UBC Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Maxwell Cameron is helping British Columbians understand Dual Member Proportional (DMP).
Cameron says DMP essentially takes all the ridings and merges them with their neighbours forming districts that are doubled in size and population.
Voters are then tasked to cast two votes, one for each preferred candidate. Dr. Cameron explains.
“When the voter goes into the polling station, the ballot that she or he receives will look very much like the current ballot. Only instead of having one name, they will have two names that they vote for that are selected by the political parties, and of course independents can run as well.”
The primary candidate winners fill their share of seats in legislature based off the current first-past-the-post system. Cameron iterates that the remaining seats are then allocated to parties based on the popular vote.
“You look at the popular vote based on the performance of the party province-wide and you look at the gap between that and the number of seats that they got and you add seats based on how well that party performed at the riding level. Then go to that riding where the party did best and you would assign the second seat to that party.”
According to Cameron, the DMP system would achieve a degree of proportionality without having to create multi member districts like in STV or regional districts like in MMP.
He also says this system has yet to be implemented, British Columbia would be the first.
For more information on Dual Member Proportional, watch the video below.