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Tom Monto

London Ontario's Alternative Voting election in 2018

Updated: Sep 9, 2020

London, Ontario made history in 2018 when it used preferential balloting for its city election, the first time it had been used in Canada for a government election since 1971, in Calgary. (It has been used muchly since then for leadership contests for all the major parties.)


However, perhaps out of rustiness, the reportage of the election could have used improvement, in my opinion. The results are fair and accurate. My quibble is with the reportage of the election only.


Here's a copy of a email sent to:

City Clerk's Office

City of London


Belated congratulations on holding Canada's first preferential election in many decades.

However, in perusing the "City of London Official Municipal Election Results" I feel compelled to offer what I hope will be seen as constructive criticism.


The presentation of London's 2018 city election was to my mind fuzzy.

Perhaps that was a result of Preferential Voting being used for the first time in a political election in Canada since 1971.


In western Canada, many cities used Alternative Voting, one as recently as 1971. From my research on these elections I would like to offer these suggestions on how to present preferential ballot elections results more clearly.


Let's take Ward 14, a multiple-candidate election where no one took a majority of the vote on the first count, for an example.


This is how a traditional presentation of that election would mostly look like:


Ward 14

Number of votes cast: 5492

Number of blanks: 243

Rejected: 20

Number of valid votes: 5229

Majority needed for election on first count: 2615


first 2nd count 3rd count

count transfer result transfer result

Hillier 2044 192 2236 286 2522

Swalwell 647 -647 0 0

Tipping 681 106 787 -787 0

Zaifman 1857 111 1968 160 2128

ballots still in use 5229 4991 4650

Exhausted 237 237 341 578

Rejected* 1 1 1

Total 5229 5229 5229

Threshold: 2615 2496 2326


*Rejected is probably preferable to the term overvote. This distinction from exhausted and blank ballots was not made in the AV vote counts in Alberta history but is a good one. A blank where the voter does not care is different than one where the voter messed up due to the complications of preferential balloting.


The only use of ascertaining the "continuing ballots total" is to ascertain the number needed to have majority. The new threshold figure is important. It should be calculated and shown on each count.


Any number that is simply repeated at the bottom of the chart, such as the threshold number "48,324" in the mayoralty election results, should go at the top before ascertaining the number of valid votes. And anyways the number changed as the number of ballots still in use has changed, so was not steady at 48,324.


In the presentation of Ward 14 results "Blanks 243" is repeated across the bottom. That is un-necessary. It should go at top before ascertaining the number of valid votes. Any blanks that come after the first count are recorded as exhausted, so the number of blanks does not change.


Threshold = majority required to win seatThe threshold does not stay the same but is one more than half the "continuing ballots total," which I have renamed "ballots still in use."

A stat given in the 4th count, Hillier = 3370 = 64.45 percent, is not necessary. To be elected, he only needed a majority, which he got on 3rd count when Tipping was eliminated. No 4th count is required as Hillier had majority on the third count.The elimination of Zaifman on the fourth count is not necessary. Nor is the vote transfer of his votes.


Hillier getting 64.45 percent of the votes at the end only shows that 35.55 percent of the vote was exhausted after all the transfers including Zaifman's un-necessary elimination. It seems that much of this large number of exhausted vote arises from London restricting voters to provide no more than two back-up preferences. In the preferential voting election held in Edmonton in 1948, where no such restriction was in place, only three percent of the votes were exhausted. (see the blue sheet enclosed.)


Concerning other elections in London's 2018 election

Extra counts (what you call rounds) are presented, and extra calculations done when the result does not need them.

Here are examples:

The calculation of the election of mayor should have ended on the 13th count, when one candidate (Holder) got a majority of the votes still in use.

The calculation of the Ward 5 election should have ended on the 5th count, when one candidate got a majority of the votes still in use.The calculation of the Ward 8 election should have ended on the 8th count, when one candidate got a majority of the votes still in use.

The calculation of the Ward 9 election should have ended on the 2nd count, when one candidate got a majority of the votes still in use.

The calculation of the Ward 12 election should have ended on the 4th count, when one candidate got a majority of the votes still in use.

The calculation of the Ward 13 election should have ended on the 7th count, when one candidate got a majority of the votes still in use.

[closing salutations]

===============end =======================================


The official "general statement by returning officer" for the 1948 provincial election in the district of Edmonton when STV was used is a useful template. Found in a dusty file in the provincial archives, it is available in no printed reference (or on-line source) concerning the election. But photocopies of it are available from me == email montotom@yahoo.ca


Clear reportage of preferential balloting is important.

it sends message that the officials understand the system.

it allows voters to follow the "bouncing ballot" as they are transferred through the process. So that its secrets are revealed.

The myth that it is complicated or filled with metaphysical mental calisthenics is rebuked.


Alternative Voting - the election of a single person using preferential balloting - depends on a candidate receiving a majority of the district votes to be elected. Although a threshold (AKA the quota) is determined at the top, by halving the total valid votes and adding one, functionally it drops through the process as votes are exhausted. They are exhausted when they are to be transferred but there are no back-up preferences for a surviving candidate. Either there are just no more preferences or the ones marked are for candidates who have been eliminated already. This takes votes out of circulation and drops the number of valid votes and thus drops the quota.


It could be that no candidate can get quota in a later count, as the votes drop in number. but again a candidate to be elected just needs to get a majority of the votes still in play.


This is both practical and very democratic - otherwise a majority would not be represented while a minority of the voters in the district would be.


Minority domination such as in this scenario happens frequently in First Past the Post elections but can never happen under Preferential Balloting.


Thanks for reading.

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


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