Some people complain of the NDP getting a majority of the seats in 2015 with 40 percent of the vote. And think that NDP-ers calling for pro-rep is two-faced. Actually, I at least would have traded that win for having pro-rep in the long period since 1956 when it ceased in Alberta. During this period the CCF for one election and the NDP for its whole career (barring 2015) were woefully under-represented in the Legislature.
The Social Credit under Premier Manning - now billed as a great man and a democrat - cancelled Alberta's pro-rep system in Edmonton and Calgary just when the opposition parties and voters were learning to use it to increase representation of the smaller parties, surely a proper democratic aspiration.
The NDP's 2015 win likely would have come even sooner if Alberta had continued its dual system of STV in the largest cities and Alternative voting in the rural districts. Both systems used the preferential ballot, so both used formed consensus among voters to elect generally-acceptable representatives. in the 1950s these generally-acceptable representatives were not of the Social Credit stamp in several cases.
I at least would have traded the 2015 win for having pro-rep in 1944 when the CCF (NDP's predecessor) got 25 percent of the vote, worth 16 seats, and got just two seats and for all the many times since STV was cancelled when the CCF/NDP got at least 10 percent of the vote and only one or two seats.
Why did the CCF do so badly in 1944, during Alberta's STV period?
STV was used in the largest cities but a different preferential balloting system, Alternative Voting, was used outside the largest cities. The Alternative Voting system ensured that to be elected a candidate had to have the support of the majority of the voters in the district. This support could be ready-made (first choices) or could be formed consensus among the majority of the voters. Much of the CCF support in the election was in the rural districts where the CCF candidate being low-ranking was eliminated and his/her supporter's votes transferred to another candidate according to voters' back-up preferences. While CCF support in the cities did result in a seat or two in each STV district in most elections, the CCF support in the rural districts was denied seats but was not wasted - it often helped a back-up preference to be elected.
The NDP win in 2015 was great, but it will might have come sooner if the CCF had had the weight that would have been created by having 16 CCF MLAs in the 1940s when Alberta's Big Boom was just getting going. (More on that in another blog).
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As well. Ralph Klein was re-elected premier in 1993 when his party received only 44 percent of the vote. The NDP and the Liberals together received 54 percent of the votes, but did not have chance to form government because the Conservatives took far more than the 44 percent of the seats, in fact taking a majority of the seats even though a majority of votes did not vote for them.
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The NDP swept the Edmonton seats, won a majority of the seats in Calgary and made advances in rural Alberta.
NDP MLAs were elected in all 21 Edmonton districts, 15 of the 26 Calgary districts and 18 of the 40 districts outside the major cities.
Of course some of the MLAs were elected with lass than half the vote in their districts, others with massive majorities (Notley with 70 percent of the vote),
the NDP may many not have had majority of votes in Edmonton or Calgary despite its massive sweep.
Overall it received 41 percent of the vote and took 60 percent of the seats.
Past Conservative governments had been elected with similar windfall of seats to the leading party but that does not make it fair!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/elections/albertavotes2019/alberta-election-2015-results-ndp-wave-sweeps-across-province-in-historic-win-1.3062605
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