Members of the Yukon Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform meeting in June, 2024. Photo Courtesy of Yukon Citizens Assembly/YCAER.
Whitehorse, YT – After months of deliberation, the Yukon Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform (YCAER) put forward a recommendation calling for the first-past-the-post system to be nixed in favour of a ranked vote system arguing the change would bring better representation to Yukonners.
A ranked vote system allows voters to rank some or all candidates in their riding in order of preference. If no candidate secures over 50 percent of the vote in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates based on voters’ preferences.
Chris Hawkins, an assembly member from the Kluane electoral district, says the process would repeat until a candidate has more than 50 percent of the vote.
“Rather than being a plurality where someone with 33 percent of the vote becomes your MLA, with the ranked vote, the winner has to have 50 percent plus one, which means your MLA will have broader support,” said Hawkins. “In the first example, two-thirds of the people didn’t vote for the MLA, whereas in the ranked ballot, at least half the people plus one voted for them.”
Composed of 38 citizen volunteers representing Yukon’s 19 electoral districts, the assembly met over several weekends from May to September and explored many voting systems before settling on a ranked vote.
“There is no perfect system, and there are tradeoffs with all of them, but the ranked vote that we arrived at is what we think is the best system for the Yukon today,” said Hawkins.
In addition to the system change, the assembly also recommends that the order of candidates’ names on the ballots be randomized to ensure fairness. The YCAER recommendation argues randomization would address potential bias from voters who might unintentionally favour candidates at the top of the list.
The final YCAER report will be submitted to the Yukon Legislature by October 31st. The Legislature will decide the next steps.
