The government of British Columbia initially scheduled the second referendum to be conducted alongside the 2008 municipal elections.

The post-election Speech from the Throne identified this as a critical piece to be addressed for the second referendum: "One task that was never assigned to the Citizens' Assembly was to show precisely how its proposed STV model might apply on an electoral map.

Your government believes that establishing STV constituency boundaries may provide the public with a critical piece of information that was missing at the time of the referendum.

"[3] The ensuing electoral boundaries redistribution prompted significant controversy for reasons largely unrelated to the BC-STV system, and on several occasions it seemed possible that the commission's work, including its STV recommendations, might be rejected altogether.

[4] Public funding was available to groups who are supporters or detractors of both the single transferable vote (STV) and the first-past-the-post election systems.

Through the chief electoral officer, registered groups were to be given funds to provide information and educational material about their positions.