Here's a bit about the 1955 Alberta election. It may be of interest because it was the last provincial election in Canada where a form of PR was used, so examination of it provides opportunity for a discussion of PR's effect and the reasons for its demise.
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The last provincial election in Canada to use a form of PR or preferential voting was the Alberta election of 1955.
Single Transferable Voting was the form of PR used. it was used only in part of the province - in Alberta's two main cities.
Edmonton elected seven MLAs and Calgary six. They were elected in city-wide districts with each voter casting just one vote. The combination of multiple-member districts and Single Voting meant mixed representation was produced - no one group could take all the seats in a city.
By 1955, STV's combination of multi-member districts and Single Voting had already proved itself to be effective at producing mixed representation in seven previous elections, since being adopted in 1924.
Outside the cities, voters also cast preferential votes. But the election of a single MLA in each district meant the majoritarian goal was pursued, not proportionality. The use of preferential voting in a single-member district produced Alternative Voting (sometimes called Instant-Runoff Voting).
The province thus was divided into two multi-member districts (Edmonton and Calgary) and 48 single-member districts.
STV in the cities
mixed representation elected in each
Calgary
64,660 votes cast 2166 votes rejected (This seems a lot but about the same number are rejected today under FPTP in a typical election in the Calgary districts taken as a block.) 62,494 valid votes Quota (Droop): 8928 23 candidates: 7 SC, 6 Liberal, 4 Conservative, 4 CCF, 1 Ind., 1 LPP Elected: 3 SC, 2 Liberal, 1 Conservative
The successful candidates in Calgary in 1955 received 52,000 votes.
One was elected in the first count, but for the other five, the votes they had at the end contained both first-choice votes and ballots bearing secondary preferences, the ballots having been transferred from other candidates, either of the same party or of a different party. Their votes of all types added up to about 52,000.)
The successful candidates received 52,000 of the 63,000 valid votes, 83 percent. (These are very representative results, ones not achieved under FPTP in today's elections. In the 2019 election, successful candidates in Calgary received only 302,000 out of 555,000 valid votes cast in Calgary districts, 54 percent, barely more than half. 253,000 votes cast in Calgary were wasted, were not used to elect anyone.)
Edmonton 82,792 votes cast 6248 votes rejected. (reason unknown why this is three times the Calgary number) 76,544 valid votes Quota (Droop): 9568 30 candidates: 7 SC, 7 Liberal, 7 Conservative, 7 CCF, 1 Ind., 1 LPP Elected: 3 SC, 3 Liberal, 1 Conservative These winners received 66,104 votes.
Two candidates were elected in the first count, but for the other five, the votes they had at the end contained both first-choice votes and ballots bearing secondary preferences, the ballots having been transferred from other candidates, either of the same party or of different parties. Their votes of all types added up to 66,104.) Exhausted votes at the end and other votes not used to elect anyone: about 10,000. (info is vague here because the statement showing vote transfers used in the Edmonton election is not available now. No chicanery implied - just disappointing for a historian researching the topic!) The successful candidates in Edmonton received 66,104 of 76,544 valid votes, 86 percent. (in the 2019 election, successful candidates in Edmonton received only 214,000 out of 407,000 valid votes cast in Edmonton districts, 53 percent, barely more than half. 193,000 votes cast in Edmonton were wasted, were not used to elect anyone.)
in the single-member districts
Under Alternative Voting, to be elected a candidate must have, or accumulate through vote transfers, a majority of votes, whether that is majority of votes cast or merely a majority of votes still in play. (Put differently, under AV a candidate will be declared elected if he or she takes a majority of the valid votes or is the leading candidate when the field of candidates is thinned down to only two.)
The leader in the first count won in all but four of the districts. Alternative Voting merely provided safeguard by proving that the winner did in fact have majority support.
The practicalities of the thing meant that some were elected with a majority of votes cast, some with just a majority of valid votes, and some by surviving until the end when the field of candidates was thinned to only two candidates, with the weaker of the two set to be eliminated. By that time, many votes had been declared rejected and others had been declared exhausted after having been cast for a candidate that was eliminated and without a marked back-up preference to transfer the vote to.
In 32 districts, a winner was declared on the first count. These would all have had the support of the majority of valid votes and in some cases even a majority of votes cast.
In 11 cases this happened as natural outcome of a two-contender contest. In 1955 Canada still had more of the old-style two-party political system than we have today (despite the election of two "third-party" governments since 1921). (Alberta though only had candidates of two parties elected in the last provincial election, but that is result of the working of FPTP, not result of votes cast.)
11 districts had only two candidates, in 1955. These would have elected majority winner (majority of valid votes anyway) under any system, whether FPTP or preferential voting was used.In 21 other cases there were more than two candidates but one candidate received a majority of valid votes on the first count to win without vote transfers being conducted.
In 16 of the 48 districts, a second or third counts (and in one case even a fourth count) were conducted to weed out candidates and allow a candidate to accumulate a majority. The sought-after majority of votes was made up of a combined pile of first-choice votes and back-up preferences marked on votes originally cast for a different candidate.In all but six of the single-member districts, the winner received a majority of valid votes. Only six of the 48 single-member district MLAs won by merely hanging on to be the leading candidate when the number of candidate was thinned to only two.
in all but four of the single-member districts, the front leader in the first count was the eventual winner. In four cases a Liberal candidate, originally the second-place candidate, gained a lead over the first-count leader, a Social Credit candidate, and took the seat.
These four seat "turn-overs" were annoying results for the government. The four Liberals elected in that way became part of what was a large opposition caucus in the legislature, large anyway by Alberta standards.
The four "turn-overs," plus the election of 7 opposition candidates who won in the first count, plus the election of 6 opposition candidates who led in the first count in their respective districts but did not have a first-count majority and went on to win the seat, plus seven opposition MLAs elected in the cities through STV made up the 24 MLAs elected to the opposition side of the chamber.
The government took far more seats than its vote share. It received only 46 percent of the (first choice) vote, but it took 37 seats, that is, 60 percent of the seats in the chamber. This was partly because AV does not look only at first-count votes. Elections are based on vote tallies of candidates in districts. in 1955 in a third of the districts vote transfers changed the vote tallies as measured in the first count. Because in a single-member district only one candidate runs for each party, any vote transfers that happen under AV move votes from the candidate of one party to a candidate of another party, or to or from independent candidates if any.
Election results in AV are not based on overall party percentages. The governing Social Credit Party did not have majority of the votes so was not due to get a majority government. But it did get that result in 1955 because most of the Alberta seats were filled through the non-proportional AV system.
In our elections, seats are filled district by district. In elections where STV was used, proportionality was achieved by the requirement that (mostly) to be elected, receiving quota is necessary. Four SC candidates each received a city-quota worth of voters. Two others hung on to the end when the field of candidates thinned down just to those who would be elected. So the result was fair and proper that way.
In the parts of Alberta where Alternative Voting was used, Alternative Voting, operating along majoritarian lines, showed that in 30 districts the Social Credit candidate was the proven recipient of support from a majority of the voters.
One SC candidate won his seat without a majority of valid votes, by being the leading candidate when the field of candidates thinned down to only two. (This was in the district of Bruce.)
In that way, the Social Credit party took a majority of the seats and the SC government was re-elected. The government though wanted to do even better, so before the next election it changed the rules of the game. The government brought in FPTP to replace STV in the cities and to replace AV outside the cities.
In the next election, the government won every seat in Edmonton although receiving a minority of the city vote. It also won a larger number of seats outside Edmonton and Calgary. The opposition bench shrunk to just 4 seats! This despite the fact that the overall SC vote had risen just to 56 percent, and the opposition was proportionally due 29 seats.
And that, more or less, is the imbalance we have been suffering from ever since -- ever since the last provincial election held in Canada that used PR even partially.
Under STV, the proportion of votes that go to successful candidates is around 80 or 90 percent, a much greater proportion than go to the successful candidates under FPTP. Under FPTP, in most of the districts the votes cast by 40 to 65 percent of the voters are ignored and elect no one.
I hope this was of interest.
For more info on the 1955 election, check out this Montopedia blog:
Thanks for reading.
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