The 'No' side of the BC-STV campaign has been using its public funds to conduct polls in preparation for their advertising campaign.... It sounds like the questions are ... about hypothetical information that happens to be false [for example] "How would you feel about BC-STV if you knew <something horrible about BC-STV that isn't true>?" Some people call this push polling, other people call it politics as usual.
Note: To "know" something which is in fact false is not to know it at all but to believe in it. The No side is promoting belief in an ideology which is unsupported by fact and which just happens to serve the electoral status quo.
Crowley suggests that we supporters of a democratic voting system, BC-STV, create a push poll of our own. You know, just to show we know how to play that game too. Except our questions will be based on fact.
Here are the questions he proposes, the last one slightly modified by yours truly:
- What would you think of FPTP if you knew that only two other western democracies in the world still use this centuries old system?
- Would you support switching to FPTP if you knew that parties alone would be responsible for ensuring equality of women and minorities and would have complete freedom to run them in unwinnable ridings?
- Would you support switching to FPTP if you knew that in general only 40% of the vote would be needed for a party to gain complete control of the legislature, rendering the opposition parties useless?
- Would you support switching to FPTP if you knew that it's possible for the party with the second most votes to win the most seats and form government? (this happened in BC in 1999)
- Would you support switching to FPTP if you knew that a party gaining a moderate majority of votes, such as 58%, can win almost every single seat in the legislature, such as 77 out of 79? (which happened in BC in 2001)?
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