Liberals won the recent Newfoundland and Labrador election, receiving a majority of the seats but with only 48 percent of the vote. Liberals won 22 out of the 40 seats so a false majority government was produced.
Here's the overall results
votes p.c. of total vote seats p.c. of seat
LIberal 86,000 48 22 55
PCs 69,000 39 13 33
NDP 14,000 8 2 5
Independents* 8,000 5 3 7
NLA/NA 600 .35 0 0
totals approx. 178,000 40
* The Independents are not to be taken as a party. They were an assortment of candidates with very different platforms and aspirations.
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The Liberals got 55 percent of the seats -- total power -- while a majority of the voters saw their votes elect only 45 percent of the seats - powerless, at least in full-chamber votes.
This was the fault of the First Past The Post system, where any votes not cast for the leading candidate are disregarded. (FPTP is also used in provincial and federal elections, so NFLD/LAB is not only one guilty of using this undemocratic scheme.)
Many districts were two way contests between Liberals and PCs (where of course one or the other would win majority of the votes). But even in these a large percentage of the vote were disregarded.
Cartwright was two-way fight
Corner Brook was two-way 33 percent of vote disregarded
Exploits two-way 45 percent of votes disregarded
Lewispointe two-way Lib majority 38 percent of votes disregarded
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Otherwise there were three or four-way fights.
These are not well designed for FPTP scheme as vote splitting and winner take all can produce undemocratic results. However relatively few of these contests gave seat to candidate with minority appeal. (These are indicated in bold.)
Bonavista was a four-way fight (Lib/PC/NDP/ Ind) PC candidate got majority of vote
Burgeo La Poile was a three-way fight (Lib/PC/NDP) Lib candidate got majority of vote
Burin-Grand Bank was a three-way fight (Lib/PC/NDP) Lib candidate got majority of vote
Cape St. Francis four-way fight PC candidate got majority of vote
Carbonear four-way fight Lib candidate got majority of vote
Conception Bay three-way fight (Lib/PC/NDP/ Ind) Lib candidate got majority of vote (95 percent!)
Ferryland three-way PC majority 48 percent of vote disregarded
Fogo three-way Lib majority 39 percent disregarded
Fortune Bay three-way Lib major 32 percent disregarded
Gander three-way Lib majority 29 percent disregarded
Grand Falls three-way PC majority 41 percent disregarded
Harbour Grace three-way Lib majority 29 percent disregarded
Harbouir Main three-way PC majority 46 percent disregarded
Humber three-way Ind majority 28 percent disregarded
Humber-GM three-way Lib majority 36 percent disregarded
Labrador West three-way NDP majority 49.9 percent disregarded
Lake Melville Independent minority 50.1 percent disregarded
Mount Pearl North four-way Lib minority 53 percent disregarded
Mount Pearl Southlands four-way Ind maj. 40 percent disregarded
Mount Scio five-way Lib minority 53 percent disregarded
Placentia St. Mary's Lib maj 49 percent disregarded
Placentia West was a three-way fight PC majority of vote 46 percent disregarded
St. Barbe four-way fight Lib maj. 49 percent disregarded
St. George's four-way Lib major 41 percent disregarded
St. John's Centre three-way fight NDP maj. 48 percent disregarded
St. John's East three-way fight Lib min. 57 percent disregarded
St. John's West three-way Lib majority 42 percent disregarded
Stephenville three-way PC majority 40 percent disregarded
Terra Nova three-way PC majority 47 percent disregarded
Topsail three-way PC majority 49 percent disregarded
Torngat three-way PC majority (89 percent)* 11 percent disregarded
Virginia Waters three-way Lib majority 40 percent disregarded
Waterford three-way Lib majority 33 percent disregarded
Windsor Lake three-way Lib majority 49 percent disregarded
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* the massive majority for PR in Torngat Mountains leads one to consider how if that great surplus of PC votes had been able to be shifted to aid another PC candidate, then how the seat count might have changed.
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Only in four districts was a candidate declared elected who had received less than half the votes. This is an unusually low number - in recent Ontario election, the portion was about a third of the MLAs there being elected by a minority of the voters. (see my other blog for info on this.)
As well, we see in the election results how under FPTP, results of strictly local contests cause loss of government talent and produce wider effects. Leaders of two major parties lost their seats in the local contests. It seems local voters wanted to send a message to the party and had only the local candidate to vent their attitude on. In these cases the local candidate happened to be the leader of the PC Official Opposition and the leader of the NDP. Likely, under STV or another PR system, the leaders of these parties wold have retained their seat by being able to draw on the core of the party's support.
They would likely have been re-elected either through the party-list mechanism or if STV was in effect, through party appeal and the guaranteed minority representation produced by STV. To be clear, STV does not only produce fair representation of the small parties (if they are popular enough to get at least one seat in the district, that is). But also STV produces fair representation for the large parties.
Under FPTP, if X voters really get out and votre, they can elect their man (or woman) and keep Y from taking that seat. But in a multi-member district as used in STV, any party that has quota - say 20 percent of the vote in a four-seat district - would take a seat and there would be nothing the other voters could do about it.
NDP elected two when it was due three seats.
When Newfoundland uses the same name (partially) for a district, that is clear indication that it would be easy, sentiment-wise, to group those districts to form a multi-member district as needed to use STV or other district-based PR system.
The "St. John's" districts are an clear example of this. The Placentia's and Humber's are other examples.
So let's just say there is room for improvement visa vis the representative-ness of Newfoundland and Labrador's elections.
Thanks for reading
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