Edmonton city elections are conducted in 12 separate electoral contests.
This division into 12 different contests, and the division of the voters into 12 different sections, means that:
many votes are wasted --- more than half the votes did not elect anyone
many voters are disregarded --- more than half the voters did not see their choice elected
some voters cannot vote for whom they want to see on city council because they happen to live in a different ward,
it does not produce the election of the most popular candidates -- those who get more votes than others may not be elected.
This list of the 21 people who received the most votes in the 2017 elections -- yes elections, as there was not just one but 12 separate contests -- showed how unfair the election system is -
a person who received 5282 votes was not elected while a person who received 3455 was.
2017 Edmonton city election
Candidates in order of popularity:
[any who received more than 3400 votes]
Michael Walters 11,678 Ward 10 (elected)
Andrew Knack 10,091 Ward 1 (elected)
Tim Cartmell 9160 Ward 9 (elected)
Mike Nickel 9148 Ward 11 (elected)
Scott McKeen 7774 Ward 6 (elected)
Bev Esslinger 7475 Ward 2 (elected)
Moe Banga 6636 Ward 12 (elected)
Ben Henderson 6235 Ward 8 (elected)
Sarah Hamilton 6156 Ward 5 (elected)
Vieri Berretti 5282 Ward 10
Bill Knight 4958 Ward 6
Rob Agostinis 4763 Ward 9
Karen Tang 4361 Ward 11
Jon Dziadyk 4354 Ward 3 (elected)
Tony Caterina 4017 Ward 7 (elected)
Kirsten Goa 3890 Ward 8
Dave Loken 3890 Ward 3
Kris Andreychuk 3852 Ward 7
David Xiao 3626 Ward 5
Sandy Pon 3480 Ward 9
Aaron Paquettee 3455 Ward 4 (elected).
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These are all reasons why the FPTP in 12 separate wards needs to be changed -- we need to establish multi-member wards or at-large elections and each voter casting only one vote each, so
-- a much smaller portion of the votes are all that is wasted
-- a great proportion of the voters see their choice elected
-- fewer voters are separated from their preferred candidates due to ward boundaries
-- those who are more popular than others are elected while those with fewer votes are not.
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