Brief on Edmonton Electoral Reform Tom Monto https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia March 1, 2021 =============================== Brief on Edmonton Electoral Reform Tom Monto
Executive summary
Currently, ward elections that use First Past The Post see a majority of votes elect no one, while councillors are elected by a minority of the votes cast. The city's low turn-out of about 33 percent seems tied to this unfair state of affairs. Single Transferable Voting and the related system Alternative Voting (Instant Runoff Voting) guarantees majority election of representatives. It has been used in Edmonton before. It once had wide usage across western Canada, where it was used in 17 provincial elections and in 150 municipal elections. Alternative Voting means taking existing wards and giving each voter a single transferable ballot (ranked voting). STV means grouping existing wards into large multi-member districts, or eliminating wards altogether and holding at-large elections - and giving each voter a single transferable ballot (ranked voting). If multi-member wards (say two wards electing five or six each, or three or four wards electing three or four councillors each) are used, Edmonton could also adopt councillors elected at large. This would secure representation for large but thinly-spread voting blocks unable to get representation under the FPTP ward system. STV and AV are based on candidates so do not need party labels to be used. They have proven to provide fair representation wherever they have been used. However currently provincial legislation prevent transferable votes (ranked ballots).
A simple system with many of the advantages of STV could still be brought in in Edmonton - Single Non-Transferable Voting. Like STV it uses grouped districts or at-large elections and the same single voting, but this time without rankings marked by voters; no transfers. Under SNTV, no one group can take all the seats. All substantial groups within each district (or at-large) will have some representation. A majority of the voters would elect a majority of the councillors, but not excessively more than it is due. Benefits to - voters (who get true representation), - minority groups (get a voice in city hall) - councillors (are spared the accidental chanciness of FPTP elections when seeking re-election) - council (gets insight from voices usually unheard, innovations that might otherwise be overlooked are suggested and considered, diversity of minds on council ensures proper balanced consideration of city affairs and finances) - city (increased civic pride through increased democratic control of council; better accounting of moneys and cost efficiencies, prevention of city investing in projects not actually desired but thought necessary due to poor communication between citizens and council.) ====================================================== Brief on Edmonton Electoral Reform Tom Monto montotom@yahoo.ca https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia March 1, 2021 If representation of all classes of the community in the Legislature according to their numerical strength is the goal of our electoral system, which it likely is, then a system geared to provide proportional representation is the way we should be voting. Meantime the "one district, one representative" system tht we currently use means that often - more than a third of the time - a candidate with the support of only a minority of district voters is elected and no others are, thus leaving the majority in the district un-represented.
These wasted votes sometimes exceed two-thirds of the votes cast in a district and is seldom less than a third of the votes cast. As well, with elections based on small districts, a shift in local conditions might see the defeat of a experienced politician, decreasing the effectiveness of a government in a wider way. The system, known as Single Transferable Voting, is a replacement for FPTP, a replacement that does provide proportional representation at the district level. The associated system Alternative Voting (AKA Instant Run-off Voting) is used for mayoral and other single-seat contests during the time when cities used STV for multi-seat aldermanic and multi-seat contests. Under STV, the representation is elected by a large proportion of the voters. Conversely a large proportion of voters see their vote have some effect on who is elected. Waste of votes is down. Further, STV prevents the exaggerated effect of a small local defeat, which is perhaps caused by purely local intrigue or petty jealousy. STV's deep history of use in western Canada Two provincial governments brought in a form of pro-rep (STV) for election of some of its MLAs from the 1920s to the 1950s. STV was also used in about 150 elections held in 20 cities and other municipalities in the 1917-1971 period. STV was used to elect: - Edmonton and Calgary MLAs in eight elections, 1924-1955; - Edmonton city councillors in five elections, 1923-1927; - Calgary city councillors from 1917 to 1961 and in 1971; - Winnipeg city councillors 1920-1970; - Winnipeg MLAs 1920-1952, in nine elections. It was also used to elect city councillors in Vancouver, Victoria, Regina, Saskatoon and 13 other municipalities.
In many of these cases STV was also used to elect school boards and hospital boards. How does STV work? STV uses multiple-member districts and each voter casting only a single vote. Under STV votes are transferable based on back-up preferences marked by voters. This allows votes to be transferred from candidate to candidate, in that way preventing votes from being wasted and voters from being unrepresented. Currently any votes cast for the also-rans are ignored as far as representation goes. Also the lead of votes the front-runner has over and above his next nearest contender is not needed. These surplus votes, left where they do no one any good, make up another kind of waste. In a proportional system, the surplus votes of a winner could be used to try to elect another candidate preferred by the voters. And that is done in STV, through the mechanism of vote transfers. As well, under STV, votes cast for the least-popular candidates are transferred to others, so as to avoid the dead-end waste that occurs under FPTP. These transfers are done within the district, and that is why the district needs to be large enough to elect multiple representatives. An STV district often elects 5 to 10 representatives.
Even just in Canada's STV experience, there was a variety of sizes of districts - including at-large city-wide elections filling 5 to 10 seats each time; a city having six separate two-seat wards; a city having four separate three-member districts; a city having three separate wards electing three councillors each time. By having multiple seats in each district, votes could be transferred from individual candidates to others to avoid waste and produce representation that reflected voters sentiment.
STV elections provided these other benefits as well -- STV's large multi-member districts provide less possibility of gerrymandering, the districts or wards being larger and thus dividing the city into less parcels. Boundaries often separate voters from their preferred candidate and sometimes separates candidates from much of their support. Generally the fewer boundaries, the less unfairness. Parties/groups of shared interests whose supporters are thinly spread over large portions of a city do not do well when cities are divided into many districts. But large districts or at-large elections provide them with some representation - where their numbers are adequate. STV's large multi-member districts ensure that voters are offered a wide range of candidates from which to choose their preferences. If party labels are used, there are two or more candidates of each party in each district contest. In any case, eight to 30 candidates often run in STV elections, more than in most FPTP elections. (On the other hand, these large ballots did not prove to be an issue in the past. Voters are given liberty to mark as many preferences as they desire. One or as many as they desire. A good portion are not transferred at all. Any marked with first preferences for those who eventually win are not transferred at all. They stay with their first preference, that is, except for the fraction that are transferred away as surplus.
Voters that want to rank each of the candidates can use this simple formula - Give low numbers (first choices) to the ones you like; give high numbers (low preferences) to those you dislike; and sprinkle the other numbers over the others. History of STV's use in Calgary Calgary was the first city in Canada to use STV. Like other cities during its use of STV, it used Alternative voting to elect its mayor, in single-seat contests. (To win the seat under Alternative Voting, a candidate had to have majority support.) STV was used in all multi-seat contests that ensued in Calgary civic bodies - school boards, hospital boards and commissioners. Calgary did not have wards at this time. All elections were at-large city-wide contests. In each STV election, if a party or voters' group polls a majority of the votes, it can count on a majority of the seats, and if it does not poll a majority of the votes, it can nevertheless count on some representation, as it cannot under FPTP. The most popular party got the most seats but never all the seats. The less popular parties got some seats - but never do they get no seats, if their supporters add up to quota. Quota is the mathematically determined amount needed to take a seat. This quota is the same for each seat in the district. This provides equality of the power of a vote, a necessity for political equality. It is the least amount that candidates can take that will not allow more to be elected than needed to fill district seats. 2021 is the 50th anniversary of the last STV city election in Canada. Calgary elected 14 city councillors through STV that year. After that the city switched to FPTP for city elections. By that time, more than 54 years after the first STV city election, anyone old enough to have voted using X voting in a city election would have had to be 75 years old. History of STV's use in Edmonton STV was used in five city elections from 1923 to 1927. Edmonton used STV for three city elections without serious complaint, despite the somewhat conflicting requirements of proportional voting and a guarantee of two seats filled by southside candidates. But in 1926, the city clerk made a judgement that was overruled. This was taken as cause to attack STV. In the 1926 election of the trustees of the public school board, a Labour man (James Herlihy) was awarded a southside seat. But a southside business candidate (William McBain) appealed on the grounds that the votes of the last few remaining northside candidates should have been transferred first. The marked ballots were consulted (demonstrating the value of paper ballots), and it was found that McBain should have won the seat. Herlihy had to step down. A referendum was then held on returning to at-large Block Voting. A majority voted against STV. That is how Edmonton's 1927 election became its last STV election. After the end of STV, Edmonton still did not have wards so used Block Voting, where each voter could cast as many votes as there were seats (basically half of councillors were up for election each year). Parties were in use. Under this system, one party took almost all the seats each election. For the first few years as the Depression descended, Labour had the upper hand but then the Citizens Government Association got the upper hand, and Labour (later the CCF) thereafter got scant representation. This continued, although less visibly, after party labels were dropped in 1968. (The troublesome southside guarantee was dropped about then as well.) After dropping at-large elections, Edmonton has experimented with Block Voting in three-seat wards, Block Voting in two-seat wards, and now FPTP. STV (or SNTV) provides benefits to - voters (who get true representation), - minority groups (a voice in city hall) - potential city leaders/candidates (people leery of expensive election campaigns with unknown chance of success, people who want to represent groups with little history of success in elections currently stay clear of this civic involvement). - councillors (spared the chanciness of FPTP elections when seeking re-election) - council (gets insight from voices usually unheard, innovations that might otherwise be overlooked suggested and considered, diversity of minds on council ensures proper consideration of city affairs and finances) - city (increased civic pride through increased democratic control of council; better accounting of moneys and cost efficiencies, help prevent city investing in projects not actually desired.) Electoral Benefits of STV STV produces a true measure of voters' sentiment and ensures majority rule. STV and AV avoids evils of vote splitting with say in mayoral contests the successful candidate having to have majority support to win. As vote splitting is eliminated, so is strategic voting, votes mis-representation. Voters would be at liberty to vote as they wished. They would not of course be guaranteed election of their candidate but would have satisfaction of being given a chance. The front runner in the first count may win in the end. In fact they often do under AV. but under AV, that person's majority support is proven, not just assumed as often under FPTP. AV -- Often a candidate receives a majority of the votes on the first count. AV does not create more work than FPTP in this case. There are no vote transfers. But if not then the front runner must or another must gather a a majority of the votes through vote transfers. The front runner in the first count may not win in the end, if someone else can gather a majority of the votes. But in fact they often do under AV. The extra work can be considered worthwhile because under AV, that person's majority support is proven, not just assumed as often under FPTP. (It may be that as voters feel free to vote as they desire without strategic voting, the frequency of a mayoral candidate receiving a majority on the first count may increase. The power of small groups may thus increase as they might become more important in forming the majority and thus deciding the winner. This would create more responsiveness and interactive voting time by time.) STV - The same holds true only to some degree in STV. The results under STV would vary greatly from FPTP. How Edmonton would benefit It should be mentioned that Edmonton does not use party labels at this time. This is not an obstacle to the adoption of STV/AV. Parties do not play any part in STV elections. STV is candidate based and voter driven. However in Edmonton today there are voting blocks - such as downtown businessmen, ratepayers and labour. Currently let's say that the downtown businessmen and their fans make up the largest group in the ward that includes the downtown. If they make up about a third of the vote at least, that block will take the seat. But let's say they don't have the numbers even in downtown to take the ward seat. Say, ratepayers (those who see their main interest being to elect councillors who promise to keep the "tax burden" as small as possible) have about 30 or more percent in each district and due to vote splitting and dispersion of the vote over many other candidates, that makes them the largest group in every other district. They will take every seat. Meanwhile all other groups will be ignored. Labour (those who see keeping working conditions and wages as high as possible and city services as universal and affordable as possible) are say 17 percent of the voters but pretty much evenly spread over ten of the 12 wards in the city. The other two wards are populated principally by the most well-off of the ratepayer type. Labour number-wise should have two seats but under FPTP would have none. If this goes on long enough, voters of these smaller groups become discouraged. They stay away from elections. (Also candidates that appeal to these small groups do not attempt a run for office.) This not only affects voter turn-out in elections - it also affects who is elected. Those who are elected are of the type that have been elected; those who vote are those who saw their candidate elected, and so on.
Compulsory voting would raise the turn-out but is draconian. (But compulsory voting law could be enforced lightly, same as COVID health rules). Adopting a fairer system would encourage voter to voluntarily come out in greater numbers. And councillors winning office in a fairer system would raise the prestige and dignity of their office.
Alternative Voting Unlike Alternative Voting, to win a seat under STV you do not need majority of the vote but instead a candidate needs quota, a set fraction of the vote total. The use of a set quota produces a fairness in the election of representatives. In the 2017 Edmonton election, the successful candidates won their seats with wildly varying numbers of votes. One received 12,000 votes; another received 3500. Meanwhile other candidates received more than 3500 and did not win a seat. That 3500 is only two percent of votes cast in the election. All of the winners put together only received only 44 percent of the votes cast in the election, with 56 percent being disregarded. Mechanics of STV The vote count in STV elections will always be a bit more involved than FPTP vote counts. It is theoretically possible for all the seats in a STV multi-seat contest to be filled on the first count. But this never happens in real-life. Likely in a STV contest, one or two candidate will know on election night that they are elected (by getting quota in the first count). Most of the others will have a good idea they will be elected or will not be elected. But it may be days before final result is ascertained. The process of the vote count and the vote transfers can be made into a public event - with the public watching the votes move from candidate to candidate (unless computers are used, which is not necessary). This process should make politics interesting to more voters.
The largest known STV count in North America was Cleveland's in 1923. 118 candidates in the field 110,000 to 130,000 votes were cast in its elections. But the vote count went smoothly - without the use of computers - and after a week of work, the count was done. Only double that number of votes are cast in Edmonton elections today, so if Edmonton had three wards, the count should be do-able without the aid of computers.
At-large elections where votes from across the city are put together could be in the form of SNTV, where the first count is the only count.
Or the city could use the Gove Plan where votes are transferred when necessary to where the candidate being eliminated or elected has predetermined they will all go. Even if there were 35 candidates and five seats to fill, the final results would be produced with fewer than 40 simple mathematical additions.
The Gove Plan (invented back in the late 1800s) is a means to make STV transfers quicker. Candidates pre-announce to which other candidate their transfers will go. Voters do not use ranked ballots. Transfers are done in blocks. so it is much quicker and serves same purpose - similar candidates may aid each other; a large proportion of the voters are used to determine a winner.)
Like AV, under STV most of the front runners in the first count - occasionally all of them - are elected in the end. This is fine - it is the voters' proven will. And the combination of Single Voting and multi-member district alone has produced mixed roughly proportional representation in the district, even without transfers.
The front runners in the First Count of a STV election is likely to be very different from the winners in a collection of FPTP elections. In the FPTP elections, 65 to 35 percent of the votes are ignored. In STV elections, 80 to 90 percent of the votes are used to determine the successful candidates.
In AV mayoral contests, something less than 50 percent of the votes in the city overall are ignored. If AV was to be used in 12 wards across the city, the amount of voters represented would be less.
This difference is inflated when you consider the workings of city hall. Under FPTP seven councillors elected with say 33 percent of the votes in each district would have control, so a voting block of 19 percent of the vote could theoretically control city hall. Under STV, with 12 councillors elected at-large, quota would be 8 percent so a voting block of 56 percent of the vote would be needed to control city hall. (And likely the number of votes cast would increase under STV and thus the numbers of votes required to take control.) Under STV with 12 councillors elected in four three-member wards quota would be 25 percent of the district vote (assuming equivalent districts, district vote would be 25 percent of the votes, so quota 6 percent overall)) so a voting block of 42 percent of the vote would be needed to control city hall. These numbers are actually more powerful if they are inverted. Under FPTP, 81 percent of the voters can be rendered powerless by 19 percent of the voters. Under STV at-large, 44 percent of the votes can be voters can be rendered powerless by 56 percent of the voters. Under STV in four wards, 58 percent of the voters can be rendered powerless by 42 percent of the voters. SNTV can be adopted in Edmonton today Under existing provincial legislation, transferable votes are prohibited. So that (at least for now) prohibits STV and Alternative Voting. But Single Non-Transferable Voting, a system that produces many of the benefits of STV, can be bought in. SNTV, like STV, uses multi-member districts and Single Voting, although without ranked ballots and without any transfers. An advantage that Single Non-Transferable Voting holds over STV now is that it can be brought in even under existing provincial legislation. Edmonton can determine how many wards the city has. Single- and multi-member wards or at-large elections are permitted. Edmonton can determine how many votes each voter gets. Edmonton voters cast just one vote now; voters in Red Deer, for example, cast several. So SNTV would be permitted, it seems. Single Non-Transferable Voting SNTV having large multi-member districts alone would mean that electoral contests would be more fair. For instance, only 12 of the 22 most popular candidates in the 2018 election were elected. There were 10 candidates who were not elected although taking more votes than the least-popular successful candidate. Some of this is due to differing sizes of districts; some is due to a candidate winning with only a minority of the votes in his or her district. Thus it seems likely each voter casting a single vote in an at-large district, taking the city as a whole, would have resulted in different representation. Although STV is preferred as being proven to be fair, very much the same fair result would be produced by just such a system as described. Under Single Non-Transferable Voting, each voter casts just one vote in a multi-seat district.
SNTV often produces results that are very similar to STV anyway. In Calgary's 1971 election, the winners in all but one ward were the two front runners in the first count.
And it seems most voters plumped for their preferred candidate and few marked back-up preferences on their ballots. In most of the wards the winners had only a few hundred more votes at the end than they had had in the first count. And that is fine if that is the voters' choice. Where enough voters cared enough to mark ack-up preferences, the voters of Ward 5, the first place and the third-place candidates in the first count were elected, and the second-place candidate was not elected. At-large councillors can be adopted in Edmonton today Another route Edmonton could take to create fair representation would be adding at-large councillors to our existing ward councillors. By definition, the at-large elections would be multi-seat affairs. A voting block spread thinly across the city would have some kind of chance in an at-large election held using SNTV. What would result from STV and at-large elections Nine councillors elected in single wards or in multi-seat wards (three in each of three wards) plus five at-large councillors would provide fairness that the present 12 separate FPTP contests do not provide voters of Edmonton today. This implies only a small increase in the number of city councillors, bringing us up to the number Calgary currently has.
Each voter would have a vote for the mayor, a vote for the ward councillor and a vote for an at-large councillor.
Under such a system Labour with its 17 percent of the vote mentioned above would take an at-large seat, and there would be nothing any other group could do about it. And there would be nothing to stop any other group with 17 percent of the vote or multiples thereof to take a seat or multiple seats. Coalition candidates, vote-splitting - all would have no effect.
Perhaps even the downtown business group with not enough votes to take the one ward seat in the case mentioned above would perhaps take a seat from the voters across the city.
Neither labour's councillor nor the downtown business councillor would have power to dominate having only a minority of the seats (elected proportionately to its minority of the voters) but the groups would each have a voice on council.
A mantra of the STV proponents of the 1920s was "In a democratic government the right of representation belongs to all but the right of decision-making belongs to the majority." And that is what STV does.
A majority under this combined system would necessitate as a minimum getting more votes than under FPTP as used today. Taking eight FPTP district seats out of nine might take as few as 30 percent of the vote. Taking 3 FPTP seats and five at-large would take 84 percent of the at-large vote - so not likely. Taking eight STV seats out of nine (in three three-seat wards) would take 70 percent of the ward vote. Taking five STV ward seats and 3 at-large seats would take 50-60 percent of the vote. Taking six FPTP seats and 2 at-large seats might take as few as 32 percent of the vote.
As Edmonton does not use parties, this kind of calculation might be seen as merely an intellectual exercise.
You might prefer to think about its corollary effect.
The mixed FPTP/at-large system would allow anyone with 17 percent of the votes city-wide to be elected to an at-large seat and anyone with 30 percent or more of a ward's vote (equivalent to four percent of the city vote) likely to be elected.
The mixed STV/at-large system would allow any candidate with 17 percent of the vote to be elected to an at-large seat and anyone with 25 percent of a ward's vote (equivalent to about eight percent of the city vote) to be elected.
Whether a candidate could run in both ward and at-large contests I leave to someone else to decide. I would say the bylaw would read "a candidate may run in both ward and at-large contests. If elected in both, he or she would take the ward seat. His or her votes for the at-large seat would be disregarded."
Thus the range of representation, the diversity of the voices on city council would increase under the mixed system, with the addition of at-large seats. Benefits of STV - Increased voter satisfaction from majority-popular mayors, either the front runner in the First Count would be elected but with proven majority support or a different candidate with more general acceptability would be elected. - Increased voter satisfaction from higher rate of effective votes in aldermanic elections. In the 2017 city election, seven of the 12 councillors were elected with less than majority of votes in the districts. in Ward 4, Paquettee took only 24 percent of the vote in his district. - Increasing voter turn-out likely would result from reduction of currently widespread feeling that voting is useless - Calming political waters by - electoral contests would cease being zero-sum contests -- any two or more candidates in the multi-seat contest may both win. - moderate candidates have an advantage in contests where general acceptability is important such as STV or AV, perhaps even SNTV. - making politics less of a chancy occupational choice. In 2017 Edmonton city election, in three cases the successful candidate's lead in votes was very small. Ward 3 Dziadyk won with only 500 votes more than his nearest competitor. Ward 4 Paquette won with only 900 votes more than his nearest competitor. Ward 7 Caterina won with only 150 votes more than his nearest competitor. These representatives are open to de-election with just a slight change of behaviour by voters.
This is especially true as voter turn-out in the election was only 33 percent. There were a lot of unmeasured voters.
A system that consistently brings out larger voter turn-out and one where a set number of votes ensures election to a seat, not just a happenstance lead over the second-place competitor, would take much of the chance out of a political career. Either you have the support or you don't.
This would not only draw out candidates from hitherto unrepresented or under-represented groups but also likely draw out a different brand of civic leader, with fewer of the adventurer type, let's say. =============================== STV -
what it is, what it meant to voters and why it left provincial and city elections Single Transferable Voting (STV) is a voter-driven, candidate-based system of proportional representation at the district level. Each voter casts a single vote, and candidates run in multi-member districts. The combination of Single Voting and multi-member district alone ensures mixed roughly proportional representation in the district. But STV has another refinement as well - each voter marks his or her first preference and also marks back-up preferences. A back-up is considered only if the first-preference candidate cannot be elected or if the candidate is elected. If the first-preference candidate is elected, un-needed "surplus" votes that would otherwise be wasted are transferred out.
STV is district-based, not overall proportional. But if enough districts use STV, the elected legislature can be quite proportional. Because STV uses transferable votes, votes can move from candidate to candidate and thus may cross party lines, so the final result sometimes does not exactly mirror the initial party tallies. Sometimes the vote transfers change the parties' standings in the First Count, and sometimes they do not change them at all.
The final results, whether changed or unchanged compared to the First Count, do mirror the sentiment of the voters. Under STV, most of those elected in each district are elected because they are the second choice of more voters than their competitors. Many are happy enough, if their first choice cannot be elected, to see their second choice elected to represent the constituency versus a different candidate. The fact that STV is district-based means it can be adopted in just the cities, or even just in one city where voters are in favour of it.
After it proves itself there, it can be extended to other districts. Unlike an overall electoral system, you can bring it in without needing to impose STV in places where there is strong opposition or in places where the sparse amount of population would make a multi-member district too large geographically to be practicable.
STV is produced simply by three things: 1. forming multi-member districts, usually be grouping several single-member districts. Say 7 seats in a large city would be combined to make one "grouped district." 2. each voter can cast only one vote. 3. voters are instructed in how to mark the ranked ballots. (And of course election officials would have to learn about how to deal with any vote transfers that might be necessary). A U.S. city was the first to use STV in North America. Ashtabula, Ohio had that honour in 1915. A scant couple years later Calgary adopted it for its city elections. And five years later 19 Canadian cities (and many U.S. cities) were using it in city elections.
And by 1926 the provincial legislators in four cities, in two separate provinces, were elected through STV. STV was first brought in at the city level in cities in all four western provinces before it was used in provincial elections in two of those provinces. Those were Alberta and Manitoba, to elect MLAs to represent the cities of Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Medicine Hat. Twenty Western Canadian cities and other municipalities used STV in more than 150 elections, stretching from 1917 to 1971. Calgary was the first city in Canada to adopt STV, in 1917. And the last city-level STV election was held in that city in 1971. Actually this was the last STV election held to elect government representatives anywhere in Canada.
By 1931, STV had been voted out in almost every city where it was brought to a vote. After 1931 only two cities - Winnipeg and Calgary - and four smaller places - St. James and three other Manitoba municipalities - continued to use STV. They all continued to use it until 1971. In Calgary's case it moved to Alternative Voting (RCV) in 1960, then returned to STV for one final STV election in 1971. No city (or province) has used STV since 1971.
Ranked ballots were not seen since that time until London, Ontario used Alternative Voting to elect the mayor and city councillors (electing single members in each ward using ranked ballots) in its 2018 civic election. There were no serious problems technically with using STV in the old days. And that was in a time before calculators or computers.
But STV does not give you immediate complete results in one night as under FPTP. But to wait for correct results is better than having sloppy results immediately on election night, many say. Then why was STV rejected? STV was rejected by some because it was a little more work (or a different kind of work) than FPTP. In some cases, local politics had not been so bad before the adoption of STV that the change it made was not noticeably worth the extra work. (There is little fear of not noticing the change in today's polarized climate!)
Another cause was the deposed "powers that be" objected to the fairer way of things. Party machines were stripped of much of their power under STV.
Another reason was simply not wanting to stand out as different. Ashtabula, Ohio dropped STV after just a few years because it felt uncomfortable under the microscope of political analysts and social scientists. Alberta dropped its provincial-level STV after it became the last province in Canada to still use it.
Some rejected it because it did its job. STV produces fairer results. In U.S. cities where it was used, workers, blacks, Communists, Democrats, Republicans, businessmen/women got their fair due of seats. This fairness toward the smaller groups went against the sentiment of enough of the most powerful that the system was thrown out eventually in most of the cities that used it. Cambridge, Mass. still uses it after many decades. The very different results in elections held after the end of STV proved that it had had an effect, whether that effect was appreciated or not.
This was seen when Alberta dropped its provincial-level STV in 1956.
In the previous election, in 1955, Edmonton and Calgary elected a mixed roughly-proportional representation in each city. Each city elected MLAs of three different parties reflecting the mixed sentiment among the city's voters.
But in 1959 after each city had been divided into many single-member districts and FPTP brought into use, all the cities' seats, except one in Calgary, were taken by a single party, the government party. The change in Edmonton after the end of STV in 1928 was also considerable but this time it was not the powers-that-be that benefitted.
Labour came into its own under Block Voting, and within two years after the end of STV, Labour had a majority on council. It enjoyed this windfall for two years then was bounced out of power, then back in again during the Depression, then was out again, this time for the last time. These pendulum-like seat fluctuations were examples of the exaggerated response to relatively slight changes in the votes cast that is produced by Block Voting and FPTP. ================== (Brief continued below)
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As there are different ways to learn things, I am sending you this other explanation of STV. ------------------------ STV - What it is and how to make it happen now! Single Transferable Voting explained in Alberta context
Single Transferable Voting is put forward by many as a replacement for our present electoral system. STV uses multi-member districts where each voter casts only one vote. This produces mixed representation in each district where it is used, with each party receiving about as many seats as its vote tallies warrants and no one party taking all the seats in a district. As well, voters mark their ranked preferences for individual candidates so the most popular of a party's candidates take any seats a party is due.
This was how it consistently operated in the 46 Calgary city elections it was used between 1917 and 1971. STV was also used by 19 other Western Canadian cities, including the capital cities of all the western provinces. It was used in eight provincial elections to elect Calgary and Edmonton MLAs between 1926 and 1955 and to elect Winnipeg MLAs in 9 elections.
STV, a district-level electoral system, is voter-driven and candidate-based. It is credited with ensuring that every substantial group within a city/district has at least one seat, that no party receives much more than its vote tally; that in each substantial party the candidates most popular among voters are elected; that to win a majority of seats a party must have a majority of votes. These things are not produced consistently under FPTP. The multi-member districts required by STV can be easily created by grouping all the electoral districts of a city, for example. The number of seats in each city-district will vary depending on the size of the city.
Under our present First Past The Post elections, only one representative is elected in each district and all the votes cast for other candidates are ignored. These wasted votes sometimes exceed two-thirds of the votes cast. To prevent waste of votes, votes under STV are transferable so when placed on less-popular candidate they are transferred when possible to help decide winners.
As well, surplus votes received by those elected are transferred to other candidates based on back-up preferences marked by voters. In a five-member district, surplus votes would be those over and above about one-fifth or one-sixth of the votes.
The Single Voting and the vote transfers ensure that 75 to 90 percent of voters participate in determining winners under STV. Under STV, more than one representative is elected in a district, and a variety of sentiments reflecting the variety of voters' sentiments are represented by those elected. All the balanced representatives elected in districts across a province or the country will combine to create a proportional legislature or House of Commons.
But extreme candidates and small extreme parties do not get a windfall of seats under STV.
No party gets much more seats than its vote tally indicates. A small party may get a seat or two that it would not have received under FPTP. But without a majority of the votes it will not take a majority of seats.
And the other parties with a combined majority of votes and seats may join together to pass laws approved by a majority of voters.
Under FPTP, the leading minority party usually receives a windfall of seats and a majority of seats, thus creating minority rule.
To bring STV into use in any part of a province or the country is as simple as grouping some of our existing districts together to make one multi-member district. This can be done by simply saying that all the districts in a city will be grouped to make one district and then giving the new city-wide district the same number of seats that the old districts had. Or counties or other already-existing territories could be used as base for the new large districts.
Elections in that district would use transferable votes, so a change of look to the ballots and instruction of the voters would be necessary. A voter would mark numbers, as many or as few as they want, instead of an X, but know that only one of his or her choices could be used to elect someone. The vote count at the polling places would be exactly the same as under the present system except that the number 1s, not the Xs, is the only thing counted. Election officials at the district office would be trained to deal with any vote transfers that may be needed. All of this was done before so it is not mysterious. And the result is mixed representation from each district, with each party receiving a number of seats relative to its popularity, as demonstrated by first choice or a combination of first choices and transferred votes.
A variety of representatives being sent from each city to the legislature and to the House, and a mixture of representatives being sent from each province to the House would deflate regionalism and generally prevent a province or part of a province being left out of a government caucus. Voters would have a wider range of candidates to choose from, being able to choose among a variety of parties and a choice of candidates of individual parties.
And voters would have liberty to do this, because if the vote is initially cast for an unpopular candidate, it could be transferred to another where it might be useful, if the voter has indicated his or her desire for that to happen. Voters would not be prevented as much by district boundaries from voting with their neighbours or for their neighbour. STV results in a large percentage of votes being used to help elect the candidates, with a minimum wastage of votes.
This produces higher voter turn-out and generally more voter satisfaction. ================================================
The Calgary Herald on Edmonton voting down PR in 1927 (Gives rationale for STV that are still pertinent today) "Two Cities Turn Against P.R." (From The Calgary Herald, Dec. 15, 1927) Saskatoon has abandoned P.R. The people of Edmonton were asked at their municipal elections this week to vote on the question of retaining or abolishing this system and they voted against it.
It is quite the business of any city to decide how it will vote and when The Herald expresses regret at the outcome of the Edmonton election it is not without appreciation to make its own decision.
A line has grown up in many municipalities that separate Labour from the remainder of the electors. Practically the only parties in civic elections as what corresponds to our Civic Government Association and Labour.
By the old system of voting, if the non-labour elements were organized to vote its full strength, its representatives could, in this city and probably in Edmonton, keep Labour from having any representation on he city council and school board.
In The Herald's opinion, this would be both unfair and unwise. Labour should be represented on he civic governing bodies labour forms a large and important part of the population. The values of labour's work in a community needs only to be mentioned to be recognized. As this paper said some days ago, Labour has to be constantly watchful for the protection of the legitimate rights of its members, and none is so well qualified to safeguard these interests as a man brought up and trained in Labour's ranks.
Labour may at times be critical of the attitude of the CGA thought in the city and the reverse may be true, but there is decidedly greater probability of good-will and understanding and fair play on both sides if each feels that is it represented according to its voting power on the governing bodies of the city.
It might be that Calgary would vote out PR if the question were submitted to the electors here, but this paper, as one interested in unity and fair treatment of all classes in the city, hopes that the question will not arise. Calgary will get along better by co-operation between the two parties based on PR than it would by having a powerful majority crushing down a minority. =============================================================================================================== Brief on Edmonton Electoral Reform Tom Monto montotom@yahoo.ca https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia March 1, 2021
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More on Edmonton history and Elections
prior to 2010 city councillors in Edmonton were never elected through single-winner FPTP,
and separate school board too
public school board has been FPTP just since 1995
and now no elected member in Ward H and Ward 73 at all.
Here's an article I wrote on recent school board shenanigans
(published version is to be a bit shorter):
Canada is a democracy and voting matters. That at least is the story we are told. If that is true, it must be based on the election of members in city, provincial or federal districts because that is the only time we cast votes.
It is said that it is very important to have this local "representation." But lately we have seen several instances where local representation has been blurred. A candidate living outside a district was elected. Voters were asked to seek help from members elected outside the district.
And now we see another instance. This is related to the Edmonton Public School board whose trustees are elected as single members, each said to represent a different district. Nathan Ip was elected as the Ward H trustee in 2021. He ran and was elected in the last provincial election so he resigned as trustee.
Normally when an elected member resigns (or dies), a by-election is called to fill the empty seat. In this case, the school board voted to have the trustee of an adjoining district fill in and cover both Ip's old ward and her own. Jan Sawyer of Ward I is to be paid something extra to cover her extra trouble.
If the board believes that a trustee can comfortably represent an area the size of two districts, then let's switch to two-seat districts. If one person can serve that large area, then surely two can serve the same area. Then if one member resigns, the district would still have a member.
In a two-seat district where each voter has just one vote, the two largest groups in the "super-ward" will each elect one member. That would increase the fairness. More of the votes cast would be used to elect the members; fewer of the voters would be ignored. These are all good things compared to the last election, when as much as 75 percent of the votes cast in a single-member ward did not go to the winner.
If the board is just going to appoint someone to fill in for Ip's absence, you would think it would choose from among the candidates who actually ran in the ward in 2021. The second-placed candidate - William Haines - is the obvious choice if voters cannot have Ip. Haines received 26 percent of the votes, which is more than Saadiq Sumar had when he won in adjoining Ward G. So appointing Haines to fill the position would not be un-democratic.
The Ip/Sawyer situation is not the only case of a school board refusing a by-election. Edmonton Separate School trustee Carla Smiley has resigned, and Calgary Separate School trustee Pamela Rath has resigned, as well. In both these cases the respective school board has ruled not to call a by-election. Like in Ip‘s case, cost-saving is the given rationale.
The democratic thing to do is to call a by-election. Maybe it would not cause an expense. All but one of the trustees on the Edmonton Catholic school board were elected by acclamation in 2021. No expensive election was needed to elect them. So if the same lack of interest prevails, only one contender will step forward in a by-election and the ward will have a member who is just as "elected" as most of the trustees serving today, without the cost of an election. Democracy sometimes means as little as allowing the opportunity for an interested person to come forward to serve as representative.
Without democratically-elected members, who will protect against the waste of government money? The public school board oversees a yearly budget of $1.3B (1300 million dollars!). A new Ward H trustee may save taxpayers one-tenth of one percent of that, which is more than the cost of a full by-election. And the benefits of democracy hold true for the separate school board as well.
The rotation schedule of elections - city and provincial - seems likely to produce future Ip-style vacancies. School board trustees and city councillors will run for provincial office. If we want to avoid the need for by-elections caused by such resignations, we should hold the school board elections a short time after provincial elections. So in the next school board elections (2025) we should elect just for two years. Then the next school board elections would be in October 2027, just six months after the next scheduled provincial election. Then whether or not we have a vacancy caused by a trustee or a councillor being elected to provincial office, we would have a scheduled election lined up to deal with such.
And maybe at the same time we can address the callous electoral system that we use to elect city and school board politicians. The mayor, councillors and school trustees are elected through First past the Post. In 2021 many of the city councillors and public school trustees were elected with less than half the votes. We can't know for certain that if it had come down to just two candidates, that the candidate who was elected would’ve been the choice of most of the voters. So we are seeing members elected who are not proven to be the actual choice of the voters.
As our city's problems seem more complicated with each passing month, we need to elect politicians who reflect the views of the voting public. Our current voting system - First past the Post - again and again elects the choice of a minority of voters, leaving the majority un-represented.
The cause of this is the single-member wards, which break down the city elections into sub-battles conducted separately across the city, with no overall standard used to select the winners.
In 2021 public school trustees were elected with wildly varying vote tallies. The unsuccessful runner-up candidate in one district was often more popular than the successful candidate in another district. There was no parity, no equality. Fifteen candidates across the city each got more than 3945 votes, the vote tally for Jan Sawyer, elected as Ward I trustee. Six of them were not elected. One of them, Ken Lister, got more than twice the vote tally of Sawyer but was not elected.
To elect those who were the choice of the people, we need to break away from our single-member wards and have some overall comparison of vote tallies.
School board elections used to do this. The public school board elections in 1989 and 1992 had the special feature that six were elected through First past the Post in districts separately, and as well the most-popular unsuccessful candidate in each pair of wards was elected.
We see the same attempt at fairness in separate school board elections held between 1989 and 2010. Six were elected through First past the Post in districts separately, and the most-popular unsuccessful candidate across the city was elected as well. This “consolation seat” was dropped in 2010, the same year that the Edmonton city council began to be elected through single-winner First Past The Post contests scattered across the city.
Accountable democracy depends on having a member elected for each district, every voter having one vote, each vote (or at least say 80 percent of them) being used to elect someone, and each vote being valued the same as the next vote. With our use of single-winner First past the Post, we don't see much of this when we do hold elections - and in the case of the missing trustees in Ward 73 and Ward H we do not even have elected members at all. I say it is time to return to the at-large contests we mostly had prior to 1989 or to the multi-member wards that we mostly had prior to 2010. If we do that and each voter can cast just one vote, many votes would be actually used to elect someone - and more voters would be represented.
If one of the members resigns, someone else elected in the district could carry the load. This would be more fair than not having an elected member at all, which due to recent school board decisions seems to be the future for some.
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