2025 Edmonton city election - open letter to elected mayor and city councillors

Dear Mayor Andrew Knack

City councillors,

In the recent city election, we saw  low voter turn-out and a high rate of wasted votes. This shows that we need to reform our election system.

The solution is a system where councillors would represent only those who vote for them. Right now there is a polite myth that even if a voter votes against a candidate who is elected as the councillor in the ward, that the voter is represented by that member. If that was the case, we would not need elections - all would be represented no matter whom the voter and whom was elected. But the elected councillor can only vote one way when it comes to a vote in council so cannot represent everyone in the ward.

Instead, elections actually do decide whose views are represented on council. And all substantial voting blocks should have representation. Groups that have more supporters should have more seats on council.

What we need is system where multiple councillors are elected in larger multi-seat wards,  and each elected councillor just needs to represent the votes who voted for him or her.

With each voter having just one vote, no one voting block could take all the seats in a ward contest. Of course, some votes would not be used to elect anyone, but with a range of councillors elected, voters would have a choice of whom among those elected in the ward to go for a sympathetic ear, unlike now in the single-winner winner-take-all election system.

What Edmonton needs for election of councillors is multi-member wards, as Edmonton used from 1971 to 2010. 

Previously to 1971 Edmonton used at-large districting but this would be too much to use unless ranked voting is used. 

The combination of ranked voting with multi-member wards would be Single Transferable Voting, a very robust form of proportional representation. But perhaps it is unlikely the Alberta government would allow STV for city elections.

So I am pushing for the simplest election system that produces mixed, balanced representation - multi-winner contests and each voter having just one vote.

Multi-winner contests and each voter having just one vote - this is the Single Non-Transferable Voting election system formerly used in Japan and currently for many years in the country of Vanuatu. It guarantees a range of representatives are elected in each district (ward), and guarantees that constituents have a choice among those elected to turn to for constituency representation.

With SNTV and Edmonton being divided into three four-seat or two six-seat wards, a variety of councillors would be elected in each ward. Various sentiments would be represented, reflecting the range of sentiment found among voters.

Under PR (such as SNTV)  you get away from geographic representation that we have now, with one councillor per ward, and the polite myth mentioned above.

Under PR, you have unanimous constituencies -- each unanimous constituency represented by its own elected member. This unanimous constituency could be voters of like minds concentrated in a particular part of the ward or scattered about anywhere in the ward, or most likely a combination of the two.

Edmonton needs to have either:

Three wards electing four councillors - perhaps one inner-city and two different suburban wards - North and South.

OR

Two wards each electing six counciillors - perhaps northside and southside.

Two or three multi-seat wards would allow direct comparison candidate-to-candidate at least among those running in a third of the city, and would prevent some of the unfairness that we saw in last week's election. Better Edmonton candidate Caroline Mathews (in Ward Metis) received 6243 votes and was not elected, but Anne Stevenson (in Ward O'Daymin) received fewer votes than that (6077 votes) and was elected.)

With the use of multi-seat wards, a city election would elect a range of councillors that would provide representation of the city's voters in a way that the winner-take-all contests in single-seat wards do not.

SNTV would not require election machines. Hand counting would work fine, just as happened before in Edmonton's past experience of STV in the 1920s.

Edmonton had multi-seat wards in the past, prior to 2010, and currently most cities in Alberta elect their councillors using multi-winner city-wide voting, so the Alberta government would not have grounds to prevent Edmonton from adopting multi-seat wards.

Currently each Edmonton voter has one vote, and that would continue under SNTV.

Edmonton current electoral system is flawed. But it is not the fault of the switch to hand counting that is the problem.

Under machine-counting in the past, we had unfair elections and large waste of votes. And in this election we saw this as well. 

In the 2025 election, 88,000 votes -- less than half of the 204,000 votes -- were used to elect the councillor winners. More than half the votes cast had no effect - the voters might as well have stayed home. And that doubtless affects voter turnout. Under the winner-take-all system in one-seat ward, if a voter is not happy about who is elected, he or she had no other choice. But in a multi-seat ward, the voter would have a choice among the several councillors who would be elected in the ward. And would likely find a sympathetic ear among those elected even if the voter's own choice was not elected.

Under SNTV, each voter votes directly for one candidate. SNTV allows candidates to use party labels or not as desired, so use of municipal parties is not a problem either way.

Thank you for your attention.

I am happy to respond to any questions you may have on reforming Edmonton's election system.

Tom Monto 

constituent of Ward Papastew

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In earlier draft I discussed STV more but for the letter as finally formulated I thought just to stick with what seems more achievable - SNTV.

Ranked votes, in conjunction with single voting and multi-member contests, would be Single Transferable Voting. Edmonton used this in the 1920s to elect its councillors.

If we can get the Alberta government to allow Edmonton to  use preferential voting (ranked ballots), we would have more fairness than even the fairness produced by SNTV. 

A combination of ranked ballots, one person, one vote and multi-winner contests (either at-large or in multi-seat wards) would give us STV. Edmonton used STV with good success from 1923 to 1927 to elect its city councillors. Also Edmonton used STV with good success to proportionally elect MLAs from the 1920s to the 1950s. So we know it works well in Edmonton.

Under STV, a quota is determined and any group that has a quota worth of votes elects its own member.

With STV city-wide district with election of 12 at once would be workable. STV has been successful with even as many as 21 or 37 elected at one time.

At-large districting to elect 12 councillors -- under STV, the quota would be just more than 1/13th of valid votes cast. any  7.7 percent of voters would have a representative and there would be nothing the other voters could do to prevent it.

Ward electing six councillors 

The quota would be just more than 1/7th of valid votes cast in the ward. Any 14.3 percent of voters in the ward would have a representative and there would be nothing the other voters could do to prevent it. 

Ward electing four councillors 

three wards - perhaps one inner-city and two different suburban wards - North and South.

The quota would be just more than 1/5th of valid votes cast in the ward. Any 20 percent (plus 1) of voters in the ward would have a representative, and there would be nothing the other voters could do to prevent it. 

Under at-large or two or three districts, with the use of STV, 80 to 90 percent of voters cast would be used to elect someone.

This is much higher rate of effective votes than the current election system using single-seat wards.

In the 2025 election 88,000 votes -- less than half of the 204,000 votes -- were used to elect councillor winners. More than half the votes cast had no effect - the voters might as well have stayed home.

if city council grew in size to 15 (mayor plus 14 councillors) like Calgary has, two wards of 7 would work well with SNTV or STV to elect councillors.

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BACKGROUND INFO (the math)

here are some short notes about Edmonton election.

Edmonton's recent election was terrifically flawed.

eligible voters:  679,830

low turnout for mayoral contest 

only 206,699 voter cast valid vote for mayor.

less than a third of eligible voters -- 30.4 percent of eligible voters -- cast votes for mayor

even fewer voted for councillor candidate in their ward:

203,756 votes were cast in the councillor contests:

a turnout of just less than 30 percent for that.

wasted votes:

more than half of the votes cast for mayor and councillors was not used to elect anyone.

almost two-thirds of votes cast for mayor were not used to elect the winner.

88,000 votes -- less than half of the 204,000 votes -- were used to elect councillor winners

minority-choice winners

The mayor and ten of the councillors were elected with less than half of the votes cast in their respective districts.

only two -- Stevenson and Janz -- were elected with a majority of votes.

The two parties are now represented unfairly as compared to their vote tallies:

The Better Edmonton slate won 3 seats when it was due just less than that.

the PACE slate was due one seat and got none.

(PACE was a partial slate but entered a candidate in 9 wards, so even using just the wards where it ran does not change that picture much)

12 most-popular candidates not elected:

Caroline Mathews (BE - Metis) received 6243 votes and was not elected, 

while Anne Stevenson (Ind- O'Daymin) received fewer votes than that (6077 votes) and was elected.

Wards showed widely different voter turnout --

Metis and Sipi had turnout of 22,000 valid votes

Ssp had 14,000 valid votes.

the others ranged between these extremes.

winner vote tallies varied even though each got just one seat:

in part due to the ward turnout discrepancies, 

two winners won with more than 10,000 votes, 

one winner won with just about half of that -- 5400.

five others won with less than 6500 votes,

two others with less than 7000 votes

two winners won with less than 8000 votes.

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MATH STATS

winners in bold

                                                              INDEPENDENT

                      BE               PACE          WINNER

Aninirq         1014            2002            6193              

Dene           2732             2328             6453

Ip.                 1159                 X                  6392

Karh            2900                447            6973

Metis            6243            3554           10,564

Nakota          6177            1944         x

O'Day            2145             X                   6077

Papestew      3503        3177          10,620

Pihe                7984 X X

sipi                  6040          619              6667

ssp                   3291       1632              5452

tast                  7524        2051 x

TOTAL         50,000     18,000    

%                    24%        9%

vote tallies of WINNERS in each party     

                      22,000       0                    65,600 votes for Independents

========================================

Total votes (for councillor contests)

186,000 

12 seats   

Hare  15,533 per seat

Droop  14,308 per seat

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PACE where it ran (9 wards)

                                                                                TOTAL VOTES in ward

Aninirq         1014            2002            6193          15,809         

Dene           2732             2328             6453        14,953

Karh            2900                447            6973        15,538

Metis            6243            3554           10,564        21,747

Nakota          6177            1944                               17,167          

Papestew      3503          3177             10,620       18,645

Sipi                  6040          619              6667 (30%)    21,962

Ssp                   3291       1632              5452  (40%) 13,771

Tast                  7524        2051                                   15,111

party vote in these 9 wards:

                       39,424       17,754                                154,703

                        25%            11%

9 seats            2.5 seats    1 seat

==============================

Ipiih                        17357

O'Daymin             12,049                       

Pihe                      19,647

                               49,053

TOTAL for Councillor elections:  203,756

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