don't know, a lot of people wouldn't," said Ryan. "As a statistician, I'm quite comfortable with (the idea) because I've seen it work in large samples."

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