The province of B.C. will not switch to the single transferable vote (STV) electoral system after Tuesday's provincial election referendum garnered less than 39 per cent of the popular vote.
Sixty per cent of the popular vote as well as at least 50 per cent popularity in 51 of the province's ridings was needed in order for STV to pass.
Voters on the Sunshine Coast voted 39.96 per cent in favour of STV.
Proponents of the first past the post (FPTP) system are celebrating the results, saying it was the right decision for the time.
"It was a good night last night. It was really good news to our group especially and we're really happy to hear that," said Rick Dignard, a Roberts Creek resident and vice president of the No BC-STV Campaign Society.
Dignard said more education on STV in this referendum was the reason so few voters preferred it compared to the last referendum on STV which netted 58 per cent approval.
"This time people actually knew what their ridings would be and they knew they could lose a representative," he said.
He said the relatively proportional make up of seats in the last legislature compared to the popular vote also helped instill some faith in FPTP.
"I think the balance definitely helped because we obviously didn't have the huge discrepancy. The campaign for the "yes" side hung their hat on a couple of anomalies in our voting history. It wasn't the norm," he said.
Despite actively campaigning to keep FPTP in B.C., Dignard said he still approves of electoral reform.
"We don't have to get rid of first past the post to deal with some of deficiencies in the system. We just need to look at those deficiencies and infuse some proportional elements into he system so we can keep our local representatives and possibly include some of the smaller voices that keep feeling like they're left out. It's very simple to do and it would literally take the stroke of a pen in the legislature."
Jamie Deith, an STV proponent who campaigned for it on the Coast, said he is disappointed with the result, saying this just was not an ideal time for voter reform.
"I think it's pretty clear that, despite our best efforts, our opponents message resonated better than ours did and, clearly, British Columbians are not prepared to look at voting system reform at this time," Deith said.
Deith cited economic uncertainty and the make up of the legislature after the 2005 election as possible reasons why voters were not ready to vote for STV.
"The rather distorted election results that we saw in 1996 and 2001 were a little bit more distant in people's memory," he said.
Deith said the results of this year's election were relatively on par with the popular vote, but he said he still sees this as an exception to the rule.
"In some ways, this is a relatively well-behaved first past the post result compared to what we normally see," Deith said.
Only seven of the province's 85 ridings met the 50 per cent threshold, all of them in Vancouver and Victoria. The highest approval for STV was in the riding of Vancouver-Mount Pleasant with 61.58 per cent.
