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Tom Monto

100th anniversary of the first Winnipeg city election to use PR-STV

Updated: Mar 25, 2021

Here's a public endorsement for Pro-rep... From the Winnipeg City website: "Marking 100 years since the first woman was elected to city council A civic election held a century ago proved to be a significant moment for Winnipeg City Council. It was on December 3, 1920 that Winnipeg voters elected Jessie Kirk, the first woman councillor in the city’s history.

“If not for a new system of voting, Kirk may not have been elected to City Council in 1920,” said Sarah Ramsden, Senior Archivist at the City of Winnipeg. “In addition to redefining ward boundaries, the City introduced a form of proportional representation that allowed voters to cast their ballots for multiple candidates based on preference.”

While she did not receive enough votes on the first count, Ramsden said Kirk was declared one of the winners in the final count owing to the number of transferable votes.

“Notably, more women were eligible to vote in the 1920 civic election than ever before, the franchise having been extended to include the wives of returned soldiers, property owners, and tenants.”

Kirk was one of three candidates elected to represent Ward 2 for a two-year term starting in 1921.

During that time she was an active member of City Council, sitting on the Health, Public Safety, and Finance Committees as well as the Parks Board, Winnipeg Housing Commission, and Winnipeg General Hospital Board of Directors."

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I liked Ramsden's statement “If not for a new system of voting, Kirk may not have been elected to City Council in 1920,”

but am not so taken with her idea that STV "allowed voters to cast their ballots for multiple candidates based on preference.” The system is even called SINGLE Transferable Voting. Voters do not cast multiple votes. But to be fair perhaps she was misquoted by the media. The old confusion between choices or preferences and votes. I like to use these terms - first choice and back-up preferences. This emphasizes how only one of the marked choices on each ballot will be used.


And I am unsure what to make of her statement "While she did not receive enough votes on the first count, Ramsden said Kirk was declared one of the winners in the final count owing to the number of transferable votes."


Maybe better to have said -

Through the vote transfers that are part of STV, Kirk eventually accumulated enough votes to exceed the minimum required to take a seat.


But all in all, great to see STV mentioned at all.


and great to see due credit given for its ability to elect candidates who are otherwise ignored despite large support. Kirk had run for the school board in the previous election but under Block Voting was not successful. While under STV she was elected to a more influential duty.


Kirk's back story is:

She had been fired during the Winnipeg General Strike for her strike activities and then blacklisted and unable to work again for the school board. (The "Memorable Manitobans" website is great source of info on Winnipeg's political history. See also my upcoming blog on Winnipeg's STV city elections!)


Ramsden's mention of "redefining ward boundaries" hints at another big change made in that election. Wards were reduced from seven to three. The number of councillors was also increased. These changes together widened the proportionality from what it might have been otherwise. The District Magnitude was set at three elected in each ward each election. A ward elected a mixed bag of councillors each time -- both Labour and Business, although there were some elections where a party would take all the seats as the DM of three did not give lots of proportionality but it did give some. Better if all six councillors of each ward had been elected simultaneously instead of the staggered elections in use electing only three at a time in each ward, but there was suspicion - as there is now - of giving too much control to voters.


The reduction in number of wards also meant less opportunity for unfairness caused by "plural voting." Under plural voting, in use in Winnipeg in those days, a property owner could vote in any ward in which or she owned property. Thus previously some had cast seven votes, one in each ward, for the various aldermen while the humble working person just had had one vote. After 1919 this inequality was reduced to just three votes against one.

Thanks for reading.

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