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.
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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 Block Voting 20,500 votes cast* 10,500 effective
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 Block Voting 75,000 votes cast* 23,000 effective
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.
as we see, with increasing District Magnitude (how many elected in a contest) the waste of votes increased with subsequent disproportionality.
under FPTP half or two thirds of valid votes were used to elect someone.
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 while Edmonton still had STV, Edmonton had 7 MLAs elected in city-wide district,
then effective votes increased to 66,000 out of 76,500, 86 percent of valid votes.
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