The Editor,
On Oct. 15, the majority of Surrey voters will elect the person to lead our city for the next four years.
Sounds nice, except it’s not true. With multiple seasoned politicians vying for the vote this election, there will be vote splitting.
We have had this in the past, including the last election, where Doug McCallum failed to secure the majority of voters’ support and still got to oversee significant initiatives with policing and transportation.
Once again, we will have someone as mayor most residents did not wish to hold office.
Worse yet, there is a simple solution to vote splitting, ranked ballots, where voters rank their choices as far as they want to. The BC Liberals used ranked voting when selecting Kevin Falcon as its leader, and the federal Conservatives are using ranked ballots in its leadership race, so why can’t Surrey do the same?
In an election, voting should matter, where your vote will have a meaningful impact on the outcome and not be tossed aside due to vote splitting in a system we know is broken.
Candidates for mayor and council should commit that in 2026, we will have a fairer voting system than the one we have now.
If not, well, continue to be stuck in splitsville with a separation between who voters want leading our city and who they end up with.
Rob Mumford, Surrey
edit@surreynowleader.com
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