2009 BC Election: Ranking and Election Results

Comparative Evaluation of Ranking Results and Actual Election Results

The FDA’s evaluation and ranking of the 2009 British Columbia Political Parties is an outside perspective of how BC citizens, candidates, parties, and individuals outside of the province, can view the 2009 BC General Election. Also, the evaluation process is an example of evaluation as a way to assist voters and hold political candidates and parties accountable.

The Foundation for Democratic Advancement (FDA) ranked and graded the top three BC political parties as follows:

1. BC Liberals 59.7/100 (59.7%) C Grade
2. BC NDP 47.7/80 (59.6%) C Grade
3. BC Green Party 44.7/80 (55.9%) C Grade

C Grade refers to minimally satisfactory result.

The 2009 BC Election produced the following results:

1. BC Liberals 45.83% of popular vote, 49 Legislature seats
2. BC NDP 42.14% of popular vote, 35 Legislature seats
3. BC Green Party 8.20% of popular vote, 0 Legislature seats

Analysis:

The BC Liberals and BC NDP’s popular vote percentages, 45.83% and 42.14%, are fairly consistent with the FDA’s evaluation results of 59.7% and 59.6%, in terms of difference—3.79% to .1%. However, the 8.2% popular vote of the BC Green Party is inconsistent with 55.9% FDA result for the Green Party. (36.93% difference with the BC Liberals in terms of popular vote versus 3.8% difference with the BC Liberals in terms of overall FDA grades. )

Also, the number of elected seats is inconsistent with the FDA results:

49 seats for the BC Liberals
35 seats for the BC NDP
0 seats for the BC Green Party

The FDA results translate into:

29 seats for the BC Liberals
28 seats for the BC NDP
27 seats for the BC Green Party

The 2009 BC voter turnout of 51%, means that 49% of the BC eligible voters did not vote.

Finally, by factoring in voter turnout, the BC Liberals, which have a majority of the BC Legislature, represent 32.6% of the BC eligible voters, which means 67.4% of the BC eligible voters did not support the BC Liberals.

Conclusion:

The BC electoral system, based strictly on voting, is in a very poor state. The electoral results, in which the BC Liberals received a majority of the BC Legislature, is grossly inconsistent with the FDA results which graded and ranked the three top political parties very close, with only 3.8% margin separating them. The BC Green Party is very poorly represented by the BC election, attaining no Legislature seats and only 8.2% of the popular vote.

Moreover, the BC Liberals only represent 32.6% of all BC eligible voters, despite receiving a majority of Legislature seats. Hence, the BC Liberals have a very weak mandate, while contradictorily having a majority.

The FDA attributes the contradictory and inconsistent results of the 2009 BC Election to poorly informed BC eligible voters, the nature of the current electoral system based on candidates and parties relying heavily on political influence and manipulation to get the most votes, and weak public interest in the BC election process.

The FDA recommends for future BC elections, the use of citizen evaluation panels in each BC constituency, to better inform BC eligible voters and offset political influence and manipulation by candidates and parties.

Unfortunately, prior to the 2009 BC election, the FDA approached BC Elections (the BC administrator of provincial elections) about this idea, but only received an unsupportive response.