official election results:
"the overall election turnout (26 per cent of the voting populace) was the lowest since at least 1998," (Red Deer Advocate, April 5, 2018)
If we wonder why the turnout is so low, we may be well advised to look at the voting system itself. Red Deer's use of Block Voting means that a small majority of the voters elects all the city's councillors and almost half the votes are disregarded.This is likely part of the reason why many of the city voters simply stay home.
Turnout reported is 19,292 but is likely 19,301 (as explained below)
19,000 votes were cast in the mayoral contest where each voter cast just one vote.
only two candidates
six electors voted for both candidates so their votes were rejected.
591 did not vote for either (This is result of the election system using one ballot for all positions. These voters apparently left the mayoral portion of their ballots blank.)
Election of city councillors
eight councillors to be elected 21 candidates competing.
The eight most popular candidates were elected.
Each voter cast up to eight votes
121,746 valid votes cast
128 ballots were rejected due to too many choices marked.
Compared to the 19,000 votes cast for mayor, in the councillor elections 122,000 votes were cast. This makes for a heavier workload for election counting staff and equipment than is necessary.
128 voted for more than eight candidates. None of these choices were counted.
32,000 voted for fewer than eight. The choices marked on these ballots were counted.
The amount of shortage is 32,353
Discrepancy in vote count
However the sum of the total votes cast for councillor candidates (121,746) and the number of under votes (32,353) does not add up to a multiple of 8.
Perhaps the confusion came in from the report of the Institutional Poll (#35)
Here was reported to be a turnout of 389 voters,
but then for mayor there are 380 votes cast and a reported 17 under votes (votes left blank).
This adds up to 397.
But if we take a turn-out of the inflated number -- 397 voters-- and if each of these cast eight ballots for councillor (which is the maximum number permitted), there would be a total of 3178 votes cast. But the report has a total of 1978 votes cast for the candidates
plus 1208 under votes (these are votes of the possible 8 each that were not cast).
That adds up to 3184, eight more than would be cast if even all the 397 voters in the poll, at the assumed full number, cast eight votes each.
So turnout in full in this poll may be 398, nine more than reported - a simple dislexic mistake.
This makes the total turnout to be 19,301.
But even then there is a problem.
Votes cast for councillor candidates = 121,748
under votes reported (votes of possible eight not cast by voter) reported as 32,353
Total = 154,227
(This should be a multiple of eight. That it isn't means something is wrong somewhere.)
154,408 is total of eight votes for each of 19,301 voters.
it is reported that 128 ballots were rejected for having too many choices marked
so deduct 128 times 8 = 1024
so net maximum valid votes would be 153,384.
This is smaller than the sum of the number of votes cast for candidates and the number of under votes reported.
So the number of participating voters reported appears to be too low or the number of under votes reported is too large.
The number of votes cast for each candidate is -- let's hope -- accurate.
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As for Effective Votes, we see that under Block Voting, just as under winner-take-all First past the Post elections, many votes are wasted.
The winners were elected with between 12,258 and 6296 votes each.
They in total received 67,346, 55 percent of the votes cast.
45 percent of votes cast were disregarded and played no part in electing representatives.
Meanwhile if Red Deer simply reduced the number of votes that each voter could cast in councillor elections to one,
- the count would be easier, only about 19,000 votes not 121,000 votes needing to be counted
- the crop of representatives elected would be more fairly elected.
no one group could elect all the seats
each large group of votes would be able to elect its own representative.
The largest ten voting blocks in the city would each elect one representative.
Block Voting is what Red Deer uses now for the election of its city councillors. This is where each vote can cast as many votes as there are seats to fill.
But this system is flawed.
The flaws of Block Voting were described in extreme terms a hundred years ago.
The PR Review, the newsletter of the PR League, noted that "people will ask
'Why should I have only one effective vote when there are eight to be elected?'
But they are blind to the indisputable fact that eight votes apiece would enable the most powerful machine, of which he is probably not a part, to elect an entire slate to the exclusion of everyone else."
In Red Deer's last election, 55 percent of the votes elected the new council, but 45 percent of the votes were ignored.
How many voters saw none of their choices elected is unknown.
13 candidates were not elected. The most popular eight of these received no less than 3100 votes. So that is a good 13 percent of the voters that could have been totally ignored. and seen no representation elected.
And how many saw all of their choices elected? The least popular of the successful candidates received 6300 votes, so it is possible that 6300 voters saw all of their choices elected, about 26 percent of the voters.
But the number made totally happy -- and the number made totally unhappy by the result -- is unclear due to the system of Multiple Voting that is used.
But if each voter had just one vote, the crop of representatives elected could be compared to the vote tallies and the correspondence, or lack thereof, determined.
Say for example we look at Edmonton city election in 2017. While Red Deer used Block Voting, Edmonton used winner-take-all First Past The Post, where each voter cast just one vote. Despite this difference, the end result as regards Effective Votes was pretty much the same - that is to say, it was bad.
In Edmonton's 2017 election, more votes were disregarded than were used to elect the successful candidates - only 45 percent of votes cast (86,000) were used to elect successful candidates, while 55 percent of votes cast (105,000 votes) were cast for unsuccessful candidates.
But a system where each voter has just one vote and where multiple seats were filled produces more proportional representation.
We can look at past elections where this was proven in actual practice.
Alberta is one of the few provinces or states in North America where Single Voting elections did take place, where each voter cast no more than one vote and where multiple winners were elected.
It happened in Alberta in both city elections and in provincial elections.
Calgary city elections used Single Voting - of the STV form - from 1917 to 1961 and in 1971.
Edmonton city elections used it in five elections in the 1920s.
The election of Edmonton and Calgary MLAs used Single Voting/STV from 1926 to 1955.
In most of these elections, votes were transferred from candidates to others as per transferable preferential votes cast by voters.
But in three historic STV elections in Alberta's history, vote transfers had no effect on the front runners in the First Count.
These can be taken as practical examples of Single Non-transferable Voting elections.
SNTV is the only proportional type of election allowed under today's municipal election laws. Transferable votes are not currently allowed.
The three elections indicated were the provincial elections held in Edmonton in 1930, and in Calgary in 1930 and 1944.
Let's look at the 1930 election of Calgary MLAs
Already in the First Count, due to combination of Single Voting and multi-member 6-seat district, a mixed crop of front runners was assembled.
members of three parties, including Labour, Conservatives and Liberals in due correspondence to party standings.
voters had wide range of parties to choose from - 13 candidates, belonging to three parties plus Independents
voters had wide range of candidates to choose from - 4 Conservatives, 3 Liberals, 3 Labour, plus 3 Independents
Members of all three parties were among the front runners in the First Count.
These were the most popular candidates of each party.
All were elected in the end - vote transfers had no effect except to prove that the First Count ranking of candidates was to voters' liking.
Effective Voting
73 percent of votes were cast for successful candidates in Calgary in 1930.
27 percent were cast for the others.
73 percent Effective Votes is a much larger percentage of votes than we saw under Block Voting (55 percent Effective Votes) in Red Deer in 2017.
The three "Single Voting" elections mentioned show that Single Voting, even without transferable preferential votes, can produce proportional, mixed representation and a high proportion of Effective Votes.
The proportion of Effective Votes produced by Single Voting is high as compared to the amount produced under Block Voting (such as in Red Deer in 2017) or FPTP (such as in Edmonton in 2017).
If we wonder why Red Deer has only a turnout of barely more than a quarter of eligible voters, it could well be due to the small number of Effective Votes and the large number of votes that are disregarded in its Block Voting elections.
Thanks for reading.
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