Edmonton is currently divided into 12 city wards, 20 provincial constituencies and about eight federal ridings.
But if it was divided just into two districts, each district could elect six alderman, 10 MLAs and four MPs.
With each voter casting just one vote, mixed representation in each district would result. Quota (the portion of the vote that ensures the election of at least one member) would be fairly straightforward.
In city elections, a party or voting block would elect at least one aldermen in a district if it had at least 15 percent of the vote in the district.
To take all the seats in a district would require a party or voting block to get at least 85 percent of the vote.
In provincial elections, a party would elect at least one MLA in a district if it had at least nine percent of the vote in the district.
To take all the seats in a district would require a party to get at least 91 percent of the vote.
In federal elections, a party would elect at least one MP in a district if it had at least 20 percent of the vote in the district.
To take all the seats in a district would require a party to get at least 80 percent of the vote.
Thus, each district would in all probability elect a mixed group of members. The city overall would elect a mixed group of members at each level of government.
With multiple members elected, and with multiple parties or voting blocks represented, the number of Effective Votes (the number used to elect someone) would be much higher than in FPTP single-winner contests where just one party or voting block - sometimes just a minority of the voters - gets all the representation in each district.
In FPTP, as few as 29 percent of the votes may be used to elect the single winner.
In STV contests, which use multi-member districts and transferable votes, about 80 percent of the votes are used effectively to elect someone.
If you had multi-member districts but votes were not transferable, you would have Single Non-Transferable Voting, which sometimes produces just as high a proportion of Effective Votes and always produces more balanced direct representation than FPTP.
Odd number of seats is better
If the Edmonton districts were moderately different in size, then the larger one could elect 7 councillors, 11 MLAs and 5 MPs, while the smaller one could elect 5 councillors, nine MLAs and three MPs.
Having an odd number of seats makes the seat distribution more simple and balanced.
The number of voters per seat would not be exactly the same but the increase in Effective Votes and the more fair and balanced representation would render un-important any slight inequality from district to district .
For example, in the larger district,
with 195,000 votes cast in the city as a whole (in the 2017 city election)
the districts could have about 114,000 voters and 81,000 voters respectively, to elect 11 and nine councillors
Effective votes would be something like 91,000 and 65,000 in the districts.
This is wildly different from the total of Effective Votes in the city in 2017, which was about 39,500 in Wards 1 to 6 and about 46,800 in Wards 7 to 12.
In the 2019 federal election,
Edmonton Millwoods -- 49,000 votes were cast. 18,000 were Effective votes.
Edmonton Strathcona -- 52,000 votes were cast. 32,000 were Effective Votes.
Edmonton Riverbend -- 57,000 votes were cast. 26,000 were Effective Votes.
Edmonton - 56,000 votes were cast. 25,000 were Effective votes
This may or may not overlap with the Wards 1 to 6 or Wards 7 to 12 groups, but the ridings, like the group of six wards, do cover about half of the city.
The four ridings produced 100,000 Effective Votes in the 2019 federal election.
Under STV, an estimated 160,000 votes would be Effective Votes in a district covering these four ridings.
So you see that the great increase in Effective Votes would overcome any slight discrepancy with unequally-distributed seats in district-to-district comparisons.
Over time the number of members in the district could change by simple addition or subtraction of the number of members at any level. Boundaries wold not have to be changed, the number of votes each votes could cast would not change --- only the number of seats in the district. Very fair and easy.
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