One of the arguments I heard against BC-STV was that the proposed electoral districts would take away voting power from smaller communities. With a small example, I think we can illustrate how that additional power is sometimes horribly unfair. Take the following ridings and their associated population sizes as an example:
- Surrey-Tynehead: 59k
- North Coast: 27k
- Peace River South: 28k
Because of how riding borders are drawn and population sizes change, Surrey-Tynehead has a greater population than North Coast and Peace River South combined, but half the number of representatives. Each person in the smaller ridings effectively has twice the voting power of those in the larger riding.
To take the example to an extreme, suppose each city in BC had its own riding with a single representative each. Would that be fair considering Vancouver has a disproportionate population in comparison to the rest of the cities?
One of solutions to this problem is to amalgamate smaller ridings with single representatives into larger ones with multiple representatives. The number of representatives could then change yearly as the population grows or shrinks (possible with BC-STV, but not under our current system). That seems fair to me, but I suppose 61% of British Columbians disagree.