While I'm certainly upset you feel myself and some of my good friends I'm working with on this are "dicks", I firmly believe that the Island's best chance for electoral reform is a Yes vote on November 28. I strongly believe MMP is the best form of PR because it preserves local respresentation while ensuring that "every vote counts". While some may attempt to paint that assertion as a mere slogan, I feel it is an accurate summation of how MMP works.

On your first vote, you are asked to choose the district candidate you feel best represents your views and can best represent your local district's concerns in goverment. On your second vote, you are choosing the party you feel best represents your views in the legislature. Under MMP, the standings in the legislature will reflect the way Islanders voted on their second ballots as closely as possible. Practically, this does mean that parties that win disproportionately high numbers of district seats will receive less list seats. But theyb will win no more or less seats than Islanders voted for them on the second ballot! Some might say that this is awarding seats to "losing parties", I call it fair voting and ensuring that every vote counts.

To respond to your specific concerns about independents, as I said at the debate last week, MMP does not eliminate the possibility of independent candidates taking a seat in Province House (although it should be noted no independent candidate has stood for election in 30 years!). They will be able to run for the 17 district seats and - depending on how our current MLAs rewrite the Elections Act to prepare for MMP - could still conveivably run as an independent for the list seats, as say the Alex Party.

Finally, I would direct your attention to the blog entry by Rob MacLean on our website - www.peivotesyes.com - which addresses the issue of parties and PR quite well.

As Gordon suggested, you can Vote No in the hopes of getting a better system, but I doubt Islanders will be any more likely to buy another PR system, whether list PR or STV. As you asked me at the debate I'll lend my support to such a campaign somehow, but I think it will be much tougher road to hoe than this campaign and I wouldn't want the job of running it.
 

---

It's very sad to hear that you were "accosted" going into the farmer's market on Saturday. I heard a few people say they felt the "Yes" campaigners were aggressively zealous. This really is unfortunate.

To me, voting yes, which I will be doing, is about opening the dialogue for electoral reform. I certainly respect that many people have concerns about the particular proposal, and I don't believe in the "your either with us or against us" mentality. However, I don't think that a "No" vote will be seen by the government, as "No, I don't like this particular model, but I am for looking at electoral change." Perhaps, I'm merely being skeptical, but I think a "No" vote will be seen as "I'm happy just the way things are." (I would, of course, LOVE to be proven wrong about this.) As well, should over 60% of voters say "yes", I don't actually believe that the gov't will immediately overhaul the electoral system, there could be a wee bit of fidling with this model first. This is why to me, if one is not happy with the current FPTP system, and sees at least some value in MMP and electoral reform, a yes vote makes sense.

Some campaigners for the "Yes" side may be zealous, but I would venture that perhaps this comes out of a defensive feeling of trying to reach an unfair threshold of 60%, while the "No" side can be a little more relaxed, as it's goal is a cool 40%.
 

---