2005 Prince Edward Island electoral reform referendum

Results

The question asked was: *Should Prince Edward Island change to the Mixed Member Proportional System as presented by the Commission of PEI's Electoral Future? *

• In order to pass, the referendum had to receive 60% of the province-wide popular vote and a simple majority in 60% (16 of 27) of the electoral districts.

Analysis

The referendum was held in response to some extraordinarily lopsided results in PEI from the first-past-the post system - cases where the opposition was reduced to only one or two seats despite having a combined 45% share of the vote. The referendum failed to pass by a vote of 64% to 36% in favour of the status quo for a number of reasons, but for Jeannie Lea, the primary lesson to be learned appears to be the need for a referendum such as this to be done as a two-step process, in which the first step is to ask whether a change is considered desirable and the second step involves the choice of a specific model, as was done successfully in New Zealand under the 1992/93 referendum. Otherwise, a bias is created because some people will vote against the proposed because they would prefer something somewhat different. On the other hand, in a 2018 referendum held in the Canadian province of British Columbia, which included a two step question, the voters rejected switching to proportional representation (PR) voting by a similar (61% to 39%) margin.

References

References

1. (November 29, 2005). "Electoral reform rejected". CBC News.
2. (8 November 2016). "P.E.I. plebiscite results favour mixed member proportional representation". CBC News.
3. Lea, Jeannie. (Spring 2006). "The Prince Edward Island Plebiscite on Electoral Reform". Canadian Parliamentary Review.