The 2018 London Ontario city election stands out as the first time ranked votes have been used in a Canadian government election since 1971.
Ranked votes are used in Instant-Runoff Voting, as in London's 2018 election, and are also used in the district-level proportional representation system known as Single Transferable Voting.
A recent article on the election used the term "ranked ballots" to mean Instant-Runoff Voting (Alternative Voting), without considering that STV also uses Ranked ballots, and then claimed that London's IRV produced the kind of proportional results that STV produces.
Max Fawcett "Canadians should be able to vote for the party they like not the party they fear the least", Canada's National Observer
extract from Fawcett's article:
"Implementing a ranked ballot system would also improve the diversity in our national legislature. As Canada’s National Observer’s Morgan Sharp noted last year, the first election held in London, Ont., using a ranked ballot produced a much different looking council. “The slate of councillors elected in the province’s first ranked ballot experiment include newcomers who are young, gay, Black and Indigenous, boosting the claims of the preferential voting system’s advocates that it creates a more democratic, more equitable, and more inclusive political system.” "
However, This appears not to have be true, at least for election of Kayabaga. Judy Rebick in recent Fair Vote Canada panel discussion admitted that she had misspoken when she had said that Kayabaga's election was due to IRV - Kayabaga would have won under FPTP just as she did win under IRV.
for Rebick's clarification see
Fair Vote Canada panel discussion 2021
Fair Vote Canada 20th Anniversary Conference "Proportional Representation Lessons learned and looking ahead" pan...
IRV used in London 2018 election produced no different representation than FPTP would have.
I know this is not what people would expect but info in these links show it to be true.
IRV only makes difference compared to FPTP if no candidate takes majority in first count.
In London 2018 election a candidate in Wards 1-4, 6-7 and 10-11 took majority in First Count so IRV did not make any change.
The successful mayoral candidate and the successful candidates in all the other wards all would have won under FPTP.
the successful candidates in Ward 5 (Cassidy), Ward 8 (Lehman), Ward 9 (Hopkins), Ward 12 (Peloza), Ward 13 (Kayabaga), and Ward 14 (Hillier) all were leading candidates in the First Count, so IRV elected no candidates that would not have been won under FPTP.
So apparently any fairness and diversity we see must just have resulted from changes in London's political culture, which in the first place had caused the city to change to what people thought would be a more fair system and that apparently beame a self-fulfilling prophecy despite the weakness of the new system adopted.
Kayabaga would have won under FPTP but it is said perhaps truthfully that she only ran because she thought she would benefit from IRV, she would not have run without IRV - even though IRV in the event did nothing to actually produce her election.
If the election had been held with ranked votes and multi-seat districts (that is PR-STV), then a different and even more fair result might have resulted.
But ranked votes in single-member wards in London 2018 election produced no different representation than FPTP would have done. Under different circumstances IRV does produce different representation than FPTP but it did not in London in 2018.
Meanwhile, a PR system always produces different results than FPTP.
IRV is not proportional.
======================================================
Comments