BC-STV, and why it’s annoying that I’m ineligible to vote for it.

This article was written by Darren Peets, recently graduated PhD student in Physics from UBC and formerly of the UBC board of Governors. If you are on FaceBook you can read the original post here.

On May 12, 2009, BC residents have the extremely rare opportunity to change their voting system. Not having lived in BC the last 6 months, I’m not eligible to vote, which is rather annoying given the importance of this referendum. But I can encourage others to vote. I wholeheartedly support BC-STV, and would be voting Yes.

To Conduct a Ground War, You Need Maps!

Less than two weeks to go and the troops are rallying to the cry of voter power at long last. We can make it people, we just need to get some things done to get the word out. Inviting people to meeting is great, but if they don’t come then they don’t come. So the good people at the campaign are encouraging volunteers to get out on the street and spread the word.

These maps will hopefully help in some small way with that. One for #wavingwednesday tomorrow : basically get some friends or meet up with some people at a busy intersection at rush hour and wave banners at cars, hand out flyers and answer questions. Try to go in groups of 3-5 at big bustops, skytrain stations, gas stations, etc. And of course, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to wednesdays, but you know, alliteration is fun.

Read more here.

New BC-STV TV Ad – Help Raise Money to Show It On Air

New TV Ad being passed around on the internets, they need to raise more money to get it plastered on tv during big timeslots like the hockey games, take a look:

http://www.stv.ca/fairresults

pretty spiffy, I think.

In other news:

• the twitter buzz continues with #bcstv just behind #bcelection in buzz, take a look at the hashtag charts : #bcstv, #bcelection
• the Georgia Straight had an article a few days ago about the size of the Facebook groups for the BC parties and leaders, too bad they didn’t mention the sizes of the BC-STV groups.  The “Yes for BC-STV” facebook group has more members than the all parties combined plus the “NO for STV” group (although thats not hard to add since they only have 270 members)
• the flood of powered up Facebook and twitter profiles continues to grow, have you got powered up yet? If you have, then be sure to power up your friends too!

Oh no you didn’t! YouTube Comments Too Much for No-STV

Wow.  Did you see the Pro-FPTP tv commercial put out recently by the No-STV campaign?  No, most people didn’t either, its pretty bad actually.  But its up on youtube, while you’re there make sure you look at the related videos, such as the awesome gummy bear explanation of BC-STV.  But notice the following about the ad when you get there.

No Comments!

Well, they really understand this whole web2.0, social media thing don’t they?  No comments on a video?  People comment on pictures, links, websites, blogs, tweets, recipes, news stories, … on everything!  On Facebook now people are starting whole discussion threads commenting on people’s status messages, which are usually comments to begin with!  Commenting is the whole point!

As was pointed out by some people on Twitter, the discussion on this youtube vdieo was a little one sided, in that there was a lot of people saying how misleading the ad was and one user defending it.

Just one.

Last time I looked there were at around 20 unique users comments on the fault of the video while a single user called No2STV (or something like that) was trying to deal with the flood and counter everyone.

So now they stopped the discussion altogether.  That’s ok.  We’ll have the discussion online elsewhere, shutting down discussion is not the way to use social media, that’s what the social part means.

UPDATE April 29,2009: Now you can view the Yes-for-BC-STV tv ad too! And of course, comments are allowed. Come on, yo have to admit, its lots better than the other ad, whether you agree with it or not (and if you don’t agree, we need to talk…).  Here’s and interesting comparison, I’ll update this every few days until the election:

Video	Views	Rating
No to BC-STV	2,384 (April 29)	0.5 stars
Yes for BC-STV	3,231 (April 29)	4.5 stars

Power Up Your Profile Pic!

Here’s a great way to get the word out about BC-STV, “Power Up” your profile picture you use on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, FriendFeed etc.

Lots of people have done it already, join in the fun.

There are two ways to get a powered up profile pic Ask me to do it for you.

1) Just add Mark Crowley as a friend on Facebook requesting a powered up pic.  I’ll try to get to it as soon as possible. When I get it made up I’ll post it to your wall on facebook and in this photo album (then I’ll drop you as a friend if you like   )

2) You can use this simple form to make the image for you. Then all you need to do is make a screen capture.  If you don’t know how to do this the easiest way is to install one of these browser plugins:

• FireShot: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5648
  go to a page with your image on it, like your facebook page, and hit the big “S” button beside your search box
• ScreenGrab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1146
  go to a page with your image on it, like your facebook page, and right click and choose “ScreenGrab/Save…”

If you can do option 2 then you can help us make this go viral!  Offer to power up the profile pics for all your friends on facebook.  There are almost 6000 members of the BC-STV facebook group, imaging if all of them offered up their profile pic as a billboard for the next two weeks!  Help us make it happen. Be sure to let us know here or in the main facebook group if you do this so we know its catching on.

Response to Globe Article on BC-STV

The Globe and Mail has had a few articles recently on the upcoming referendum, some fair and some quite uninformed.  The following is a recent response I sent in to one of the more reasonable articles that still needed a few comments:

Re: Residents to vote on election reform

The explanation of BC-STV given by Greg Jones is on the whole fair and balanced except for two points. 

Sun Run PowerUp! #sunrun

My superpower isn’t running, its democracy, but I ran in the Sun Run today, cape and all.  It was a good run, the weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold and no rain or blazing sun.  We had a whole bunch of BC-STV volunteers running and more who showed up afterwards to hand out pamphlets to the crowd leading BC Place.  We got the word out to a lot of people and raised some heads with our capes. Congratulations to everyone on completing their race.

I found that a lot of the people who I talked to already knew about the referendum or were curious to learn more.  I hope everyone had  a fun time. If anyone has pictures of runners with STV shirts or capes let me know or post them up on the facebook group for supporters of BC-STV.

If you saw us in the race and didn’t get to talk to us outside the stadium just head over to stv.ca, comment to this comment or get into the discussion on  twitter by searching for #bcstv.

FairVote BC AGM A Huge Success

Well, we didn’t have wireless so the liveblogging didn’t happen for me, but @jdlh got a few in, check it out.  It was  a great event. There was a packed house, people from the campaign around the Lower Mainland and a bunch of people who had traveled in from other parts of Canada to help out.  The discussions ranged over the whole map from how to answer questions, techniques to spread the word, campaign strategies.  There was lots of vigorous discussion on all that has happened so far from before the Citizen’s Assembly, through that process and up to where we are today.  The one common theme from everyone is that everyone is committed to making history in BC on May 12 and that this referendum is not only the most important issue of this campiagn but of a generation and we must do all we can to seize this opportunity.

On a practical level there were all kinds of ideas discussed for where and how to campaign which will percolate out through all the emails lists you are on, the facebook groups you are in etc.

We also got a sample of our sun run team superhero outfit, Stephen Broscoe donned his cape and sunglasses.  Did anyone get  a picture of him?  Well, tomorrow we’ll have a picture of 30-40 heroes participating in the sunrun with their blue shirts and capes.  Look for us afterwards at the stadium and say hi.  If you aren’t running and want to help out there will be people pamphletting after the race, you can get flyers and a t-shirt at the west side of the stadium starting from 9am.

But the highlight I think was the presentation by Scottish MP Tricia Marwick.  Scotland has experience using STV for all its local elections as well as using another PR system for its parliamentary elections.  Her stories were great, I’ll try to summarize some of what she said up here soon, there mayb even be a video online of her speaking.

That’s all for now, gotta get ready for the run tomorrow. More highlights to come…

Quickly Ballotbox! To the electoralreformobile!

When we last left our hero, VoteMan, he had been defeated by the misguided henchmen Apathyon and Disinformationatrix.  Now, after a time of exile in his Citizen’s Assembly of solitude deep in the mountains of BC, VoteMan has returned!  With his trusty sidekick Ballotbox they will rid the province of wasted votes and ensure the people of BC get the government they want rather than having to resort to their own limited Strategic Voting powers.

Look for your electoral reform superheros this Sunday in the Sun Run and give them a cheer, they’ll be easy to spot in blue capes.  Then after the run look for even more heroes outside and inside the stadium, get a button, get a t-shirt and help defeat Apathyon and Disinformationatrix once and for all.

Power up your vote, say “Yes” to BC-STV!

rabble.ca | The Coalition, BC-STV and next steps for the Left

Read this great article on rabble.ca about support for the BC-STV referendum and how it will affect political parties on the left.

The Coalition, BC-STV and next steps for the Left

I think the author has a fantastic point about mobilizing youth.