PR super light - districts of three what would be effect compared to FPTP. Edmonton used as example using 2025 votes.

if we have general support for ranked votes but don't want very large districts, then using ranked votes in small multi-member district would still be improvement over FPTP.

Small multi-member districts could be composed by grouping three existing ridings - this is arbitrary and only proposed due to time efficiency - far better for proportionality and dignity for voters to use pre-existing units like cities or counties to set riding boundaries.

Currently on average 121,891 people per riding,

average of 60,000 votes cast in each (20M votes cast in 341 ridings)

28M eligible voters

so 3-seat ridings:

districts of about 360,000 population

about 250,000 votes at 70 percent turnout (this will go up under fair voting I expect)

(some districts could still be left as single-member districts)

quota in each district would be 25 percent (plus 1)

so with range of population being something like 20 percent above or below 360,000, and turnout at least for now being 70 percent,

DM-3 districts would be

smallest 290,000 pop. 200,000 turnout quota is 50,000

average 360,000 pop. 250,000 turnout quota is 63,000

largest 430,000 pop. 300,000 turnout quota is 75,000

a factor of 2 to 3.

much more fair than the present 1 to 7 under FPTP, which is due to:

-wide range in voter turnout district to district,

-wide range in percentage of votes received by winner.

using larger districts allows

-more adherence to similar ratio of population per member,

-likely smoothing out of voter turnout rate,

-use of quota , which in turn means less variance in number of votes needed to win.

about three-quarters of the votes cast in each district will be used to elect someone,

versus sometimes about one third that are now used.

Any party that takes a quarter of the votes in a district would be elected.

so with larger districts, small parties would have more of a chance to get representation.

say in Edmonton

if MMD composed of Edm-Centre, Edm Griesbach and Edm West,

where one Liberal and two Conservatives elected in 2025,

NDP would have chance to get seat or to assist Liberals in getting a second seat.

(using votes as cast in 2025, we see:

NDP Liberal Conservative total votes quota

Centre 8000 24,000 21,000 55,000

Griesbach 17,000 9000 22,000 49,000

West 3000 24,000 32,000 60,000

vote total 28,000 57,000 75,000 165,000 41,000

actual seats won 0 1 2

but tight races

so next time 1? 2? 1, 2 or 3?

PR seats 1? 1 for sure, +1? 1 for sure, +1?

as you see, with PR even with low DM of three seats per district, much less uncertainty!

With three-seat riding, it is not clear who would take the third seat - Liberal and Conservative for sure taking one seat each.

Whether Conservative would get vote transfers from small parties (not recorded above) or NDP voters would swing their votes to Liberal (or visa versa) in enough numbers is unclear.

But the most-popular of the three main parties (judging by NDP votes compared to the remainder of Lib. and Conservative votes after a quota taken off for each party's winner, and after vote transfers) would take the third seat.

The ranked voting would allow voters to vote for their true sentiment, not be encouraged to vote strategically.

Mixed representation in each district would mean less artificial polarization and regionalism.

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