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Tom Monto

1923 - Edmonton's first STV city election

Updated: Jan 16, 2022

1923 Edmonton city election


After successful referendum vote in December 1922, Edmonton switched to Single Transferable Voting.

Very little had to be changed to bring in STV.

STV uses multi-member districts, and each voters casts just one vote, which is transferable - if necessary and if the voter marks one or more back-up preferences.

In Edmonton's case, the electoral district did not have to be changed as Edmonton was already electing its councillors in one at-large city-wide district.


Previously, each voter had been able to cast as many votes as there were seats to fill, so a necessary change was to restrict each voter to just casting one vote. Votes had to be instructed in how to mark the preferential ballots. But many only marked their first preference - the only change for them then was to mark their choice with the number 1 instead of an X. Even without any back-up preferences, the voter was no worse off than under the Block Voting elections used in previous city elections or under First Past The Post single-winner elections used in federal elections at the time. If their one and only marked candidate was not elected, the vote was ignored same as it would be under those other systems.


But likely the voter, even if he or she marks just one candidate, is more likely to be satisfied with the result than under those systems.


Why?


Because under Block Voting or single-winner elections, one group can take all the seats,. Chances are that the voter - any voter - will not be among that one group so will not get no satisfaction from the result.


But under STV no one group can take all the seats so chances are that the voter - any voter - will find more satisfaction and see someone he or she votes for elected than under those systems.

Mayor and six aldermen were elected in the 1923 election. 13,000 votes were cast in this election.

In the aldermanic election, at least 8000 of these votes - about two-thirds of those who voted - were used to elect someone. (In the previous election, it is possible that no more than 5400 voters elected all the councillors. If that number of voters gave all of their votes to those who won, that number - less than half the voters - could have elected all the councillors that year.)

First preference votes cast for those who were successful in the end: James East (Labour) 3004 (had quota of 1693 in the First Count) Ambrose Bury 1993 (had quota of 1693 in the First Count) William Rea 1150 (eventually received quota 1693 votes) James M. Douglas (ss) 928 James Findlay (Labour) 707 (eventually received quota 1693 votes) Joseph J. Duggan (ss) 563 Douglas and Duggan were elected due to being the most popular and last remaining southside candidates. They had more votes than they started with but their final (peak) number of votes is unknown. Rea was last northsider elected so received the consolation prize election - to serve just a one-year term while the others were elected to two-year terms. Unsuccessful candidates and their first choice votes Thomas Ducey 789 Archie Rendall 702 J.J. McKenzie 420 Esther Saunders 380 (one of first women to run for city council) J. Boyd McBride 317 A.K. Putland (southside) 312 H.J. Pallot 308 Jan Lakeman 265 (perennial Communist Party candidate) total 3493 Most of these votes were transferred to other candidates, some of whom were elected. The successful candidates altogether had at least 8000 voters at the end. Four were elected with full quotas 4 X 1693 = 6772 Two southsiders were elected due to the southside guarantee. The southside candidates had at least 928 and 563 votes when they were elected. Time spent to do the transfers is often used as justification to retain the X voting systems but in this election it only took 13 hours for staff to do all transfers and announce the official results of the mayoral and aldermanic elections. And it was time well spent - it produced a much more balanced result than under Block Voting. The total number counted in the first count of the 1923 aldermanic election and then counted when they were transferred was less than 17,000, while in the 1922 election 53,000 votes were counted in the aldermanic election. So the work involved was actually less under STV than it had been under X voting in 1922. The number of spoiled or rejected ballots is also put forward as a major shortcoming of the STV system.

About 2500 votes were spoiled in the aldermanic election. The Dec. 12, 1923 Edmonton Bulletin said many of these ballots bore five or six number "1"s so it seems the change from the multiple voting of the old block voting system to the single voting of STV had not been adequately explained. Other of the "spoiled<' ballots were simply left blank. perhaps because the voter voted in the mayoral election but simply did not care who was elected for the aldermanic seats. The number of spoiled votes was higher than any previous election but its exact number is unclear. It seems though that their presence did not have an impact on the fairness of the election. The number of spoiled votes varied from the mayoral and the aldermanic contests. At least 1200 were spoiled in the aldermanic contest, where the number of candidates was larger than the mayoral contest. Some of the spoiled votes were ballots improperly filled out (say with an X instead of a number showing ranking), but some were declared spoiled for contests where the pertinent part of the ballot was simply left blank, such as no first-choice preference being marked for mayor or no first-choice preference was marked for alderman. The number of spoiled ballots was larger than any previous city election but the final result meant that only 3493 voters (out of 13,000) did not see their first choice elected. (Edmonton Bulletin, December 12, 1923, p. 1) Even as it was, more votes were used to elect someone than likely had been the case in the previous election. The Block Voting used in 1922 was not transparent and it cannot be known how many voters actually elected the six members. It could have been as few as 5400 or as many as all of the 11,000 who cast votes.


But under STV almost 9500 voters, out of the 13,000 voters who participated in the 1923 election, saw their choice elected, a very high rate of Effective Votes.


The same kind of high rate of Effective Votes was seen in provincial STV elections in Edmonton and Calgary starting in 1926, as discussed in other Montopedia blogs.

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