A little bit about what we have been doing at UBC:
1. We're still seeking an AMS (our student union) endorsement, because we think this will be good for students: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dkjkdjc_155fwp49x74&hl=en. We were active trying to get a favorable executive in the AMS elections - I'm not sure if this was successful, but I definitely think it's a good idea to educate candidates and ask them about it during the elections to make it 'one of the issues'. Recent posts on our blog are about this: http://fairvoteubc.wordpress.com/.
2. We have been practicing presenting using Craig's pamphlet, and have been going around and talking to groups of involved students. For example, each faculty here has its own student association, there are residence associations, environmental associations, political clubs, etc. etc. etc. While most students are very apathetic, these students seem to be less so. We have also been working on identifying and talking to off-campus opinion leaders as well.
I have posted myself giving a rusty practice BC-STV presentation here: http://sites.google.com/site/wbkstv/stv-vid. There are other resources I have found useful on this website as well.
3. At UBC the Arts Undergraduate Society will hopefully adopt STV for its internal elections (I gave them the attached presentation), which I see serving three purposes: 1) The discussion educates people about STV, 2) It improves the diversity of representation in these local elections, 3) If they use it before the referendum this can educate many more people, and you may be able to issue a press release, and 4) if BC-STV fails again this time, this will certainly help future reforms as well (Using a better voting system at one level raises awareness of the possibility, strongly strengthening support for reform at other levels). I have attached my presentation to the AUS Council below (I also did an informal presentations using ballots and my diagrams to a committee that was looking into reform).
4. We still have only a fairly small group here, mostly graduate students like myself. However Neil Morrison from SFU seems to be doing quite well at growing a group there!
Please do share what works/doesn't work at your university!
A little bit about what we have been doing at UBC:
1. We're still seeking an AMS (our student union) endorsement, because we think this will be good for students: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dkjkdjc_155fwp49x74&hl=en. We were active trying to get a favorable executive in the AMS elections - I'm not sure if this was successful, but I definitely think it's a good idea to educate candidates and ask them about it during the elections to make it 'one of the issues'. Recent posts on our blog are about this: http://fairvoteubc.wordpress.com/.
2. We have been practicing presenting using Craig's pamphlet, and have been going around and talking to groups of involved students. For example, each faculty here has its own student association, there are residence associations, environmental associations, political clubs, etc. etc. etc. While most students are very apathetic, these students seem to be less so. We have also been working on identifying and talking to off-campus opinion leaders as well.
I have posted myself giving a rusty practice BC-STV presentation here: http://sites.google.com/site/wbkstv/stv-vid. There are other resources I have found useful on this website as well.
3. At UBC the Arts Undergraduate Society will hopefully adopt STV for its internal elections (I gave them the attached presentation), which I see serving three purposes: 1) The discussion educates people about STV, 2) It improves the diversity of representation in these local elections, 3) If they use it before the referendum this can educate many more people, and you may be able to issue a press release, and 4) if BC-STV fails again this time, this will certainly help future reforms as well (Using a better voting system at one level raises awareness of the possibility, strongly strengthening support for reform at other levels). I have attached my presentation to the AUS Council below (I also did an informal presentations using ballots and my diagrams to a committee that was looking into reform).
4. We still have only a fairly small group here, mostly graduate students like myself. However Neil Morrison from SFU seems to be doing quite well at growing a group there!
Please do share what works/doesn't work at your university!