“Perpetual” voting sought

For Pedro Mora, representative ballot-box democracy has become “archaic and antiquated”.

So when he ran for mayor in Vancouver’s 2005 civic election—placing seventh out of 20 candidates—Mora pushed for a more direct democracy he called “perpetual elections”. Instead of voting for a candidate every three, four, or even five years, Mora—executive director of the Vancouver Community Television Association—wants to see it happen “perpetually”.

By this, he means voters could more easily recall their representatives, and use their computer to cast binding votes on public issues.

Mora says the geographic isolation that resulted in Canada sending politicians to provincial and national capitals to serve terms of office is no longer as pronounced, especially with computer technology. On Mora’s Web site— www.nowpolling.ca/ —anyone can log on and vote on various issues.

One snag: perpetual democracy has never been tried before, and therefore there are no success stories with which to make a case for reform.

“Just because something hasn’t been tried before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen,” Mora told the Georgia Straight. “One time I had a conversation with [Vision Vancouver] Coun. Tim Stevenson. He said, ”˜They haven’t tried it [perpetual democracy] anywhere else.’ I said, ”˜So what?’ One reason politicians don’t support my ideas is because it would imperil their own position. Their jobs are on the line.”

Mora’s idea formed a major plank of his mayoral campaign, along with cancelling the RAV (Canada Line) contract and abolishing fares on buses. In 2007, Canadians face the prospect of a third federal election in as many years. Is this more like the kind of regular voting Mora wants to see to keep politicians honest?

“Well, it’s better, but it could be a whole lot better,” he said. “We could have perpetual elections. Because once you place that ballot in the box, you go from being the most powerful person to the most powerless. I want the people, not the politicians, to be in control of when they can cast a vote.”

Mora pointed to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 move to the California governor’s mansion through a recall election as an illustration of how his system would work.

“People may not like Schwarzenegger, but California is a good example of how it can work,” he added. “That’s what the people wanted because there was recall in place at 10 percent [statewide signatures].”

Kennedy Stewart, an SFU assistant professor of public policy, told the Straight: “If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

“I can understand his frustrations with the current system, and I’ve met him at other democratic reform–type milieus,” Stewart said. “The problem with a lot of the theoretical stuff is you have an ideal version of how you would like these things to work.”

Stewart says California may have provided a forum for recall but it also has “no spending limits”, allowing the Governator to wield his Hollywood pocketbook at will.

“The [2003] Olympic referendum here in Vancouver was not recall, but it’s the same principle—a referendum but no spending limits,” he said. “So the ”˜yes’ side spent millions and millions of dollars and the ”˜no’ side spent $5,000. So the ”˜yes’ side won.”

Stewart agrees that more accountability is a good thing, but he warned against trying to change the recall procedure that B.C. has in place, which requires 40 percent of voters who were registered in a given provincial riding to recall an MLA.

“So what if 10 percent of people in Lorne Mayencourt’s riding could recall him?” he said. “That would be 10 percent of the voters—3,000 signatures. So don’t you think that everybody would be recalled all the time? If you had your threshold too low, all the NDP would have to do would be organize recalls in the Liberal ridings and the Liberals would organize recalls in all the NDP ridings.

“There would be perpetual elections, all right—they’d be every day.”

In response, Mora said people may own cars but “they don’t drive them all the time.”