Instant-Runoff Voting in Alberta 1924-1956 -- winner-take-all majoritarian style on the western Prairies, as Harold Jansen saw it

I look at Harold John Jansen's article

"The Political Consequences of the Alternative Vote: Lessons from Western Canada"

Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique

37:3 (September/septembre 2004) 647–669

In unknowing support of a Lib-NDP vote swap if Yukon adopts IRV,

Jansen says about the 1955 Alberta election --  "Over 80 per cent of the transfers from eliminated CCF candidates went to Liberals ~up from 38% in 1948 and 58% in 1952! 

and the Liberals reciprocated with two-thirds of their transfers."

so he gave support to my idea, if history is any judge.

1926 

votes cast in Alberta in 1926 was 183,000 overall 

Edm and Clgary had 39,000

that leaves IRV districts vote count = 144,000

Jansen says 42.8 percent plumped, which means 62,000 plumped

1955

votes cast in Alberta in 1955 was 378,000 overall 

Edm and Clgary ws 148,000

IRV districts votes = 230,000

29.8 percent plumped means 69,000 plumped

well those two figures of plumped votes are identical but the percentages are different, so, you see, looking just at percentage is misleading.

1948 Jansen gives 30 percent as plumped.

only so many districts had transfers in 1948.

only so many of those saw CCF candidate eliminated.

so we have just 9 districts where CCF votes transferred:

Acadia              430 of CCF's 607 votes were transferred - not plumped.

Bruce     600 of CCF-Conservative combined 1100 votes were transferred, not plumped.

Camrose 800 of CCF-Conservative combined 900 votes were transferred - not plumped.

Clover Bar       700 of CCF-Conservative combined 900 votes were transferred - not plumped.

Grouard            250 of CCF's 578 votes were transferred - not plumped.

Lac Ste. Anne  1050 of CCF's 1400 votes were transferred - not plumped.

Leduc too big field of candidates to judge CCF transfers from info in my source (A Report on AB elections 1905-1982).  Wikipedia "Leduc district" is no help.

Redwater             500 of CCF-LPP combined 820 votes were transferred, not plumped.

Vermilion  500 of CCF-Conservative combined 1000 votes transferred, not plumped.

so perhaps his low figure of 30 percent plumping is accurate 

I see now I should have looked at a different election where he put a high rate of plumbing/exhausted.

i'll take a stab at 1944 where he says 64 percent were plumped.

not many districts saw transfers:

Lethbridge      1300 exhausted out of 6000 valid votes

okotoks             406 exhausted out of 6600 votes

pincher creek 800 exhausted out of 4900 votes

St. Albert         400 exhausted out of 4200 votes

St. paul           600 exhausted out of 4100 votes

Vegreville       400 exhausted out of 3800 votes

Willingdon     600 exhausted out of 4000 votes

so I don't see where he got his 64 percent figure for plumped/exhausted, unless he is looking just at votes to be  transferred and saying how many of them were exhausted.

but that seems iffy.

(Admitted we can't know that the votes cast in first round for the eventual winner and runner-up were not plumped. but it seems to me that is just guessing to assume they were plumped, if that is what he did.)

not all votes exhausted were plumped. in cases where four or more candidates are in the running, some may have been secondarily marked for a candidate who was already eliminated -- admittedly it was not very common to have four or more in the running.

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