From: https://www.asherfergusson.com/raising-a-family-index/ (2020)

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VotingBC.ca’s menu leads to pages describing proportional representation of voters in pictures, graphics and videos.

Some highlights of Proportional Representation

 

4 areas that countries with proportional representation do better: life satisfaction, economic growth, life expectancy, the environment.

What IS proportional representation anyway?

Graph showing pro rep means the share of seats a party gets equals its share of votes.
It just means voters reliably get what they voted. For example, if half the voters in a region support one political party, those voters get half the representatives sent from that region to govern. Not far fewer or far more, as often happens with our old voting system, “First-Past-The-Post”. (For definitions of Proportional Representation and First-Past-The-Post see Questions and Answers.)

 

95% of voters help elect an MLA with proportional representation, compared to only half with First Past The Post.
With Pro Rep, you wouldn’t worry about your vote getting wasted. Virtually every vote would count toward electing an MLA provincially (or an MP federally) so you’d almost certainly have a representative you helped elect, accountable to you.

PR-simple-stable-successful-government

 

Unlike our old voting system, Pro Rep assures true majority support, leading to better decision-making.

 

This graphic shows a dozen of the many practical benefits from Pro Rep that researchers have found.

Catchy pop song explains how and why Pro Rep has been such a benefit to New Zealand since they switched to it in 1994:

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Chair of VotingBC

 

Welcome!

I hope you’ll enjoy checking out these web pages – most are based on colorful graphic images except “About VotingBC”, and “Questions and Answers”, which has definitions of “First-Past-The-Post” and “Proportional Representation” among other things. On smartphones you’ll notice some of the graphics here are better viewed in landscape mode 

In simple terms, proportional representation would give a legislature closer to the province-wide sentiment [and similarly federally]. It does this in a way that respects and includes almost every voter’s contribution. The democratic result is that almost every voter would have an MLA a bit closer to their own views.

But what is the practical result? In practice, it turns out that modern voting attracts better candidates, including significantly more women. Pro Rep gives more stable government policy and higher economic growth, by bringing in more consistent true-majority rule. There’s a bigger pie to share.

Thanks for visiting. Much of this factual info about Pro was prepared in advance of British Columbia’s 2018 referendum on modernizing BC’s voting system, but is still important for improving our democracy.

-Maxwell Anderson, Chair, VotingBC
[updated September 29, 2020]

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Authorized by Committee for Voting Equity in BC (VotingBC).