Graham Thomsen in Alberta Views July/August 2024 looks at the rules that the electoral comission operates under and says that because Lesser Slave Lake can be drawn to have population of only 26,715 people while Edmonton-South has 68,950 residents, that "on paper, a vote in Lesser Slave Lake is worth 2.5 times as much as one in Edmonton-South."
But he obviously does not see that the population that a distrcit has has little to do with how many votes elect the member in the district.
the ratio of votes used in 2023 to elect the member in LSL versus the member in Edmonton-South was actually about his expected 2.5 but that was just chance (or he picked those two districts because they happened to align with ratio of population figures!)
In many other cases there is no such relationship.
2023 stats voter votes cast winner's winner's
turnout rate vote percentage vote tally
Lesser Slave Lake 49 8002 65 5171
Edmonton South 60 24,206 59 14,171
But if we look at the most extreme cases we see these discrpenacies from fairness .
Winner's vote share
Drumheller winner won with 82 percent of the valid votes - 15,270 out of 18,590
Calgary NW winner won with 48 percent of the valid votes - 11,921 out of 24,675
Voter turnout
Calgary Acadia 64 percent
Lesser Slave Lake 49 percent
Fort McMurray 42 percent
Votes cast
Lesser Slave Lake 8002
Calgary Acadia 22.562
2023 stats voter votes cast winner's winner's pop
turnout rate vote percentage vote tally 2017/2021
Lesser Slave Lake 49 8002 65 percent 5171 28,000
Fort McMurray 68 9578 42 percent 6483 44,000
Calgary Acadia 64 22,562 49 percent 10,959 48,000
Calgary NW 70 24,675 48 percent 11,921 48,000
Edmonton South 60 24,206 59 percent 14,171 46,000
Drumheller-Stettler 61 18,590 82 percent 15,270 40,000
Olds-Didsbury 62 24,209 75 percent 18,228 49,000
Airdrie 66 30,000 60 percent 18,000 51,000
Calgary Bow 66 26,000 49.7 percent 13,000 51,000
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so we see even where population figures are almost exactly the same, one winner receives much fewer votes than the other:
--Fort McMurray and Edmonton South we see one member elected with 6500 while the other is elected with 14,000.
--Calgary-NW and Olds-Didsbury we see one member elected with 12,000 while the other is elected with 18,000
--Calgary Bow and Airdrie-Cochrane -- we see one member elected with 13,000 votes and the other with 18,000.
You notice that in two of those cases it is the urban riding where the winner received fewer votes than in the equivalently-sized rural district.
it is in the urban districts (Calgary NW and Bow) that the votes are over-valued as compared to votes in Olds-Didsbury and Airdrie-Cochrane.
It took 18,000 votes to elect the member in Olds Didsbury but only 12,000 votes to elect the member in Calgary NW.
You say that is just the accident ...
But that is my point - the Single-Member Plurality (otherwise known as First Past The Post) reguarly produces such accidents. And having districts of the same-sized population makes little difference when vote turnout and winners' portion of the vote vary so much.
But if we had multi-member districts and election to a seat was by achieving a set fair quota, we would have fairness where more of the members would be elected by the same or about the same number of votes. That would produce fairness for the member and for the parties.
Currently the membership of the Alberta Legislative Assembly is determined by 87 sub-battles, where any votes not cast for the winner are simply disregarded and elect no one.
Some members are elected by 5000 votes and some by 18,000.
But say we brought in a multi-member district system, where possible, and gave each voter just one vote, there would be fairness.
Perhaps we could maintain the large districts of Peace River, Central Peace, the two Fort McMurray districts, and Lesser Slave Lake;
could have 3-seat districts everywhere else outside Calgary and Edmonton (by grouping three of the existing provincial districts (or some special changes to ensure that each county, municipal district, city and town was within only one district);
two districts in Edmonton, each of ten members;
three districts in Calgary, each of about 9 members.
we would have only 22 districts.
If we used ranked votes, we would have STV.
Each candidate with 25 percent of the votes would be elected in the 3-seat districts;
each one with about ten percent in Edmonton and Calgary.
In Edmonton and Calgary each party with 20 percent of a district's votes would take two seats,
each group with 30 percent of the vote in the district would elect three MLAs, and so on.
Much fuller candidate-to-candidate comparison could be made, with the most-popular being elected in each district.
Would rural 3-seat districts be too large to work?
The Peace River constituency, which willhave one MLA, is larger than most of those 3-seat districts.
And we say a single MLA can represent that large an area.
Surely three MLAs, or ten or MLAs, so could represent a smaller area, and each could repesent the voters that vote for them.
Currently we live by a pretend myth that one MLA can represent all the people in a district. This is impossible, but three or ten could each represent one of the largest groups in a district.
Siuch a system would provide much more fair and scientific result than the current collection of winners of 87 sub-battles, thrown together in the legislature with no general accounting or comparison or party effort to achieve party proportionality.
Thomsen should be seeing that FPTP just doesnot give equally-valued votes. The sort of unfairness that FPTP produces can be seen in every Alberta election since 1959 when Alberta switched to FPTP.
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Note: Under the system I propose here, there would be 12 three-seat districts.
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