Election backsplash

So what about that voter turnout? Is the fact that only a reported 48% (or 52%, according to some) of eligible voters went to the polls significant?
I just wonder how much the lists distort the picture. Here are just three anecdotes which may (or may not!) be illustrative:
A man we know has two names, one his legal name and the other the one he goes by. So he appears at the same address twice, but votes once.
A couple has moved since the last election. They registered at their new address with Elections BC. Consequence? They appeared on the voters’ list twice.
We received 5 cards at our address. One was for eldest daughter, teaching in Turkey. Another was for middle daughter, who has, since registering for the last election, joined her husband in Texas. Youngest daughter got one card at our house and another at the address in Campbell River where she actually lives when she’s here, so that’s the address she presented when she voted. Consequently, only 40% of the registered voters at our address voted in our poll.
Maybe before we work ourselves up over this point we should make sure the base statistics are reasonably accurate.

I’m rather more concerned about the demographics, as they proved out in this campaign. The average age of our campaign team, financial contributors, and volunteers cannot have been much under 60, and the Liberals, judging from everything I saw on my radar were even fewer and older.
That’s obviously not sustainable.
Obama’s campaign proved this trend isn’t democratic destiny, but I don’t see anything on the horizon of the NDP (or the Liberals, or even the Greens) that suggests it’s about to change in BC.

Which takes me to the subject of electoral change. I’m not positive it would connect more younger people to our democratic institutions, but it obviously couldn’t hurt. Most British Columbians, me included, think it’s well past time BC had some Green MLAs (and a Marijuana Party MLA or two wouldn’t hurt either).
So why did I vote against BC-STV? Because the more I thought about it the more unworkable it seemed. Because David Schreck’s research convinced me that where it’s in force STV doesn’t do most of the things its proponents argued for, including making room for more women in politics, or giving voice to minority opinions, or even reducing the influence of political parties. The only system that can guarantee those laudable goals is MMPR (mixed member proportional representation) with a vote threshold of about 5%, so that the clowns don’t get to run the circus.
So I’m proposing a plank in the next campaign which obliges the NDP, if elected government, to change our electoral system to MMPR as a matter of confidence (meaning there will be a new election if it’s defeated). And no cop-out referendum either: change we can believe in.
For a change.

(By the way, how ironic is it that the Liberals elected more female MLAs than we, the party of affirmative action, did? How ironic is it that Leslie McNabb in Comox was widely derided in her local papers for being an affirmative action candidate rather than the best candidate the NDP could put up, and that this certainly cost her votes and maybe the election as well, given a weak and novice Liberal opponent? Ouch.)