The 1968 Edmonton city election was the last one held before wards divided the city for the election of members of the city council.
Because the election was at-large, multiple city councillors were elected in one aldermanic contest. There was no proper proportional voting system used. Each voter could cast as many votes as there were seats to fill.
But the result is seen to be more proportional than the single-winner ward elections we see today in Edmonton. A variety of candidates were elected - businessmen and reformers. The most popular candidates of these two groups were elected; the least popular were not. Each voter had a choice among all the candidates running for city council.
Due to the multiple voting - each voter casting up to 12 votes - the vote count was massive. 822,000 votes were marked by the city’s 93,000 participating voters. In part due to the hard work this caused, the city switched to the ward system before the next election.
(An easier and more proportional solution would have been to switch to single voting, where each voter cast just one vote but councillors were still elected at large in a single multi-seat contest. Transferable votes could have been adopted if vote splitting was a concern. Transferable votes used with single voting and multi-member districts makes the system called Single Transferable Voting (STV), a perfectly workable system that was used in Alberta provincial elections for 30 years.)
Aldermanic contest
Each voter could cast up to 12 votes.
Voting was at-large so each voter could vote for any candidate in the running. The most popular candidates of each party were elected.
The two most popular candidates in 1968 were the choice of a majority of city voters.
Party labels had been dispensed with, so it is difficult to know the sentiments of the candidates.
But some connections can be made.
James Bateman and Murray Weinlos were businessmen. The Bateman family owned a chain of grocery stores.
Una Evans who was the third most popular candidate was a reformer of the NDP style. Her husband was Edmonton Journal writer Art Evans. Daughter Margaret Evans now works for CBC TV.
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