Dear Editor:
Paul Keenleyside (System works just fine, Letters to the editor, Burnaby NOW, Oct. 21) just doesn't get it when it comes to what's wrong with our voting system, Here it is in a nutshell.
One of my neighbours casts his eight votes for eight candidates on a slate who share his views; they are all elected.
Another neighbour casts his eight votes for eight different candidates and none of them are elected.
The first neighbour has eight councillors who represent his point of view, the other neighbour has none. This is not democracy.
There are people, such as Mr. Keenleyside, who support the present system because it is what leads to us being ruled by a party that more than 60 per cent of Canadian voters voted against.
These people are the mainstream politicians, Conservative, Liberal and NDP, with rare exceptions. Christy Clark put it very neatly; she opposed the single transferable vote (BC-STV) system when, as she said, "the present system worked very well for me" when she was in politics, but realized what was wrong when she was out of politics as a talk-show host, and supported BC-STV.
David Huntley, Burnaby
