Do political candidates with the right name have an edge when it comes to elections?
One Vancouver city councillor thinks so, and wants to see a new bylaw to even the odds.
The issue comes down to where a would-be candidate’s name shows up on a ballot on voting day.
Currently, candidates appear in alphabetical order, with those who have last names starting with A, B, C and D appearing at the top of the ballot.
Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer says that gives them an unfair advantage.
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And she is arguing that the numbers back her up. She says 60 per cent of the city’s current councillors have names that start with A, B, C or D — while just 33 per cent of the candidates who ran in the last election did.
“As we’ve watched council go from a few A-B-C-Ds to now 60 per cent A-B-C-D, I think there’s no question that it’s at least worth ensuring that there’s a system that people have confidence in, that it’s not people’s last names determining whether or not they’re making very important decisions on behalf of our residents,” she said.
What’s more, Reimer argues that the potential bias favours European Canadians, and that Asian, South Asian and Latino candidates are less likely to have “A-B-C-D” last names.
Reimer is calling on the city to craft a new bylaw that would randomize the order in which candidates appear on the ballot for the 2018 election and those that come after.
She says the City of Vancouver’s original charter considered the alphabetical bias, and actually laid out a process by which to avoid it.
“The people who wrote the Vancouver Charter thought this through a lot. So there’s a very specific step-by-step procedure. Essentially, you write everyone’s names on a piece of paper, you’d put them in a hat, and then you pull them out one-by-one and whatever order they come out in is the order they would appear in on the ballot.”
Reimer’s motion goes to council on Tuesday.