top of page
Tom Monto

If the 2019 federal election had used STV in large cities

Updated: Nov 26, 2020

Single Transferable Voting (STV) is based on multiple-member districts. Multiple-member districts are easiest created by grouping together all the districts in a city. If this had been done in the last federal election, the likely outcome would have been more evenly mixed representation, with, for example, three main parties represented in the House of Commons from cities in Alberta and Saskatchewan, provinces where First Past The Post produced a very lopsided result in 2019.


These expectations are based on using the party vote totals of the 2019 FPTP election as if they were first choice votes under STV. No great guesses are made about vote transfers under STV and none are needed – vote transfers never in practice make great differences in the outcome. Just having voters cast single votes in multiple-member districts alone produces mixed proportionate representation reflecting voters' sentiments more effectively than FPTP.


These expectations are proven by the concrete examples of the 1948 Alberta election when Edmonton and Calgary MLAs were elected through STV. There, expectations based on first choice votes are very close to the final result derived after vote transfers were conducted under STV.


Election of Calgary MPs as if elected through STV in 2019,

with all Calgary ridings grouped into one district

Total votes: 601,797 Number of seats: 10

Quota: 54,709 (hypothetical minimum required to win a seat)

Party Votes by party Probable STV seat count Actual seat count through FPTP

Cons 397,339 7 10

Lib 108,454 2 0

NDP 58,917 1 0

Election of Edmonton MPs as if elected through STV in 2019,

with all Edmonton ridings grouped into one district

Total votes: 458,968 Number of seats: 8 Quota: 51,000

Party Votes by party Probable STV seat count Actual seat count through FPTP

Cons 252,414 4 or 5 7

Lib 95,127 2 0

NDP 90,556 1 or 2 1

Election of Regina MPs as if elected through STV in 2019, with all Regina ridings grouped into one district

Total votes: 133, 596 Number of seats: 3 Quota: 33,400

Party Votes by party Probable STV seat count Actual seat count through FPTP

Cons 73,256 2 3

Lib 25,938 0 0

NDP 27,693 1 0

Election of Saskatoon MPs as if elected through STV in 2019, with all Saskatoon ridings grouped into one district

Total votes: 133,027 Number of seats: 3 Quota: 33,257


Party Votes by party Probable STV seat count Actual seat count through FPTP

Cons 68,667 2 3

Lib 16,995 0 0

NDP 41,367 1 0


Thus instead of no Liberal MPs and only one NDP MP elected in Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2019, under STV there would have likely been at least four NDP and four Liberal MPs elected in AB/SK, just with STV used in the cities.

STV in grouped rural ridings would have likely added even more Prairie MPs of parties other than the Conservatives.

STV in Toronto and other large cities would have also likely resulted in fairer representation there as well.

We can check our above suppositions by examining actual STV elections in 1948:


Election of Edmonton MLAs through STV in 1948,

where all Edmontonians voted in one district

Total votes: 46,150 Number of seats: 5

Quota: 7692 (minimum required to win a seat)

Actual seat count

First choice votes Probable seat count through STV

Party by party based on first choices after vote transfers

Social Credit 25,145 3 3

Cons. (under other name) 2723 0 0

Liberal 9239 1 1

CCF 9043 1 1

Election of Calgary MLAs through STV in 1948,

where all Calgarians voted in one district

Total votes: 39,101 Number of seats: 5 Quota: 6910

Actual seat count

First choice votes Probable seat count through STV

Party by party based on first choices after vote transfers

Social Credit 16,382 2 or 3 2

Cons. (under other name) 5651 0 or 1 1

Liberal 7456 1 1

CCF/Labour 7796 1 1


Thanks for reading.

============================

3 views

Recent Posts

See All

Early Labour culture

Clarissa Mackie "Elizabeth's Pride A Labor Day story"    Bellevue Times Dec. 5, 1913

Comments


bottom of page