Why The Maltese Would Riot Over BC Election Results

BC-STV opponents frequently point to the Maltese 'crisis' in 1986
as an example of 'distorted' outcomes under BC-STV, but they fail to
mention that all that happened then was that one party got 52% of the
seats on 49% of the vote, while another party got 48% of the seats on
51% of the vote. In other words, in Malta, a mere 3% difference between
vote share and seat share was enough to provoke a political crisis!
Meanwhile, here in BC, the *average* difference between vote share and seat share is 20%! If we were Maltese, there'd be rioting in the streets.

A minor difference in seat and vote share would never be
consequential here in BC, in the sense that one party would win a
majority government when it wins less of the popular vote than another
party, and the opponents know this. They're purposely misleading you.
Malta is a unique case because their population is hyper-polarized -
the two main parties typically win over 98% of the vote and tend to
split it almost perfectly evenly. That never happens in BC, where we
have a much more differentiated political culture and a strong showing
for smaller parties such as the Greens, Conservatives, Democratic
Reform and others, including independents such as Vicki Huntington and
Paul Nettleton.

In a replay of the infamous 1996 BC election where the NDP won a
majority on 39% of the vote to the Liberal's 42%, STV might possibly
have given the NDP 42% of the seats and the Liberals 39%, but would not
have delivered the NDP the 12% bonus they'd have needed to form a
majority government, so there would have been no crisis - the outcome
would have been essentially what the people voted for. Both the Reform
and Progressive Democratic parties would likely have won seats as well
in that election, and the leading party (likely the Liberals, since STV
is so proportional) would have had to have put together a working
coalition. The Maltese example is therefore irrelevant to BC.

It is also frequently said that "STV isn’t working for women in Malta!”

Opponents of STV frequently use Malta as evidence that BC-STV will be ‘bad for women’. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Malta, a small republic with the same
population of Surrey, does indeed have very few women in parliament. But
if you look closely, you’ll notice that they also don’t have many women
on the ballot in the first place. It’s not surprising considering that
only in recent years have women in Malta been allowed to retain their
maiden name or apply for a credit card. Malta also remains one of the very few nations that does not allow legal divorce.

Blaming
STV for the parliamentary make-up in Malta is a case of pointing the
finger in the wrong direction. Malta simply does not have a culture of
women participating in politics. Nevertheless, the evidence from Malta shows that when women are nominated, they are just as likely as men to win seats. If 7% of the candidates are women, then women win 7% of the seats under STV.