Media Release
For Immediate Release

Local Vancouver Electoral Reform Group Changes Name

VANCOUVER -- April 18, 2004 -- The local Vancouver group that went by the name Fair Vote Vancouver has changed its name to Fair Elections Vancouver.

The change was made at the request of Fair Vote Canada, a national multi-partisan citizens' campaign for voting system reform. The two organizations are not formally affiliated.

Fair Elections Vancouver is made up of voters who believe a voting system should be measured on these four principles:

  1. Proportionality, where there should be a close correspondence between the percentage of votes a party or political affiliation wins and the percentage of seats it wins.
  2. Voter Choice, a voting system that is better at presenting the choices that voters want, and encourages voters to vote sincerely, rather than strategically.
  3. Local Representation, where all regions in Vancouver should be fairly represented in City Council.
  4. Every Vote Counts, where the voting system should accord equal weight to all ballots cast and should minimize the wastage of votes.

The group came together to warn Vancouver voters and the Berger Commission, the Vancouver Electoral Reform Commission, that a straight wards system is the same flawed system we now have provincially and federally. Fair Elections Vancouver calls for the Berger Commission to recommend in its upcoming report to City Council proportional representation and other innovative advances in electoral reform, such as ranked ballot voting -- rather than recommend one of the three winner-take-all systems it initially was considering.

City Council had asked the Berger Commission to report to Council on "other reforms for the improvement of civic democracy that would require amendments to the Vancouver Charter or other statutes in order to be implemented" and to "report to Council on the merits of the current at-large system, the ward system and other alternative systems". The commission is due to report at the end of May 2004.

Background information can be found at http://www.alternatives.com/prorep and the group can be contacted at prorep@alternatives.com

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For more information:

Steve Kisby, 604-323-0204 (phone), 604-645-2099 (pager), skisby@web.net