2023 Alberta election - Did we have reasonable voter turn-out?

CBC Edmonton tonight applauded Alberta for the 2023 election having among highest rates of voter turn-out in the country in recent years.

voter turnout was about 62 percent, one in three voters did not vote.

The turn-out in this election was lower than in 2019.

Hardly cause for applause.

And I believe that FPTP was responsible for this low - and dropping - rate of turn-out, as explained below.

Other topics concerning the election are also discussed below, such as the best way to analyse the election results.

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The Alberta election may actually be good for the electoral reform cause

It certainly was no great thing for stability, voter turn-out, voter satisfaction, or range of representation in the Legislature.

Here are some early thoughts --

2023 FPTP election produced instability

about only benefit of FPTP is it produces stable majority governments

not in this case-

the legislature is very evenly balanced opposition and government, and with only two parties there are two distinct camps.

Despite claim of FPTP, it produced an unstable government -

if 12 UCP MLAs don't show up to work one day, the NDP could bring down government.

or if any small part of the UCP caucus made up of six MLAs all of a sudden decided to vote with NDP on a vote, they could bring down government.

perhaps there would have to be a vote of non-confidence but you get idea.

single-winner FPTP forced voter to concentrate his/her vote on just one or other of the two parties,

only about 3 percent of the vote went elsewhere.

That means a great deal of strategic voting (voter mis-representation), as just a few years ago,

growing degree of voter mis-representation over last two elections (as presented in pie chart in FVC article

First-past-the-post delivers Alberta a Two-Party System - Fair Vote Canada First-past-the-post delivers Alberta a Two-Party System - Fair Vote Canada Strangling off of "third party" voters in 2015 Albert election three major parties with vote share more than 24 percent each 7 percent Non Conservative non-NDP non-Wildrose 2019 only two parties with more than 24 percent vote share 11 percent non-Conservative non-NDP 2023 only two parties with more than 24 percent vote share 3 percent non-Conservative non-NDP Definitely a perceivable trend!

Never has the liberty produced by

STV's high rate of effective votes and ranked votes

or by list-PR's and MMP's high rate of effective votes based on party ID

been seen to be so necessary.

The supporters of "third parties," those who actually placed their vote neither for UCP nor NDP, were ignored everywhere in the province, same as in last election.

FPTP was bad for voter turn-out in 2023

100,000 voters who voted in last election did not this time, or more than those who did not vote last time did not bother this time and others who did not vote last time did this time.

the campaign-time artificial labelling of two-thirds of the province's districts as "safe seats" likely made many say why bother?

2019 Across the province, 1,896,542 votes were cast in this election

voter turn out 68 percent

2023 Across the province, 1,770,000 votes were cast in this election

voter turn out 62 percent

FPTP meant that although this election was known to be critical fight to choose route for Alberta into the future, with two distinct visions, fewer people voted than when the stakes seemed less serious four years ago.

I bet rural districts (and possibly parts of Edmonton) suffered from lower turn-out,

while Calgary experienced larger turn out. But that is just assumption.

But Edmonton was (mostly) regarded as safe for NDP but NDP voter still felt embattled and underdogs that needed to fight for any gains.

Rural voters (mostly) had assurance of being in a safe seats and knowledge that their party was historically more popular, so likely vote turnout was dampened there - likely except for districts where NDP were sitting MLAs - St. Albert and Lethbridge-West, both of whom were re-elected.

By comparison

Denmark had 85 percent voter turn-out in last election, one in sixth did not vote.

Norway had 77 percent voter turnout in last election, one in four did not vote.

Much higher rate of voter turn-out than in FPTP Alberta.

FPTP produced artificial regionalism

The UCP received about a third of votes cast in Edmonton but got no seats, not the 6 or 7 that was its due;

the NDP received about a third of votes outside Edmonton and Calgary but instead of getting its due - 13 seats, it received just four.

Only in Calgary did each of the two main parties receive their due share of seats.

And in the roughly half the Calgary districts where the NDP won, all the Conservative voters were disregarded.

And in the roughly half the Calgary districts where the UCP won, all the NDP voters were disregarded.

As well, the supporters of "third parties" were ignored everywhere in the province.

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Other comments on the election: Analysis of Alberta election should use natural boundaries and regions.

Analysis that divides "rural Alberta" (the area outside the cities of Edmonton and Calgary) into neat three zones each electing 13 members, is more cute than effective.

Edmonton and Calgary are not apparently in the three divisions. so there are five. Even though the cities obviously are in north, south or central Alberta.

Why are we waiting?

I am hearing lots of complaints about the three-hour wait for pretty-solid results on election night.

This is old complaint - one proportionalist jokester observed that if we want election results on say May 29 at 8 o'clock, we should hold our election on May 28th!

Sure there was a wait but did we need to know - or start reporting - at exactly 8 pm when polls closed?

I would hope that we could put off gratification until say half the polls report or until the next morning or until the outcome of the election arrived at through fair voting was produced.

mechanical tabulators.

I stand opposed to the use of mechanical tabulators.

the human touch verified by human eyes is most transparent and not slower than - and likely cheaper than - using corporate-owned machines.

There is talk about

how multi-member districts may take away from local representation.

Provincial "regions" are considered to be most-easy form of base for top-up seats in a future Canadian MMP system.

But in STV-PR system, or even in MMP, we could use MMDs, say at city scale.

the local sports team or radio station is local.

we elect the city mayor at city-wide scale.

That is local as I see it.

Our present provincial districts are micro-local. and arbitrary.

no one says let's go tonight to support the "Barrie-Springwater Oro-Medonta" hockey team

Our provincial districts, like our federal districts, are arbitrary constructs that have no existence on the ground.

in Ontario, prov and fed districts they are very similar or the same.

But elsewhere the provincial districts are of very difference size and with different boundaries - but oddly each is considered local.

They arbitrarily separate voters from other voters and are source of gerrymandering and vote inefficiency.

But use of multi-member districts would allow flexibility - use districts based on cities or counties, and allocate seats at roughly equal ratio across the board to each district in line with population and overall seats.

do people think of themselves as belonging to the poll where they vote?

doubtless they don't, as they are often/usually placed in different polls for cities, provincial and federal elections. Can we expect loyalty?

Should we have more MLAs?

Someone once noted that we will never have exactly proportional representation unless every person was elected. any increase toward that goal is a step toward that "perfect PR."

But of course there are acceptable systems somewhat short of that perfection.

No matter what districts are used, price tag and policy lurch can be avoided by fair voting --

Fair voting

somewhere MMD or some pooling of votes with single voting and fair allocation of multiple seats must be done.

if voters vote consistently and votes are used to elect people, there should be no lurches.

if voters vote differently and votes are used to elect people, there should be change.

that is just PR.

(simple to say but hard to get apparently.!!)

I understand South Africa does not use districts. people vote in their polling place - located in the centre of a circle a mile or two across - and the votes are grouped in provincial totals and seats allocated that way.

MMDs would operate like that but at perhaps at city scale - people would vote in polling place and then all the city votes would be - eventually - composed together to allocate seats.

city-wide -- same as we elect the mayor of a city. it is not magic.

districts are an artificial construct, and grouping of districts -- "Wilf's "Edmonton" -- are arbitrary unless based on something concrete on the ground such as a city or county boundary etc.

About arbitrary districts:

it is not okay under FPTP,

Don't you see?

and not under IRV

not with me

And under any system that uses MMDs and flexibility in setting District Magnitude, then arbitrary districts are un-necessary.

In Edmonton's case, using natural districts means using the corporate limits of the City of Edmonton as boundary.

And analysis can be based on that same city-wide district, throwing in some but not all suburbs just causes debate and confusion.

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2023 Alberta election

Gallagher <index was calculated as 2.82.

GI overall is okay but it is based on offset of regional imbalances -- UCP dominance in rural area balanced with opposite imbalance in favour of the NDP in Edmonton.

so no grounds for applause democratically. Low GI actually makes it harder to push for PR - the final composition under PR (if votes cast the same) would have been the same as the FPTP election produced, as measured by party seat counts.

but under FPTP much wasted votes in each place.

I have not seen the number of effective votes but likely:

Edmonton -- 67 percent of votes used effectively to elect NDP mlas Rural - about 67 percent used effectively in 37 districts for UCP and in four others for NDP Calgary ten districts that were won by NDP were won with narrow margins so say ten districts 50 percent of the vote used effectively four districts where NDP won with good lead: more than 50 percent used effectively, likely about 60 percent (very few votes went to third party candidates) (highest vote count for NDP (in Calgary, that I have seen) is Mountain View Mountain View 17,000 NDP votes margin of 8000 over UCP contender total 25,418 valid votes NDP portion: 65 percent. (if that vote could have been spread to other districts, those ten districts where NDP won with slight margin would not have been at all as close. - hence my call for city-wide MMD district or MMD covering half or a third of city - for fairness sake) other interesting one: 13,000 NDP votes in Glenmore won by margin of 30, just 30!) 12 UCP districts in Calgary - mostly about 2000 or 3000 margin, lead of say 10,000 to 7000 or 12,000 to 9000 so that means 55 to 60 percent used effectively. overall Calgary never more than two third of votes cast used effectively, or if more than that, not much more. often about half of votes in a district were used effectively under PR 80 to 90 percent or more would be used effectively, in each district and/or overall District effective voting compounded with voter turn out Alberta 2023 62 percent voted --- about 58 percent of votes cast were used effectively = votes in number equivalent to 36 percent of eligible voters used effectively to elect someone

Effective voting under PR - Denmark Danish 2019 85 percent of eligible voters voted only 4.4 percent of votes were cast for the three parties who got no representation,

all other parties got rep. -- votes in number equivalent to 81 percent of eligible voters was used effectively to elect someone.

I see the difference between 36 percent effective votes and 81 percent effective votes as significant and worth fighting for. ===== Calgary Herald online has good drop-down menu map of results Alberta Election 2023: Seat count and full results by riding Alberta Election 2023: Seat count and full results by riding Check this page for results from the Alberta general election, including a seat count and races by riding across... ===

In addition to much wasted votes in each place, 2023 Alberta election had crazy strong "FPTP straitjacket" the number of votes cast for "third parties" has not been this low ever. only three percent went to other than UCP and NDP. even in times before organized labour or farmer groups there were always many Independent candidates who got substantial support. last strong two-party fight was in 1940 when 84 percent voted for one or other - the evidence is cloudy as the anti-SC front never got official party status so ran as "Independents" on the ballot and other Independent candidates were also labelled as "Independent" but were not part of the anti-SC front. heck even in the first Alberta election, 1905, when our politics was strongly two party (LIb and Con) (derived from already-existing federal party machines), five percent of voters voted for seven Independent candidates. with only one or two exceptions, from 1909 to 2011 the two main parties got about 78 percent of the vote, leaving 22 percent or so to others, often the "other parties" included the CCF (NDPs precursor) and the NDP, which never until 2015 got their fair share of seats. This election saw only three percent go to other than two main parties, a significant drop. perhaps the 100,000 voters who did not vote this time compared to 2019 made up part of that missing 19 percent (22-3). (I may work on this more later - likely needs assessment) 2023 1.763M voted 1.70M for two main parties 2019 1.897M voted 1.66M for two main parties 2015 1.488M voted 1.02M for two main parties (Wildrose was strong third party and got more seats than Conservative, one of the two most-popular parties) 2012 1.290M 1.01M for two main parties

(78 percent for two main parties -- the historical pattern)

but also the FPTP straitjacket, with evident safe seats in most Edmonton and most rural areas*, turned off voters and 100,000 fewer voted this time than last time, despite the stakes for Alberta future being very serious. and last time (2019) was not that great for voter turn-out --- more than one in three voters did not vote. this time even more than that did not vote. and the voter list (which is used as based of eligible voters) has been pruned -- at least one long-time resident found she was not on the voter list for no discernible reason. === * regarding "evident safe seats in most Edmonton and most rural areas" - the media exaggerated that and said all Edmonton seats and all rural seats were safe so that likely contributed to fewer people voting either out of confidence or due to "why bother" attitude. T