Making Multi-Member Districts for Alberta Provincial Elections (Votelab info)

Votelab presents various ways to have Proportional Representation in Alberta.

Here's my look at its multi-member district scheme used for STV.

MMD

CALGARY 5 districts

Calgary-North 6 seats -- Klein. Mountain View. North. Edgemont. Beddington. Foothills

Calgary Central South 5 seats -- Buffalo. Elbow. Glenmore. Peigan. Acadia.

Calgary South 5 seats -- Fish Creek. Hays. Southeast. Lougheed. Shaw.

Calgary East 5 seats -- East. Cross. Falconridge. McCall. North East.

Calgary West 5 seats -- Bow. North West. Currie. Varsity. West

CALGARY -- 26 seats

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CENTRE 4 districts

CENTRE-SOUTH 5 seats -- Airdrie. Airdrie. Banff. Chestermere. Olds

CENTRE-NORTH 5 seats -- Innisfail. Lacombe Red Deer. Red Deer. Rimbey.

CENTRE-NORTH-EAST 5 seats-- Camrose. Drumheller. Ft. Sask. Maskwacis. Vermilion.

CENTRE-NORTH-WEST 5 seats -- Drayton. LSA. Leduc. Spruce. West Yellowhead.

CENTRE total 20

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EDMONTON 4 districts

Edmonton-Northeast 6 seats -- Beverly. City Centre. Manning. Strathcona. Decore. Highlands.

Edmonton-Southwest 6 seats -- McClung. Riverview. Rutherford. South. Southwest. Whitemud.

Edmonton-Southeast 6 seats -- Ellerslie. Goldbar. Meadows. Millwoods. Strathcona-Sherwood Park. Sherwood Park.

Edmonton-Northwest 6 seats -- Castle Downs. Glenora. Northwest. Morinville. St. Albert. West Henday.

EDMONTON total 24 seats

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NORTH 2 districts

North-Northeast 5 seats -- Athabasca. Bonnyville. Ft. Mac. Ft. Mac. LSL

North-Northwest 4 seats -- Grande Prairie. Grande Prairie. Central Peace. Peace.

North total 9

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South two districts

South-Southeast 5 seats -- Brooks. Cypress. Lethbridge. Lethbridge. Taber.

South-Southwest 3 seats -- Cardston. Highwood. Livingstone.

South total 8

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These are the "grouped constituencies", long mentioned in PR books.

But actually using cities (or quarter-cities) and counties (in their entirety as building blocks of MMDs) is my preference.

The existing provincial districts as listed here are just arbitrary units and have no reality on the ground, sometimes dividing neighbour from neighbour, even splitting Lethbridge and Red Deer in halves, etc.

No counties (other than Strathcona county) are mentioned by name here.

the prov. districts are merely identified by name of towns or cities within the district.

But they do give you the idea of how Alberta can be divided into 17 multi-member districts of between 4 and 6 seats each.

in this case

Calgary is divided into 5 districts; Edmonton into 4 districts; Centre into 4 districts; South into two districts; North into two districts.

17 districts in all.

Any group of voters that compose 25 percent of the voters in the district will elect their own representative.

In the six-seat districts, any group of voters that compose 14 percent of the voters in the district will elect their own representative.

and there is nothing the other voters can do to prevent this.

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Here's some suggestions on other info on the Votelab website:

Terminology:

List MMP (open-list)

Multi-member electoral districts are used, typically comprising about three to five seats. Parties usually run more than one candidate per district, and voters mark a single X beside their preferred candidate. Each party is awarded seats in proportion to how much of the vote its candidates receive: a party that wins 40% of the vote would win two seats in a five-seat district. The candidates with the most votes in each party wins the party's seats.

[in both NZ and Germany voters cast two votes - one for candidate in district and one for party]

STV

Multi-member electoral districts are used, typically comprising about three to seven seats. Parties usually run more than one candidate per district, and voters mark a 1 beside their preferred candidate, and rank other candidates as back-up alternatives, to allow transfer of votes that are surplus or placed on an un-electable candidate. Transfers can cross party lines in accordance with voters' marked instructions. Results are proportional to votes' final resting places. Seats fill by quota.

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Many STV contests use DM as large as many list PR contests.

places in Australia are now using 21 and 37 DM in STV, when many List PR places elsewhere use less than DM-10 districts (such as Finland)

I like that list PR explanation assumes districts, and explanation of MMP assumes regions not overall top-up. fits Canada well, but is not how NZ works.

I query whether list PR in districts actually produces as much as 97 percent effective votes.

 for example, three percent threshold (whether explicit or mechanical due to DM) does not just waste 3 percent of votes but wastes votes of all the parties who are less than 3 percent.

STV may secure many effective votes by allowing cross-party transfers, something not possible under list PR.

but yes with with DM being 5, about 16 percent of votes may be wasted in each district, and hence across the board.

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