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Tom Monto

Alberta's two-party system needs PR as much as any other

Alberta now could be said to have a de facto two-party system with the two main parties close enough in popular support to have a reasonable hope of forming a majority government under the single-member plurality system, and some say this means not much of electoral reform. not much chance of changing to proportional representation.

Maybe or maybe not.


On grounds of fairness alone, such change should be desired.


Let's look at the potential outcomes:


The leading party has majority of the votes and takes something like 70 to 90 percent of the seats - say 63 sets and the other party gets just a relatively few seats, even fewer than their vote share deserves.

(such happened in 2019, UCP got 55 percent of the vote and 72 percent of the seats, the NDP got 33 percent of the vote but only 28 percent of the seats.


-- OR --


Neither major party gets a majority of the votes, each party receiving fewer than 50 percent of the vote, but the leading party takes about 20 or 30 percent higher share of the seats than their vote share, which leaves few seats to the second party.

The leading party takes dominant position in the Legislature even though it did not take a majority of the votes.


Such happened both in 2012 and 2015 --


2012

Conservatives had 43 percent of the votes and got 61 out of 87 seats - 70 percent of the seats.

No other party got a majority of the vote either -

Wildrose 34 percent and 17 out of 87 seats - 20 percent of the seats

Liberal 10 percent of the vote but only 5 seats (6 percent of the seats)

NDP 10 percent of the vote but only 4 seats (5 percent of the seats),

and other parties got fewer votes and no seats at all.


This was followed by almost the same but in reverse with, again, no party getting a majority of the vote and thus no party deserving a majority government.


2015

This time NDP took the most votes and a majority of the seats, while this time it was the Conservatives and Wildrose, the Liberals and Wildrose that received far fewer seats than they deserved.

vote percentage seats seat percentage

NDP 41 54 62

Wildrose 24 21 24

Conservative 28 10 12

Liberal 2 1 1

Alberta Party 2 1 1.


In each of those elections, majority government was given to a party that did not have majority of the votes. Either victorious party - the Conservatives in 2012 and the NDP in 2015 - might have accumulated a majority of the votes, if it had come to a fight between just two parties, but such was never part of First Past The Post elections so we will never know.


But as the votes were cast, neither party had he support of the majority of the votes and thus did not democratically deserve majority government power.


Apart from question of fairness, does keeping this chaotic and accident-prone First Past The Post single-winner-in-each district plurality system benefit the two large parties?


The elections of 2012 and 2015 show that any party that can take 41 to 43 percent of the vote can take majority to government under the existing single-winner system.


The leading party in each district takes the seat and every other party in each district gets no representation in that district.


Under STV, in each district each substantial party gets some representation in the district.

If STV is used in all or most of the districts across the province, each party gets about its due share ofhe seats in the Legislature.

If no party gets a majority of the voters, no party takes a majority of the seats. Then it is up to parties working together to establish a working majority in the Legislature,


Government will go to the grouping that has a majority of the seats and also a majority of the vores behind it. with whoever gets a majority of the seats.

If no single party has majority of the votes, no single party would have a majority of the seats.


Power would be more spread with smaller parties called into aid a larger party in establishing a majority position in the Legislature.


Would either the UCP or the NDP prefer a haphazard system where majority status could go to either party or one where each party gets its due share of the seats, with majority going to a combination of parties that has a majority of voters behind it?


STV - or any other form of proportional representation - would not benefit one party or another but would give each party its due share of the seats.


In the long term, such democratic accountability is good for all parties, and the benefits far outweigh any short-term accidental windfall benefit a party thinks it might win through FPTP.


As well,

a proportional election system would:

- encourage more to vote, due to each vote, or more of the votes cast, being actually used to determine representation; and

- by its simple acceptance of each party's right to fair representation, help to break down the polarization that is being created between the right and left;

- encourage voters to vote actually according to their desires instead of engaging in self-censorship through the need for so-called "strategic voting" where they cat their vote for someone who is not their first choice in attempt to try to avoid their vote being simply ignored because it is cast for someone who is not the leading candidate. Voters' freedom under PR to engage in "honest voting" would help to encourage higher voter participation, and thus more voter input into the composition of the Legislature.


PR is not about how to game the system - just as politics should not be about taking power through any means possible.


These are the reasons why I believe both the UCP and the NDP should support change to PR, for the good of their own party, for the good of the political climate in Alberta and for the province as a whole.

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