Edmonton used variety of districting and election systems in first six Alberta provincial elections

Edmonton had variety of election systems in the first six Alberta provincial elections, everything from FPTP, to Block voting city-wide, to mixed Block Voting and FPTP, to STV city-wide.

Then once it had STV, it continued to use fair and throrough STV for the next seven provincial elections.

(I am talking about Edmonton and Strathcona together - the so-called Twin Cities that amalgamated in 1912. Later, of course, Edmonton expanded into Beverly, Calder and Jasper Place, and into lands held by the Sturgeon and Strathcona Counties. Voters there are not measured in this analysis. )

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Table of votes cast and effective votes in Edmonton and Strathcona

Showing districting for Edmonton and Strathcona, election system used, number of votes cast and effective votes (votes actually used to elect someone)

1905 Edmonton city-wide 1 MLA FPTP 1700 votes cast 1200 effective

Strathcona town-wide 1 MLA FPTP 1000 votes cast 600 effective

EDM/STR total 2700 votes cast 1800 effective

1909 Edmonton city-wide 2 MLA Block Voting 8100 votes cast* 6200 effective

Strathcona city-wide 1 MLA FPTP 1200 votes cast 1000 effective

EDM/STR total 9300 votes cast 7200 effective

(1912 Edmonton and Strathcona amalgamated)

1913 Edmonton part-city MMD 2 MLA approx. 10,500 voted in Edmonton district

Block Voting 20,500 votes cast* 10,500 effective (perhaps cast by 5300 voters)

Edmonton South 1 MLA FPTP 2800 votes cast 1500 effective

City-wide totals 23,300 votes cast 12,000 effective

1917 Edmonton three districts EACH 1 MLA

FPTP overall 18,000 votes cast 9500 effective

1921 Edmonton city-wide 5 MLA approx. 15,000 voted.

Block Voting 75,000 votes cast* 23,000 effective (perhaps cast by just 5,000 voters)

1926 Edmonton city-wide 5 MLA STV 19,000 votes cast 14,000 effective (79%)

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*under Block Voting, the number of voters who actually voted varied from the number of votes cast:

1909 approx. 5000 voted

1913 approx. 10,500 voted in Edmonton district

1921 approx. 15,000 voted.

in 1905, 1917 and 1926, under FPTP and STV each voter has only one vote so vote count is synonymous with voter count.

as we see above, with increasing District Magnitude (how many members elected in a contest), when a non-PR system used, the waste of votes increased with higher DM, with subsequent dis-proportionality.

under FPTP half or two thirds of valid votes were used to elect someone. (under FPTP the percentage of effective votes could have been as low as 18 percent so Edmonton voters were just lucky)

Block Voting in DM-5, we see effective votes drop to 1/5th (mere 20 percent).

but with the same DM of 5, STV ensured that effective votes made up 79 percent of the valid votes.

Later as Edmonton continued to use STV, Edmonton had 7 MLAs elected in city-wide district, effective votes increased to 66,000 out of 76,500, 86 percent of valid votes.

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