Ronald Hooper :
"Under the first severe test, the Winnipeg voting in the provincial election, proportional representation has been proved practicable when applied to any large city, according to R.S. Hooper, honorary secretary of the Canadian Proportional Representation society.
Mr. Hooper had charge of the counting of the ballots and states that the result should eliminate many of the objections held against the general adoption of the plan.
The result of the success of the system may have a far reaching effect, according to Mr. Hooper who stated he wired Saturday to Earl Grey in the House of Lords the information that the Winnipeg voting had proved the worth of proportional representation.
The House o£ Lords was anxious to have the result cabled as soon as possible for use in connection with the debate on proportional representation that is going on. He is enthusiastic over the result and states that it will lead to the adoption of the system in many other Canadian cities, which had deferred action pending the result of the test In Winnipeg.
Proportional representation, according to Mr. Hooper, showed by the Winnipeg results the absolute fairness with which candidates are elected under the system which gives no one candidate an undue advantage over another because of his popularity in a certain section of the city. The one difficulty in the operation of the system is the securing of competent staff to handle the counting. Mr. Hooper paid a tribute to the work of the men who counted the ballots and tabulated the result of the Winnipeg vote. Their experience will be useful to the city and province in the next elections, he said.
He is confident that the next civic elections will further demonstrate the advantage of proportional representation. With regard to the failure of the voting system during the first hours of taking the vote, he stated that the telephone system was in a large measure responsible for this hitch in arrangements. The failure of the automatic system to function properly had handicapped the returning officer in his effort to get in touch with many of the 300 deputy returning officers.
The greatest asset in the working out of the system was the fact that Mr. Hooper was given perfect freedom in the selection of his staff. As a final word in regard to the system, he stated that a competent staff was an absolute necessity and that the system could be easily put out of operation by the failure of a single man.
Mr. Hooper's Statement.
Mr. Hooper hands out the following statement:
"The Winnipeg proportional representation election just concluded, in which 41 candidates contended for 10 seats, has clearly shown that a ten-member constituency may be just as practicable as a smaller one provided that the staff engaged to sort the ballots is competent and well trained. The personnel of the Winnipeg counting staff was all that could be desired in these respects, and it was this that made possible the announcement, in less than four days, of the results obtained from sorting and re-sorting nearly 48,000 ballots.
"The average number of all men engaged in the work was 34, and the time during which they were actually employed amounted to 45 hours.
"Seventy-five per cent of the electorate cast their votes, and the percentage of rejected ballots amounted only to 1.72. This is very low for so cosmopolitan a city.
"The Labor party (which included the Socialist group) polled 42.5 percent of the first-choice votes and elected four members; the Liberal party polled 30.4 percent and elected four members; the Conservative party polled 13.7 percent and elected two members. The eleven Independent candidates together polled 13.4 percent, but these candidates were each independent of the other, and therefore none succeeded in securing the quota of votes necessary for election.
A further analysis of the result sheet shows that all parties received their fair share of representation. A considerable portion of the 11,586 first choice votes for F.J. Dixon, a Labor candidate with a surplus of votes, were marked with second preferences for Liberal and Conservative candidates, as were also many of the eliminated Independent candidates' ballots. This accounts for the fact that the Labor party received slightly less and the Liberal and Conservative parties slightly more representation than their first-choice votes would appear to entitle them to.
"It is one of the distinct advantages of the single transferable vote system of proportional representation that such subtle variations from strict party opinions can be registered and recorded. Such information cannot fail to influence the actions of those whose business it is to interpret and put into effect, so far as possible, the will of the electorate.
"The Single Transferable Vote system of elections does more than merely secure the representation o£ parties in proportion to their numerical strength. It might be described as a barometer which registers, as no other system can possibly do, the temperamental changes in the political thought of the country; and a study of the detailed result-sheet of the Winnipeg elections would well re-pay a legislature trying to bring together the conflicting elements within the city." (Winnipeg Free Press, July 5, 1920, p. 3)
Today I actively connected with the Proportional Representation movement ha was privileged to witness many election both under the old system of election and under the modern scientific P. R. but he has yet to see one that will compare either In efficiency or accuracy with the count that Is now Bearing completion at the Winnipeg city.
Calgary was the first Canadian city to adopt the P. R., having taken that step in 1917. But if Calgary has the honour of being the training school for PR, Winnipeg deserves the credit for being the [missing words]
For the system of counting ballots that has been quietly evolved during the past four years In this city reflects the greatest credit upon the city, its clerk and his most able staff specially selected to assist in the details of the work.
So far as the writer could see and be was privileged to watch It was well-nigh Impossible for a ballot cast on Friday to be credited to the wrong candidate.
The system of collecting and sorting the returns as they come In from the deputy returning officers Is carried out as scrupulously as If It were being conducted under the scrutiny of a Judge In re-count.
In fact a re-count under a Judge could hardly alter the fate ot a single vote except that some of the ballots properly rejected by the returning officer under the law might possibly be allowed by a re-count.
The reason for this Is given.
The present law which Winnipeg civic elections are conducted provides that the returning officer shall declare invalid and shall reject all ballots on which:
The figure 1 Is not marked, or
The figure 1 Is set opposite the name of more than one candidate or
The figure 1 and some other figure is set opposite the name of the same candidate, or
Any mark Is made not authorized by this Act.
As the present writer was partly responsible for drafting this regulation he has no hesitation now in criticizing it now. The regulation has since proved itself to be too narrow In Its provisions. Under it, the officer has no choice but to reject many ballots upon which the intent of the voter Is quite clear but for which the regulation as drafted makes no flexibility.
For under the regulation, a ballot marked with an X, Instead of the figure I, must be rejected although It Is obvious that the voter marked the X in favour of that candidate.
In Ireland and after some few years of experience of PR in municipal and education authorities, they have amended their regulations to provide that the use of a X need not necessarily Invalidate a ballot. They have deleted clause 4, which read any mark not authorized by this act and have substituted two new clauses 4 and 5 as follows:
"A ballot paper would only considered to be Invalid on which It cannot be determined for which candidate is the first preference of the voter."
These two new clauses at once make it possible for the returning officers to accept a ballot not quite regularly marked but where the Intention of the voter Is quite provided the Irregularity Is not so striking as to Identify the [missing words]
This wider Interpretation of a valid ballot has been tried out In many elections.
As long as the Winnipeg regulation remains as It Is, the returning officer has no option but to throw out all ballots marked with a X and thus to kill the vote of many an honest but rather careless person. And after all, the purpose to an election is to ascertain the voter's sentiment, not to subject to an examination In proficiency In reading printed directions.
But this slight criticism of the law as it is at present has nothing whatever to do with the way in which It has been carried out. The returning officer's efficiency commands the sincere respect of all those who have had to do with elections under the modern and democratic system of STV.
(From Winnipeg Free Press, July 5, 1920, p. 4)
Hooper when he wrote this, could not have known that Manitoba would continue to use STV for 33 years in nine provincial elections. STV at the city level in Winnipeg would continue until the early 1970s!
Thanks for reading.
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Showing how Winnipeg's successful use of STV was known in Alberta, much of these remarks were reprinted in Alberta newspapers, such as the Macleod Times (July 7, 1920, p. 1).
see also Edmonton Bulletin, June 30, 1920, p. 7.
For more comments from Ronald Hooper, see
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Here's some more analysis
Ronald Hooper was editor of Winnipeg Tribune and former editor of Proportional Representation Review.
He was consulted when Winnipeg authorities realized they wold have trouble on their hands if the 1920 Manitoba provincial and 1920 Winnipeg city elections produced skewed results.
They knew about PR (STV) (for one thing by then it had been used in three Calgary city elections) and asked Hooper if they brought it in, would Labour be elected. He said he could not answer that but could say that Labour would get no more seats than it was due.
In last provincial election (1915) Winnipeg had been divided into three districts with each seat filled in different contest. despite this system (and despite Labour's lower profile in 1915 compared to 1920) Labour (an SDP and a Labour man running as an Independent) had taken two seats (one each in Winn. Centre and Winn. North) while Liberals had taken the other two seats in those districts plus a one party sweep in Winn. South.
With Hooper's assurance, the authorities at the two levels of government decided to go with fairness Winnipeg was converted into a city-wide district electing ten MLAs. the increased representation was due to city growth the city-wide format was perhaps due to desire to have fine-grained PR, but labour complained that campaigning city-wide was expensive for candidates.
(They likely learned (or Hooper told them) that they did not need to campaign city -wide, just over their most fertile areas. If a candidate got quota there, that was enough to be elected. Quota was 1/11th of the votes, so no need to appeal to all.)*
Labour was organized enough to put forward a full slate of various labour types, no more and no less than ten, including Dominion Labour Party, Socialist Party of Canada and Social Democrat and Ex-Soldiers and ex-Sailors Party.
This was much more than they could have expected to elect but perhaps to include as many as were interested, they had broader slate than were realistically elect-able. STV's transferable votes meant that running so many was not disastrous. Two DLP quickly elected. by the end one SPC and SDP was elected as well.
so almost half of seats, better result than 1915.
due to transferable votes, no need to have heavy nomination battles, run them all and let voters decide.
Labour took 20,167 votes on first count of 47,427 valid votes, which is 43 percent of the vote, very close to its 40 percent of seats.
As Hooper called STV in 1923, in elections in Winnipeg in early 1920s STV proved itself to be "a modern scientific system".
* Hooper recounted being consulted in his brief to the 1936 House of Commons Special Committee on Elections and Privilege
(I saw an online reference to this - but can't find it now - sorry)
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As Hooper hinted at above, the ten seats filled in one contest was an unusually large number. At the legislative level, it was the largest in the world for many decades. Five being used in Malta and Ireland at the most. Some city elections in Canada might have elected that many or about that many.
But as he said, the Winnipeg experience proved STV-10 could work although final seats not filled until four days after election. (We don't get final results for much more than that now-a-days using FPTP, just pretend results.)
Anyways it was a success, and Winnipeg would use STV-10 for provincial elections six more times.
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