The Winnipeg Free Press was among the first to call for Manitoba to change from the winner-take-all First Past the Post system to a system of proportional representation. In those days, pro-rep meant Single Transferable Voting (STV).
STV operated at the district level to see that in each district, multiple members were elected and that the crop of representatives elected in each election reflected the variety of voters' sentiments, by producing mixed representation, representation that belonged to more than just one party.
The Winnipeg Free Press in 1919 not only called for change from FPTP to STV but also put forward a specific proposal of how STV could work in federal elections.
This was reported in an article in the 2011 [Winnipeg] Real Estate News:
In a July 4, 1919, editorial, the Winnipeg Free Press claimed one large constituency should be adopted in each major Canadian city during federal elections, “returning three or more members. Voting should be by order of preference marked on one ballot comprising an alphabetical list of all candidates for this three or more vacancies. In the result a laborite or other minority voting party voting solidly for its own candidates would obtain one, two or three members according to the strength in the electorate and the support it might obtain from the other elements.”
[The system described, where there are multi-member districts but each voter casts just one vote - a transferable vote, is STV. The transferability of the votes is hinted at by saying "the support it might obtain from the other elements."] The newspaper encouraged the Liberal government of Premier T.C. Norris to “apply the Hare system [STV] to one large urban district of this province at the next provincial election ...”
As it turned out, this is exactly what the Manitoba government did as part of its overall scheme of electoral reform.
[The above paragraphs above and the following text is from
Bruce Cherney,
"A Different Way of Voting - proportional representation system was once used in provincial elections",
[Winnipeg] Real Estate News, 08/12/2011).
with added comments by Tom Monto in square brackets.]
The Norris government's scheme of electoral scheme had seen women receiving the vote in January 1916, making it the first province to legislate universal suffrage in Canada. [But Alberta women won the vote not long after, and Alberta held its next election before Manitoba held its first "universal franchise" election. The first women elected in the British Empire were elected in Alberta in 1917.]
According to the amendment to the Manitoba Election Act that made its way through the legislature in March 1920, a Winnipeg candidate was to be elected by dividing “the total number of valid paper votes polled in a division by a number exceeding by one the number of members to be elected and the result, increased by one, disregarding any fractions, shall be the number of votes sufficient to return a candidate.”
The rather confusing amendment can be readily translated as meaning that for the 1920 provincial election in Winnipeg’s one big constituency (previously there had been six single-seat districts in the city) [actually three two-member districts], the returning officer set a quota derived by totalling the votes and dividing by [11 (10 plus 1)] and adding one vote to form a simple majority [to form the quota, not a majority]. If any candidate received more first-place votes than the quota, he or she was declared elected. [And as well, if any candidate received more votes than the quota in later counts, he or she was declared elected.]
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[Cherney wrote: "The system became more complicated when a candidate during the first count obtained more [votes] than [quota], which was called a surplus. All the candidate’s votes were sorted out according to second choices [marked thereon].
Any ballots without second choices were set aside and were not used during the subsequent counts. The second choices were then allotted to the candidate for whom they were indicated, but not in their entirety. A complicated mathematical formula was used to portion the second choices with the remaining candidates receiving their share of the top candidate’s surplus. When there was no surplus to portion out, the low candidate was dropped and all his or her votes were distributed based upon second choices."
But this is not accurate.
Better to say:
If a candidate received more than quota, he or she is declared elected. The number of surplus votes is calculated by subtracting the quota from the vote tally.
All the votes held by successful candidate are inspected and sorted by next marked choice. Any without usable backup preferences are put on a pile marked exhausted. They stay with the winning candidate.
The rest are counted and the fraction they make of the whole is calculated.
The quota that is left with the winner is a mixture of all the exhausted votes and the votes bearing back-up preferences. The rest are transferred in due proportion to the candidates marked thereon.
Unlike what Cherney seems to say, votes were transferred as whole votes, not as fractions. An inspection of Manitoba elections from 1920 to 1952, available on Wikipedia, proves this point.]
Cherney continued: The process continued until 10 candidates received the necessary quota. [actually, four candidates were elected without quota. When the number of candidates was decreased through eliminations to the same number as the number of remaining seats, the remaining candidates were declared elected even if they did not have quota.]
In 1920, it took 37 counts before 10 out of 41 candidates were elected in Winnipeg. Labour Party candidate Fred Dixon and Liberal candidate Thomas Johnson were declared elected in the first count. The other candidates had to exercise extreme patience until their eventual fate was determined.
[Note though that counts sometimes did not involve many votes. In 1920, the 5th Count involved the transfer of only 90 votes; the 6th Count in 1920 involved the transfer of only 90 votes; the 7th Count in 1920 involved the transfer of only 131 votes. Of the first 10 Counts, only in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 10th Counts did the number of transfers exceed 200.
So already on election night, two knew that they had been elected.
By the 4th Count, one more was elected.
The vote transfers did change the order of popularity-ranking of candidates some but not by very much.
All of the successful candidates except one were among the most-popular candidates in First Count. One came from among the lower-ranking candidates to take a seat through vote transfers.
Each voter casting just a single vote in a multi-member district meant mixed roughly-proportional ranking of candidates already in the 1st Count.
To demonstrate the power that voters wield in STV, the initially-lower-ranking candidates who won in the end was Socialist Party of Canada's George Armstrong, while a fellow candidate, SPC's Robert Russell, had been among the initially-front-ranking candidates in the First Count but did not win in the end. The replacement did not change the party's rate of representation (did not change the proportionality of representation as measured by parties' shares of seats)) but it did apparently please voters.)]
In 1932, it took two days to count all the ballots [and do the necessary transfers] before a result could be announced. [Actually, two were elected on the First Count compiled on election night. The other candidates had a good idea of their eventual result just based on the first count. In the end, as had happened in 1920, nine of the 10 most-popular candidates in the first count were elected in the end. Only one not among the 10 initial front runners was elected. And only one of the 10 initial front runners was not elected in the end.] Since the government realized that voters would be confused by the great number of candidates on the single ballot, it was decided to have the candidates listed alphabetically and their party affiliation indicated by colours: red for Liberal, blue for Conservative, pea green for Labour and Socialist, and Independent in black. When proportional representation was introduced in Manitoba, the Norris government was facing the growth of organized - and impassioned Labour and unrest among farmers.
(Before the next election, the United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM), a rural-based small-c conservative movement opposed to traditional party politics. Individual MLAs were expected to vote on the merits of a particular piece of legislation rather than along party lines — so-called “free votes.” As its name implied, the UFM was primarily interested in rural issues, but also called for fiscal restraint and a pay-as-you-go system of government.) Previous to 1920, Premier Norris had led a reform government that had brought in such legislation as the vote for women, a minimum wage, compulsory education, a temperance act, a rural farm credit, a mothers’ allowance and public health nursing. Since its landslide election in 1915 (55 per cent of the vote and 40 of 46 seats — a result not since equalled),
[This was a very un-proportional result - the Norris Liberals got 55 percent of the vote but 87 percent of the seats.]
the Norris government had led Canada in social, labour and political reform legislation, resulting in it being the most proactive in Manitoba’s history to this day.
Norris also introduced an Initiative and Referendum Act, which allowed voters to write their own laws and then have them subjected to a province-wide referendum, but this act was declared unconstitutional by the courts. [Legislation with the same goal was successfully put on the books in Alberta and stayed on the books for decades although used only once - in 1915 - to force a referendum on new legislation.] But the social and labour legislation proved costly and led to three deficits in the first five years of the Norris government’s existence. It also didn’t help that a recession struck in 1920. While the PR amendment was a reaction to a growing populist movement, the Norris government also considered such a voting system as a potential method to rekindle their flagging political support. It was a false hope as the results of the 1920 election showed. In the 1920 election, farmer candidates won 12 seats despite running candidates in only 26 of 55 ridings. [Obviously they had run just where they expected the best result.]
The Conservatives took seven seats, Labour 11 and four Independents were elected. The Liberals formed a minority government by electing 21 MLAs in the 55-seat legislature. It was a disastrous result for the Liberals, who lost nearly half the seats they had held prior to the election. An editorial in July 5, 1920, Free Press ran under the headline, "PR Vindicated," asserting that the election had demonstrated the “practicability and merits of Proportional Representation.” The editorial called for PR to be expanded into rural Manitoba. [This never happened. Four years later Alternative Voting, a different system that like STV used ranked voting, was put into place in the districts outside Winnipeg.]
When AV reached rural Manitoba, individual constituencies were retained and voters in each district cast a single transferable vote, a voting process far less cumbersome than the one used in Winnipeg.
[Actually in Winnipeg, voters cast a single transferable vote as well. The only difference between the working of the two systems - STV and AV - was the transfer of surplus votes. In AV, once one was declared elected the election was over, so there was no transfer of surplus votes. The vote counting in STV took more time than the counting under AV because there were more votes to count, more transfers and more seats to fill.]
[The Winnipeg Free Press extolled STV.]
“Some of the advantages of the new system are very apparent,” continued the editorial.
“In the first place, Proportional Representation eliminated the excitement and bitterness from the election campaign; the knowledge that each party could only get its fair proportion, and no more, of the available seats made the old-time strategy and electioneering useless.
It also saved thousands of dollars, which would have been spent in pushing the individual candidates, and it enabled the electors to approach the ballots with a calmness of mind that gave them an opportunity to cast their votes with the greatest possible understanding and intelligence. The trifling number of spoiled ballots is an eloquent testimonial to the fact that the electors were cool and clear-headed when they went to the polls.” On the other hand, the newspaper did admit that the presence of so many candidates on the ballots [42 candidates] did make the voting process “a formidable affair.” The fractured legislature meant little consensus was reached and the Norris government fell two years later when it lost a vote of confidence.
[Manitoba voters had been divided among many parties even in 1915. Norris's Liberals had won two-thirds of the legislature's seats in 1915, although only with 55 percent of the votes. The FPTP system had produced an artificially-large majority government, despite the actual will of voters.]
The UFM [formed by the time of the Liberal governments downfall] could have formed the Official Opposition, [and could have stepped in to try to lead a minority government with help from Labour, Socialist and SDP MLAs], but refused, a signal that partisan politics in Manitoba was coming to an end.
[Cherney seems to think that coalitions, and one party's minority government, sustained by support from other parties, is non-partisan. But taking Kenney's UCP government in Alberta, we see coalitions are not non-partisan but instead may be intensely partisan. However, government made up of multiple parties are not partisan (as relating to single party's ideology) but are partisan in the way it would operate - the wider groups arrayed against the other parties. For example, a farmer government sustained by Labour MLAs would be seen as operating in partisan way visa vis Liberal and Conservative MLAs.]
[Cherney wrote:]
What arose [after 1920] was an era of non-partisan UFM government and coalitions under a variety of banners, including UFM, Progressive, Liberal-Progressive or simply Liberal, all of which fell under the term Brackenism, derived from the political philosophy of Premier John Bracken. This era only ended in 1958 with the election of Duff Roblin and the Conservatives in the first election after PR was dropped. [Thus the end of STV/AV marked the end of a more co-operative party system in Manitoba.] [During the time of the use of STV/AV], the coalition governments formed by Bracken [leader of the UFM] and by those who adopted his philosophy stayed in power from 1922 to 1958 with only one hiccup in 1936.
[In] the 1936 election, the Bracken government had 22 seats, the Conservatives 16, the CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the forerunner of the NDP) six, Social Credit five, while three Independents and one Communist were elected. Bracken stayed in power when the Social Credit MLAs helped the premier form a coalition government. This allowed Brackenism [Progressive rule] to survive another five years before another election had to be called.
In 1942, Bracken left for Ottawa to lead the federal Conservative Party under the condition that it be renamed the Progressive-Conservative Party. [again not a sign of non-partisanship but a sign of merging of two groups, the Conservatives and the right-wing runt of the old Progressive movement, the left wing of the movement already joining with others in the CCF party.]
[In 1949, Winnipeg's one district was divided, and in the election that year and the one three years later, Winnipeg votes were divided into three four-member districts.]
[the number of candidates on ballots under STV] Roblin wrote in his memoirs, Speaking for Myself, that as many as 10 to 12 names could appear on the ballot for each of Winnipeg’s four [three] constituencies in 1949 with only four MLAs elected in each district. In the 1953 provincial election, the ballot for Winnipeg Central was 18 inches long since 14 candidates were running in the four-member district.
At the time, there were three constituencies in Winnipeg with each electing four members, while St. Boniface was a district electing two members to the legislature.
[Two types of Progressive Conservative candidates -
anti-UFM coalition Progressive Conservative candidates and
pro-UFM coalition P-C governments]
Roblin was nominated to run in 1949 as a Progressive Conservative (PC) candidate for Winnipeg South. “I laid it on the line that I was running against my own party, which was part of the coalition, and I explained to the (nomination) meeting why good government required a return to to the traditional parliamentary operations in our legislature.” The PCs also nominated a pro-coalition candidate, Alec Stringer. “Either the South Winnipeg Progressive Conservatives were hedging their bets, or they didn’t know which way they really wanted to go,” wrote Roblin.
[Or you could see it as the natural order of things under STV -- a range of candidates are presented to voters, even on the slate of a single party, and the voters choose which ones they like.] Bracken had convinced Errick Willis, the leader of the PCs, to join his [Progressive] coalition government. The Liberals had joined the coalition in the 1930s. [actually the two parties merged to make the Liberal-Progressives party.] In an October 15, 1940, letter Bracken wrote Willis and the leaders of the other opposition parties: “In whatever we may do in this connection, if anything, there is involved no sacrifice or compromise of principles on your party or our own ...
We are not today only CCF-Labor or Liberal-Progressive or Conservative or Social Credit, but rather Canadians and democrats and freemen. Our cause, even Manitoba’s cause, is at this time greater than your party or our own.”
Bracken was appealing to the patriotism of the other parties at a time when Canada was at war with the Axis powers. He also cited a need for a united front as the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Rowell-Sirois Commission) prepared its report on the financial difficulties of provinces such as Manitoba. His arguments were intended to make his coalition sound more palatable. Combined with their fear of the popularity of Brackenism in rural Manitoba, the other parties were quite willing to go along with the premier’s proposal. In Winnipeg South, J.S. McDiarmid, a Liberal coalitionist, finished first. He was followed by another Liberal coalitionist, Ron Turner, and then by Lloyd Stinson, a CCF candidate, and in fourth, and thus gaining a seat in the legislature [for the P-C party and for the anti-coalition forces], was Roblin. “I had to admit that it took the counting of many second, third, fourth and fifth choices to get me elected, and I only scraped in over the quota by the skin of my teeth.”
[Actually his success could have been expected. He took 12 percent of the vote in the First Count and came in 4th. In a contest that would elect four seats. He was almost a shoo-in. The next-most-popular candidate was a good 1000 votes behind him in the First Count and never came closer. In the end, Roblin won on the Fifth Count taking quota. But even without quota he would have won on the next count when the fifth-placing candidate was eliminated, by then being the lowest-placing candidate, the others less popular having been eliminated in turn.] In the 1953 election, the last under proportional representation, Roblin was re-elected. Until redistribution for the 1958 election, representation in the Manitoba Legislature reflected a significant rural bias. In fact, the coalition's election platform for 1953 contained nothing for Brandon and Winnipeg voters.
[But the number of seats given to Winnipeg was not limited by STV, especially after the city was divided among three districts. It was very easy to give a city or a district more seats under STV. Simply do it. While under FPTP a new district has to be drawn, to squeeze another seat.
Upping the seat count used for the three districts by one or two each was easy to do. Simply do it. That would have given Winnipeg the four more seats thought necessary.
In 1959 Winnipeg-area seats were increased by four. This was done, after FPTP was brought in, at the cost and inconvenience of drawing new districts, and splitting up of old ones. The reported increase from 12 to 20 for Winnipeg is not factual. Four other old ridings were thrown into the mix so increase was actually a change from 16 to 20.] PR [he mostly talks about IRV] and coalition governments had an unanticipated side effect upon voter turn-out. In rural constituencies, voter turnout was often less than 50 per cent and many candidates were returned by acclamation. In the 1949 provincial election, 20 [actually 16] of the seats in the legislature went to the coalition through acclamation.
In the 1941 election, of the 45 seats outside Winnipeg, 16 were won without a challenge.
[Cherney is saying Brackenism - non-partisan coalition governments - was bad for voter turn-out. It may instead have been the fact that the UFM/Liberal/Progressive governments had been in power for more than 25 years. Its grip on power was such that people did not even bother to run against it.
In fact voter turn-out can hardly be measured when there is no election. Surely some would have voted if there had been an election contest in the local district. But there was not. So no votes were cast. Hardly fair to accuse voters of low turn-out when there was no election contest.
===================================
Arthur 3200 votes cast in 1949 2300 votes cast in 1936
Assiniboia 7000 votes cast in 1949 5900 votes cast in 1936
Fisher 2400 votes cast in 1949 1800 votes cast in 1936
Morris 2800 votes cast in 1949 3900 votes cast in 1936
Russell 3500 votes cast in 1949 3500 votes cast in 1936
So it seems, judging by these districts, voter turn-out was not much less except in the case of Morris.
It could be that so many acclamations resulted from repeated election and re-election of the same party, with votes cast for others being disregarded, with candidates of other parties merely butting their heads against the door without result.
(Under STV, votes would have produced fair representation, with a good number of the opposition votes producing some vestige of representation, not just disregarded in total.)
Take Morris for example (picked at random).
1920 Farmer
1922 UFM
1927 UFM
1932 UFM
1936 LP
1941 LP
1945 LP
1949 LP
By 1949, Farmer/UFM/Progressive/Liberal-Progressive MLAs had been elected six times without interruption since 1920.
No wonder voter turn-out was low by 1949.
For some, Morris seemed (and was) a safe seat for the farmer/Progressive side, so why vote?. For the other side, there seemed no benefit to be got by voting, so why vote?
Oddly, then when a coalition MLA gradually drifted to the P-C, although possibly still within the coalition, that began an unbroken dynasty of P-C MLAs that would last right to the present. Again with no representation given to voters who cast their voters for the non-PC candidates. parties.
======================== An Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission was set up in 1957 to review the electoral system and address voter apathy. The commission’s report recommended abandoning PR and creating single-member constituencies in Winnipeg and first-post-the-post elections in each Manitoba riding.
[History shows that change to FPTP did result in a larger voter turn-out.
1949 200,000 votes cast. 54 p.c. (using eligible voters in contested districts only,
which is all but 16 districts)
1962 300,000 votes cast. 61 p.c. (using eligible voters in contested districts only,
which is all of them)
Part of this increase might have been due to the long-standing Liberal-Progressive government being turfed, replaced by a P-C government.
Perhaps FPTP did provide more excitement due to its almost random, almost-accidental results.
Certainly in 1962, there were many districts where the successful candidate did not have a majority of the votes.
Districts where "minority rule" was produced:
Assiniboa
Brokenhead (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Burrows (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Elmwood
Ethelbert Plains (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Fisher
Inkster
Kildonan (successful candidate received 33 p.c. of vote,
won by four votes in three-way contest)
Lac du Bonnet (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
La Verendrye (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Logan (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Morris (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Osborne
Portage La Prairie
Radisson
a total of 15 seats outside of Winnipeg and St. Boniface went to a candidate who may or may not have had support of the majority of voters.
In 1949, outside of Winnipeg and St. Boniface, NO SEATS went to those not proven to have the support of a majority of voters in the district.
In 1962, there were 50 percent more votes cast than in 1949, but many MLAs were still elected with just as few votes as in 1949.
Eight candidates were elected with less than 2000 votes in 1962. Ten were elected with that low number in 1949. So some of the excitement that arose from the new system might have arisen from expectation that any candidate running in a rural vote who takes 2000 votes might take a seat.
In 1962, there were more votes cast, but many MLAs were elected with fewer votes than in 1949. (leaving aside the acclamations, where no votes were cast.)
1949
Arthur (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Dufferin (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Fisher (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Gilbert Plains (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Hamiota (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Iberville (successful candidate won probably with less than 2000 votes;
1800 was majority of the votes)
Lansdowne (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
La Verendrye (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes)
Morris (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes; 1500 was majority of the votes)
Roblin (successful candidate won with less than 2000 votes; 1300 was majority of the votes)
10 districts
2000 votes in 1949 was less than 2 percent of the rural vote.
200,000 - 74,000 cast in Winnipeg - 15,000 cast in St. Boniface = 111,000 votes cast outside of Winnipeg
2000 votes = less than 2 percent of the rural vote in 1949
2000 votes in 1962 was less than 1.2 percent of the rural vote in 1962.
rural vote in total was 169,000.
Thus a smaller portion of the rural vote was needed to take seats in 1962 compared to 1949.
Much more likelihood of a candidate with a small amount of support (as fraction of total rural vote) taking a seat in 1962 compared to 1949.
The range of votes required to win
But also perhaps more important than this low threshold for victory is the range of votes required to win.
A virtue of STV is that it equalizes the number of votes that different candidates are elected by, to ensure fairness.
In 1949 in rural districts the range was 4100 (Assiniboia) to 1439 (in Hamiota).
In 1949 in Winnipeg the range was 5522 to 3178.
Winnipeg Centre 4112 votes = quota, one elected with fewer votes (3178)
Winnipeg North 4917 votes = quota, one elected with fewer votes (4485)
Winnipeg South 5522 votes = quota, zero elected with fewer votes.
Thus range of 5522 to 3175, pretty much unavoidable due to varying number of voters in districts and to varying turnout.
In 1962 in rural districts the range was 4771 (Brandon) to 1394 (in La Verendrye).
In 1962 in Winnipeg the range was 5044 (River Heights) to 1791 (Burrows).
Rural district victors had much less range of votes in 1949 than 1962 -
1949 range of 2700 votes, 1962 range of 3400 votes.
Winnipeg victors had much less range of votes in 1949 than 1962 -
1949 range of 2300 votes, 1962 range of 3200 votes.
Successful candidates being elected with about the same number of voters is an attribute of fair democratic systems.
From these numbers we see how STV and AV are more fair and democratic than First Past the Post.]
[returning to Cherny's article:] The commission also recommended that Winnipeg's representation be increased from 25 per cent of the seat total to 40 per cent to more adequately reflect the city’s share of the provincial population. This would give Winnipeg 20 seats in the 56-member house.
[But the numbers don't match reality.
25 percent of 57 seats is 14 seats (so Winnipeg's 12 plus 2 for St. Boniface)
40 percent of 57 is 23 seats.
But Winnipeg and St. Boniface were given only 18 seats, only four more than before.
Some say Winnipeg/St. Boniface got 20 seats but that is including two Winnipeg area districts that were continued from before the redistribution - Assiniboia and Kildonan-Transcona (under new name Kildonan), plus Rockwood-Iberville.
It is odd to say Winnipeg got 40 percent of seats when in fact the city plus suburbs got only 35 percent of seats -- 20.] The rural-urban voter ratio was set by the commission as seven to four in favour of rural districts. “Why should four housewives in Portage la Prairie be equal to seven in Brandon?” asked CCF Leader Stinson in the legislature. “You don’t know those Portage women!” a heckler shouted. “Do you?” retorted Stinson. Roblin said Douglas Campbell’s Liberal government recognized the inequities in the system and to its credit passed the necessary legislation. [I have already mentioned the fact that seats could have easily been given to Winnipeg without cancelling STV.] Historian Ed Whitcomb said the demise of PR ended “the hopeless splintering of the Winnipeg vote.” “For a government long in power, reform carries the political danger of estranging its conservative support without attracting an equal number of votes from the progressive elements of the population, people who have possibly been alienated from the government and distrust its reformist intentions and regard them as death-bed repentance,” wrote Whitcomb in A Short History of Manitoba. “This is precisely what happened to Manitoba in the mid-1950s.” [I don't get this. Is he referring to the cancellation of PR as reform? If so, he is saying that the conservative elements opposed the reform. And he is saying that the move did not get the government more votes from the progressive element.
The first part I would query - conservatives (right-winger-ers) are usually opposed to pro-rep and in favour of changing away from it as soon as possible.] Pro-rep has nothing to do with the splintering of the vote. It only allows the splintering of the vote (the variety of sentiment held by voters) to be represented in the legislature.
The representation elected in Winnipeg was "splintered," spread across multiple parties, because that was the sentiment of city voters. True representation meant mixed representation. Only through an undemocratic system could the cit's representation not be mixed.] After the votes were counted for the 1958 provincial election, 26 PCs were elected, 19 Liberals and 11 CCF. [Roblin formed a minority government. His government was elected to a majority of the seats in the election a year later. So FPTP did not produce majority government, same as pro-rep had not, so no improvement that way.] Prior to his passing, Roblin told the WREN that electoral reform is required in Canada, but it should not include proportional representation.
“It sounds awfully good,” he said, “but in a country like Canada to get a government into office, it would take an extraordinary amount of wheeling and dealing.” [That is, he is saying that no single party would take a majority of the seats under pro-rep. That is of course true - no one party nowadays takes a majority of the votes (in all federal elections and in most provincial elections), and thus under pro-rep would not take a majority of the seats.
(Only when FPTP elections produce undemocratic results do we have democratically-elected majority governments (excepting Alberta where the Conservative party repeatedly, but not always, used to take a majority of the vote).
But if not bringing in pro-rep, then what electoral reform is he contemplating?)
But we have had many minority governments under FPTP, and governments stay in (have the support of a majority of MPs) for many years despite not controlling a majority of seats with their own MPs.
They do this through inter-party co-operation. If inter-party co-operation works to give us long-lasting governments under FPTP, it should do the same under pro-rep. FPTP does not guarantee us majority governments any more, anyway. So if that is reason to keep it, then let's forget it.]
[Cherney states:] What Roblin favoured was single-member constituencies decided by preferential voting
[Preferential Voting AKA Alternative Voting AKA Instant Runoff Voting], the same system used in Manitoba's rural districts between 1927 and 1958. [and in all provincial by-elections. Recall that this was the system that used to give Manitoba multiple acclamations and low voter turn-out, as Cherney noted!]
Such a system would ensure the people’s overall choice [the choice of a majority of the voters] was elected, he added. [But Alternative Voting operates at the district level - it ensures that the majority of voters in a district elect the district's representative. Alternative Voting would not guarantee a majority government in the legislature. It could be that no one party would win a majority of the separate district contests. That would mean that again, like in pro-rep and as in FPTP like we have today, there would be a minority government.
And IRV does not guarantee that a majority of seats are taken by majority of votes across a province. Say in 100-seat legislature, a party could take 51 seats (a majority) with support of just more than half the votes in each of those 51 districts - thus about 26 percent of the vote across the province could take power in the legislature. ] [At the district level, Preferential Voting (AKA Alternative Voting] operates this way:] If 50-per-cent-plus-one of the vote isn’t attained in the first go-around, then the last-place candidate is dropped and voting continues until one candidate obtains a simple [majority]. The hybrid system used in Manitoba may not have reflected the best intentions of proportional representation, but it was experimented with for over three decades and was eventually deemed a failure. [Judged by its goal of producing government that is more proportional, where small parties and large parties were represented according to their share of the vote, and where in most districts the majority of voters are represented by the elected member, the hybrid system was effective, despite what Cherney wrote.
Looking at Winnipeg's elections, the pro-rep part of the hybrid system, when it was a single district electing 10 MLAs,
pro-rep achieved these goals: - candidates with more votes than others were elected while those with fewer votes were not. When a city is divided into many single-member districts, it often happens that a candidate will receive say X number of votes and not be elected while in another district a candidate receives say two-thirds of X number of votes and is elected. - eliminating gerrymandering. when Winnipeg is one district, there was no gerrymandering, politically-motivated drawing of district boundaries to advantage one party or over another. - reducing waste of votes, reducing the number of voters who are not represented by the elected member.
Under pro-rep (STV), only between 10 to 20 percent of the votes were disregarded. Under FPTP, 40 to 65 percent are usually wasted.
Why writer Cherney would say it was deemed a failure seems a jump to an unwarranted conclusion.
It could well be - in fact it seems to have been the case - that the STV/AV hybrid was dropped not because it was deemed a failure but because it did not appeal to the party in power.
That party had the power to cancel pro-rep and bring in a markedly-less democratic system (winner-take-all First Past The Post), and it used its power.
Admittedly, the hybrid system was not great. Election results would have been more proportional, waste of votes less, number of unrepresented voters fewer, if multi-member districts had been installed, and STV used throughout the province.
Alternative Voting is fairer than FPTP. But is not as good as STV or any other system of pro-rep. But the representation elected in the part of old Manitoba where pro-rep was used - Winnipeg - was proportional and thus democratic.
And how can you say that an experience that lasts 36 years is an experiment?
If it is, then Alberta's Social Credit government was an experiment, even though it was in power for 36 years. Maybe it was an experiment, maybe they both were experiments, but then many things in life are experiments. That is why it is called life.]
[Cherney continued:] The experiment also was a victim of a surging economy in the post-war era, “ameliorating some of the historic grievances of both farmers and workers. (Dennis Pilon, "Explaining Voter System Reform in Canada, 1874 to 1960," Journal of Canadian Studies, fall 2006). [Perhaps the relative good times did weaken the Labour movement. Capitalism did seem to be working for many in those (relatively temporary) periods of boom. The cries for pro-labour reforms grew quieter. And Business took advantage of the weakening of the Labour movement to bring in this change.
Business supports Pro-rep, when Labour is strong
Certainly it seems that if labour is weak and under serious disadvantages under First Past The Post winner-take-all system, then it wants PR.
Then if Labour grows stronger, business supports Pro-rep so Business will take at least its fair share of seats. Labour generally continues its calls for PR out of fairness (and perhaps uncertainty of its strength)
Then pro-rep is brought in, giving each side its due. (This calms the political divide, decrease the polarization - or it did in the case of Winnipeg and Belgium and Ireland, each of which was on verge of civil war in 1920s when they each adopted pro-rep.)
Then if labour grows weaker (perhaps during the temporary booms we experience), Business throws out PR so it grab all the seats, or at least many more than its fair share, as the leading party can do under winner-take-all FPTP.]
[Cherney continued the Pilon quote] In such a strong economic climate, “voting system reform no longer seemed necessary to address or contain class interests.” [Funny that Pilon should say it this way - by 1950s, the cancellation of pro-rep was electoral reform. Pro-rep was the new normal - any person who had voted using FPTP in a Winnipeg provincial election or city election had to be at least 55 years old!] In fact, reform (the end of pro-rep) was likely brought in to contain class interests - to make it more difficult for workers or socialist to be elected. And already worker and socialists were too weak to make enough fuss and the reform went through, to the harm of the Left.
Communists, one or two at a a time, had been elected in Winnipeg in most elections since 1920, but none were elected after the change to FPTP. Coincidence, I don't think so.
But perhaps Pilon was mis-quoted.
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For more info on Manitoba's STV see my other blog:
More information on
Manitoba's use of Alternative Voting (Instant-runoff voting) and STV
1927 Manitoba provincial election
under IRV the front runner in the first count was the one elected in all but two districts so pretty much same result as if done using FPTP.
Only in 14 districts did the IRV process even entail vote transfers.
in 31 districts no vote transfers were done,
because one candidate ran and he or she won by acclamation
or one candidate took a majority in the first count either because only two candidates ran or more than two did run but one candidate took majority in the first count anyway.
and even where vote transfer were conducted (in 14 districts) only in three districts was the front runner in the first count not elected. Only three turn-overs.
STV in Winnipeg in the 1927 MN election offers contrast to the FPTP results. - although most front runners were elected as in first count, same as happened in IRCV contests, totally better balanced result in Winnipeg compared to elsewhere in province.
Under STV in Winnipeg, eight of the front runners in the first count were elected in the end, only two rising up from lower position to be elected.
but four parties were represented due to single voting in MMD anyway.
Much different result than IRV (or FPTP) where only one party is represented in each district - and no overall top-up was used in Manitoba to equalize numbers, to compensate for the disproportional results of the single-winner FPTP.
1927 IRV contests
Most district contests did not have votes transfers. and wehre voets were transferred, only three districtts saw the leader nthe first count not elected.
Only these districts saw votes transferred:
Assinboia
Emerson
Gimli
Kildonan
Manitou
Minnedosa TURN-OVER Progressive candidate was leader in 1st Count, Conservative elected.
Morden TURN-OVER Progressive candidate was leader in 1st Count, Conservative elected.
Springfield TURN-OVER Progressive candidate was leader in 1st Count, Conservative elected.
Rupertsland
Russell
St. Boniface
St. George
Ste. Rose
Swan River.
In all other districts there were no votes transferred either because there was no contest because only one candidate run and he or she won by acclamation, or because one of the candidates took a majority of the votes in the 1st count. So the overall result was not much different than would have happened under FPTP and thus was just as dis-proportional and skewed in favour of the leading party.
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