A Vancouver city councillor is hoping to change the way voters cast their ballots before the next municipal election in October.
Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer is introducing a motion next week that would see candidates' names randomized, rather than presented in alphabetical order.
According to Reimer's motion, only 33 per cent of candidates in the last election had surnames starting with A, B, C or D, but they made up 60 per cent of the winners.
"The strength of a democracy is based on a number of factors but none more so than real or perceived bias and barriers in the electoral system," it reads.
The motion suggests "alphabetical bias" has a pronounced effect on certain ethnicities – including Chinese, South Asian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Latino candidates – because they're less likely to have names at the top of the alphabet.
The Vancouver Charter already allows for randomized ballots, and outlines a process of writing candidates names on paper and drawing them out of a "container that is sufficiently large to allow them to be shaken for the purpose of making their distribution random."
Reimer’s motion was supported by Green Coun. Adriane Carr, and is expected to be presented at City Hall Tuesday.
