Examination of Some Alternatives to FPTP
By Tom Monto
Canada is the only major developed country that uses only single-winner plurality (FPTP) in all its elections above the municipal level.
Here is an examination of the systems that I consider the leading alternatives to the single-winner plurality system used in federal elections and all provincial elections currently.
These leading replacements for our present FPTP system are:
MMP, STV, SNTV, MMP with STV and MMP with SNTV.
There are of course other system that would work just fine, but I see these 5 systems as being easier to implement than any others because they
- use existing districts or simple grouping of existing districts into multi-member districts and do not require the forming of a third level of districts (regions) and
- they all have strong use of district elections where the most-popular candidates, as chosen by the voters, are elected. (In the first one listed and the last two, there is an element of election by party list but most of the seats are filled by district elections of one sort or another.)
As well, the district elections (which elect all or only some of the members under these five systems) use a voting system that has been used alot in our history (FPTP) or ones that simply depend on casting of a single vote in a MM district. These last are STV or SNTV, the difference between the two being non-compulsory marking of back-up preferences. The previous use of FPTP and STV (from 1917 to 1971), our current familiarity with FPTP, and simplicity of use (in the case of STV or SNTV), I see, makes them more attractive than other voting systems. (More on this in the footnotes).
The following descriptions of each of the systems shows that the systems can be applied in various ways. So even after having made the choice of which system to implement, there are still several decisions to make, such as the number of top-up seats compared to district seats, the drawing of district boundaries, number of members per MM districts, etc.
In the fullness of time, hopefully this writing will aid a Citizens Assembly to arrive at a system that provides:
- ability of each voter to vote for a member to represent them, with vote used to help elect someone from a party list as a last resort.
- that most votes will be used to elect someone. This vote to be used to elect someone who is first choice of the voter or at least someone preferred by him or her over others.
- that each voter is not required to do more work than he or she wants; has the right to mark one preference or more at his or her liberty, with the highest preference applied if at all possible before reference to lower preference.
- that in each district each voter will have only one vote that is used to elect someone. casting multiple votes where only member is elected is waste of effort; casting multiple votes where multiple candidates are to be elected allows one group to take all of the seats, leaving all other groups without representation.
- that districts will be based on natural pre-existing geographic units such as cities or counties or provinces where possible. By the Canadian constitution, provinces are the largest "pooling" of votes allowed. As we see below, districts that enclose whole cities and elect multiple members is perfectly acceptable and workable way to provide both local and proportional representation (at least such a city would elect representation that is mixed and thus roughly balanced).
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Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)
Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system such as is used in New Zealand, is a popular choice among electoral reformers. It produces pretty exact proportionality (for parties above the threshold) and representation derived from single-seat districts.
In NZ, after MMP was brought in, about half of the Parliament were district members, and the other half were declared elected as top-up to overcome disproportional representation elected in the district elections.
District members re elected in single-member winner contests through First Past The Post.
Each voter casts two votes - one in the district election, one that is put in the nation-wide pooling of votes for party-proportional allocation of seats.
District seats are filled through FPTP in single-seat districts. (The other four electoral systems described below use multiple-member districts.)
Under FPTP, the leading candidate is elected even if he or she does not have majority of the votes, and no other candidates in the district are elected.
This, as you can imagine, produces the same disproportional results that we see today in Canadian elections.
And that is why the top-up seats are so important.
The second votes are totalled up and any party that does not have five percent of the votes is taken out of the equation, and all votes cast for it or them is disregarded (unless the party won at least one seat in the district election).
How many seats each of the remaining parties is due is calculated, and those parties who did not win their due share of the seats in the district votes is awarded more seats to bring their seat totals up to their due share.
The members declared elected in the top-up are taken from the party lists, starting at the top. The candidates may be popular among voters or not but the order of election is set by the party brass.
These members do not represent particular districts but instead represent the party and the voters who support that party.
So say as a resident, you have something that you want a politician to look into. Whom do you contact? Say you are in a district where the member was elected with minority of votes. Say you are among the majority of voters in the district, say in the 65 percent of voters in Auckland Central who did not see their choice of candidate elected. Do you contact the local district member who may not be interested in the topic, or do you contact one of the party's members elected through top-up? The latter choice may be difficult if the top-up member is not to your liking, even if belongs to the party you prefer or if he or she is not from your area.
The advantages of MMP may be listed as:
- overall representation reflects how votes were cast (applies only to parties with more than threshold of votes).
- use of X voting, so no need to learn another voting system such as preferential voting
- use of district members so voter has one representative (although the one district member may not be choice of majority of votes in the district).
In Canada, top-up member would not be allocated country-wide but to seats representing regions covering part of a province or at the province-wide level.
An issue that comes up sometimes is a voter giving his district vote to a Party A candidate and thus helping elect the local Party A candidate, and gives his second (party) vote to a different party. That voter gets double benefit, kind of like having two votes, while others vote along party lines and get the benefit of just one vote. That is one of the reason why some MMP systems just have the voters cast one vote and that one vote is used for both the district election and to set the overall party-proportional representation. That way likely a vote that is used to elect the local candidate is likely not then needed for party PR and the top-up seats are then reserved for parties who did not elect any (or enough) local members.
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OTHER SYSTEMS
Besides MMP, I want to discuss a few other possible replacements for our existing FPTP voting system. They differ from MMP in that they involve the use of multiple-member districts. Two of them involve the use of preferential voting; two use X voting. Two use top-up members in addition to the district contests; the other two do not. The combination of these two elements - type of voting and use of or non-use of top-up - creates a selection of four systems, each described below. Each of them produces fairly proportional representation, and each elects multiple district members in districts, which altogether is likely to reflect the sentiment of a great majority of the voters in the district.
Multi-member districts
These four systems involve the use of multi-member districts. The idea of more than one member being elected in a district now seems unusual, but from 1867 to 1968 every federal election involved the use of one or more multi-member districts. As well, elections in every province, except Quebec, used multi-member districts at one time or another in its history. On some occasions a province elected all its members in MM districts. Often multi-member districts used pre-existing political entities such as cities or counties. Any difference in population numbers was reflected by varying the number of members the city or county had, instead of drawing artificial equally-sized single-member districts, as we now suffer under.
With MM districts, if each voter casts just one vote, mixed roughly-balanced representation is the result.
Systems that use MM districts have the ability to retain the present single-member districts in some areas if desired. Multiple-member districts contain more voters than single-member districts do, but due to the wide variation in population density, a multiple-member district in a urban setting is likely to cover less physical area than a moderately-sized rural district. Today's single-member districts range widely in size. The Nunavut MP today represents an area larger than one-fifth of the country. At the other extreme the Toronto Centre MP represents a scant 6 sq. kms., about the size of two average Canadian farms.
Among Canada's smallest ridings (by area) are several in each major city, such as Toronto, Montreal, Scarborough, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. Grouping these should present no logistical problem for representation especially as the new MM district would have multiple members to do the work.
With this mind, the next systems described involve MM districts, which alone would ensure proportionate representation - not strictly proportional but producing mixed and balanced representation.
If it is desired to have representation that is more proportional, the last two described involve the use of top-up as well as MM districts. I leave it up to others to decide if the added complication and seats needed is worth the extra effort.
As well, the choice is between X voting, as we use today in FPTP, or preferential voting. Preferential voting ensures more votes are used to elect someone and that voters have more leeway to vote for whom they truly favour instead of engaging in "strategic voting." X voting has the virtue of simplicity and familiarity.
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X voting or preferential voting
Even with MM districts (or mixture of MM districts and single-member districts) and single voting, there are still choices to make. Two different types of voting are commonly used even where MM districts and single voting is bought into use.
X voting is the same make-or-break kind of voting used in our existing First Past The Post voting. When used in conjunction with MM districts, X voting is used in a system known as Single Non-Transferable Voting. It has never been used in Canada but has proven to be effective in North America in Costa Rico and in the British Commonwealth country of Vanuatu, as well as other places. (More on this below.)
Preferential voting, also known as ranked ballots, when used in conjunction with MM districts, is a system known as Single Transferable Voting. (There is also in a single-winner version called Instant-runoff voting or Alternative Voting.) STV has been used in Canadian history, in municipal and/or provincial elections in four provinces, but not in any government election since 1971. It has also been used for a hundred years for Parliamentary elections in three Commonwealth countries - Ireland, Malta and Australia. It was also used for some years to elect some MPs to the British House of Commons. As well, it has recently been brought into use in the UK, where it is used in legislative elections in North Ireland and Scotland. It is used for municipal elections in many countries including New Zealand.
Transferable voting ensures that most votes will be used to elect someone, not in all cases the first choice of the voter but always someone preferred by the voter over others. As the voter is at liberty to mark his or her first back-up preferences for a candidate of a different party than his or her first choice, the final result may differ from the party proportion of vote share of the first count but still at the same time be perfectly in line with voters' sentiment.
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Single Transferable Voting (STV) system
As mentioned, the Single Transferable Voting (STV) uses multi-member districts. STV works in such a way that most voters in each district see their vote used to elect someone in their district.
This system produces proportional representation at the district level. This is produced by each voter casting just one vote. the combination of single voting and MM districts means no one party can take all the seats in the district so the present one-party sweeps of a city or a province is not possible.
This is seen in the first round of vote counting.
In most STV elections, the initial ordering of candidates is then polished and made more fair through use of vote transfers. In the first count, it is possible for a party to have its votes split unfavourably over multiple candidates. Vote-splitting might deprive a party of the seats it is due by party's share of the votes. Vote transfers made possible by voters marking back-up preferences allow a party's supporters to coalesce behind the right number of candidates to see them elected, ensuring that the party takes about its due share of the votes. Single voting in MM district is the backbone of the STV process - sometimes vote transfers make no change to the mixed ordering of candidates in the first count. The vote transfers are meant to give fine polish if desired or just to verify that the first count results are actually the choice of the voters.
Usually about 80 percent of the voters in a district - more or less - see their vote used to elect a member in the district.
Being district-based, STV can be brought into use just for part of the total area. Where STV's MM districts are considered too large or unsuitable, single-member districts could be continued. (Perhaps these single-member districts could use ranked voting anyway - just so voters in every district uses the same voting method.)
STV was used in Canada's history.
STV is the only system of PR that has ever been used to any great extent in Canada history, being used somewhere in city elections and/or provincial elections from 1917 to 1971.
It was used to elect MLAs in 17 provincial elections - in Alberta and Manitoba - and also in elections in 20 cities and municipalities in all four western provinces.
At the provincial level, STV was used in five districts electing at one time as much as a total of 25 MLAs.
In historical Canada usage, at the most it elected 10 MLAs in any one district. This was in a district covering the whole city of Winnipeg,and in elections over many years, from 1920 to 1945. In an average election in that city-wide district, STV produced the election of MLAs of four different parties and an Independent MLA.
Advantages
- most voters in each STV district (perhaps as much as 86 percent) have a local member whom their vote helped to elect.
- voters cast votes for candidates. Parties play no direct role in the election process.
- each STV district (with more than three members) elects a mixed crop of representatives so there is no chance of one party sweeping all the seats in a city (and therefore a province-wide one-party sweep is also prevented)
- few votes are ignored. Votes that are cast initially for un-popular candidates may be transferred to others in accordance with voters' marked back-up preference if any, so most votes are used to elect someone, even if not the voter's first choice but still someone preferred over others.
- voters are not forced to show support to only one party but may cross party lines in marking back-up preferences. That ensures that a voter who favours candidates of an unpopular party then sees his vote wasted. Under STV, he or she can mark a back-up preference for a candidate of a different party, a candidate still favoured by the voter (although not the first choice), and thus the vote may play a role in electing a member whom the voter approves of. (In Canada STV, voters were not required to rank all candidates and some did not mark as many as they could have, and some of these "plumped" ballots ran out of marked preferences and were declared "exhausted". But fewer votes were ignored in that way than are ignored under single-winner FPTP.)
Shortcomings
The election results in each STV district is based on the district votes. There is no attempt to produce overall party-proportionality of elected members.
Due to the normal range of members in a district under STV, 5 to 10 seats in each district, a party with less than nine percent of the vote cannot be assured of winning any seats in a district - and thereby may not win any across the board.
We can see this in Canada's historic STV elections. When Edmonton was electing seven members, the CCF with 8 percent of the city vote (7000 votes) did not take a seat in the city. Two CCF candidates running in two small single-member districts took about half that number of votes and won two seats that way.
As disappointing as this was, it compares well to the 1959 election after Alberta switched to First Past The Post, the system we still use today. The CCF received 4 percent of the vote (thus was due more than 4 seats) but received no seats at all, losing both its seats. The Conservatives took about 24 percent of the Alberta vote but took only one seat anywhere. (This was in the period when the Social Credit was the king of the roost.) The Conservative total included about a third of the vote in Edmonton, where the party was due three seats and won none.
The Social Credit government received a sweep of Edmonton seats. something that no one party had done in the previous eight elections when STV had been used in Edmonton. And the SC candidates had done this despite taking only about 48 percent of the city vote.)
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Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV)
If it is desired to avoid the use of preferential votes, the combination of Single voting and MM districts can be used in conjunction with the same type of voting as used in First past the post. Even without transfer made possible by preferential voting, X voting, single voting and MM districts produce mixed and roughly proportional representation. The election results in each MM district, electing a mixture of candidates, is more balanced than results in FPTP.
But exact proportionality of party representation is not guaranteed, not even as much nor as dependably as occurs under STV.
Parties that run more candidates than they ought may suffer from vote splitting. Under STV, this is addressed by vote transfers but no such remedy exists in SNTV. Thus the results under SNTV are more prone to accidents and mischance.
For that reason, the top-up of MMP may be very useful where SNTV is used.
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MMP with STV
MMP with SNTV
MMP is usually thought to entail a combination of single-member districts and top-up but a MMP system could use both multi-seat districts and single-member districts - or even just MM districts. In each case, top-up seats would be used after the district elections are finished.
Like in the normal MMP system, top-up seats could compensate for dis-proportionality produced by MM district as easily as it compensates for dis-proportionality produced by single-member districts. Perhaps even easier - as there would be less dis-proportionality where STV (or SNTV) are used.
Say, we talk about a MMP system where STV is used in all or some of the districts. As mentioned, SNTV produces crude PR at the district level. But some parties may not get their due share of seats in the district if their votes are spread over too many candidates. Or if one candidate is much more popular than the rest, he or she may take the lion share of the party support, not leaving enough for the other party candidates to take seats.
Dis-proportionality produced by such situations can be addressed by the top-up seats, where party support based on overall votes across a province are used to allocate compensatory seats.
If about half of the seats are needed to be top-up seats in order to produce proportional representation where single-winner districts are used, less would be needed where city or district elections already produce mixed representation through SNTV. And under STV, likely as few as 10-15 percent may be needed to produce representation that is very exactly proportional.
The fewer the required top-up members, the more members can be elected in the districts, thus producing finer-grained proportionality there too, or the fewer members have to be added when making the transition to PR.
In New Zealand, when making the transition to MMP, the country added 21 seats, and decreased the number of district seats by 34, about a third. (120 seats in total, 65 districts and 55 top-up seats)
If Canada was to do that kind of change, it would add 66 seats (giving us a House of Commons with 404 seats) and would decrease the number of districts by 113, about a third. Thus, each district on the average would have to be half again larger - 225 districts covering the same area as previously covered by 338.
Since 1996, New Zealand has changed its balance. Now 60 percent of the Parliament - 72 members - are elected in district elections and 40 percent - 48 members - are elected as top-up.
The Canadian equivalent based on HoC with 404 seats would be 242 districts, and 162 top-up seats.
New Zealand MMP provides proportional representation but has some failings -
Parties with less than 5 percent of the total vote get no seats - unless they happen to take a district seat.
225,173 votes - about 8 percent of the voters - received no representation in the last NZ election.
And those parties with seats did not get the exact proportion to reflect its share of the vote.
Labour with just a slight majority received 54 percent of the seats.
The Maori Party with little more than 1 percent of the vote received almost 2 percent of the seats.
(Showing broad overall fairness, each major party who lost votes as compared to the previous election did lose seats, and every party that gained in votes since the previous election did gain seats.)
But if multiple-seat districts were used, top-up seats could be pared down with no resulting dis-proportion.
With every party that takes more than 13 percent of the votes in each city represented fairly in each city (which could easily happen under STV or possibly in SNTV, in seven-seat MM districts), top-up could be reduced to about 12 percent of the overall members. Thus, most of the districts could remain much the same as they are currently. The small reduction in the number of district seats can be achieved just in cities, where the use of MM districts means that the re-drawing of ridings is easier than if all the single-member districts have to be re-drawn as under FPTP/MMP.
Research tells me that a 15-percent overall increase in seats, with only slight decrease in the numbers of districts, produces enough top-up seats to overcome the dis-proportionality produced in district contests. The decrease in district seats in these models is imposed just on urban MM districts. There the improved effective-ness of SNTV or STV makes the loss of seats less important. As well, in the SNTV/MMP or STV/MMP systems described below, urban voters, same as rural voters, would have opportunity to see their vote used to elect representation through top-up. So having similar voter-to-seat ratios in the various districts is not as important as it is under FPTP where votes are not pooled at any level above the single-member district. It is less important to have all districts the same size if top-up means that voters in a district are going to help elect members from outside the district anyway.
The most popular parties -- Liberals, Conservatives and NDP (plus BQ in Quebec) -- likely would each take a seat or two in each major city under STV, thus ensuring rough proportionality for those parties anyway.
Each major party is predicted to receive at least one seat in each city if it takes 13 percent provincially-wide (in ON., QU, MN, AB, and BC anyway) and top-up would likely mostly be for parties who get less than 13 percent but are due some seat(s). I have assumed three percent as threshold to get top-up. As well, any party that took a district seat in 2021 is reckoned as winning one under STV/MMP or SNTV/MMP and thus declared eligible for top up as well.
If a major parties fails somehow to get its due share through district contests, some top-up seats could be used to address the under-representation, to the extent that top-up seats are available, as I have done in the following model.
As seen here, three, four or five parties would be expected to elect representation in each of these major provinces.
So a very fair result, which would end the artificial regionalism created by FPTP today in some places.
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Results under MMP/STV
(much the same would result in MMP/SNTV as well)
I based this model on the results in 2021 federal election, broken down by province and major city,
I used these assumptions:
- voters would cast their vote the same under PR - they might not but this is at least a starting point -
- the district seats would be fewer than the number of seats of 2021, with top-up at the provincial level (of about 20 percent of the district seats)
The reduction of seats would be done by reducing the number of seats in cities. I am assuming each major city's district seats would be about 10 percent fewer than its number of seats as in 2021.
- an increase of overall seats by 15 percent over the 2021 figure.
(Initial proposal to raise total seats by just 10 percent allowed some parties to retain too high proportion arising from their large success in district elections, as explained in footnote)
A relatively slight decrease in seats and a relatively small increase in overall seats means most districts can continue as they are now, so re-districting is avoided. (And into the future, re-districting could be accomplished by forming MM districts where one does not exist in the model (grouping a couple or so districts and adding one more seat to the previous seat total) or adjusting the number of seats in the created MM districts.
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Those assumptions meant that the present 338 HofC would grow to 386.
Most districts would be retained as is - as single-member districts- but overall district seats would decrease to 323.
MM districts would be organized in Halifax, Montreal, Ottouais, Quebec City, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, according to the model. In reality, an actual STV would also see MM districts in Victoria, Scarborough, Saskatoon and more.
In the model, 63 top-up seats are allocated in varying numbers in each province to compensate for under-representation produced by the district contests.
Results under MMP/STV are predicted to look like this:
Final overall party seat tallies under MMP/STV
Maritimes QU ON MN SK AB BC Terr. TOTAL seats party vote
if strict PR p.c.
Liberal 21 29 55 4 1 5 13 2 130 126 32.6
Conservative 12 17 49 7 11 25 16 137 131 33.7
BQ 0 35 0 0 0 0 0 35 30 7.6
NDP 4 9 25 4 2 7 14 1 66 70 17.8
Green 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 6 9 2.3
People's 0 0 7 0 1 2 2 12 20 5
37 90 139 15 15 39 48 3 386 386
District seats 30 78 115 13 13 31 40 3 323
Top-up 7 12 24 2 2 8 8 0 63
The natural effect of dividing the voters into ten different provinces means that the overall proportionality suffers, as thinly spread parties, such as Greens and People's Party, do not get the full benefit of their vote tallies.
The BQ on the other hand got extra benefit of having all its votes just in one province - as well as benefiting from district pluralities in many districts in that one province.
That being said, the result under MMP/STV was much more balanced and fair than the result in 2021 under FPTP.
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BY PROVINCE
MARITIMES
the representation elected in these four provinces will be more or less estimated. (The other provinces will be done in more detail.)
I'll just estimate party totals based on 2021 election with extra fairness guessed at.
I figure in a STV election a NDP candidate would win a seat in Halifax - the NDP took 31 percent of the vote there but did not win a seat under FPTP.
As well, with seven top-up seats for the four provinces as a whole, Conservative would likely take four more seats and the NDP another three.
Final party seat totals for the four provinces would likely be:
Liberal 21
Conservative 12
NDP 4
Green 0
People's Party 0. TOTAL seats = 37
(More detail can be found in the footnotes)
QUEBEC - 78 seats in 2021 total seats under MMP/STV: 90 seats
District results under MMP/STV (74 districts):
City breakdowns -
Montreal 22 seats in 2021 now 20 seats
(perhaps two MM districts of 10 seats each but we'll assume just one city-wide district
likely result (based on 5 percent quota): Liberal 10, Conservative 3, BQ 4, NDP 3
Quebec City 5 seats now 4 seats -- likely result Liberal 1, Conservative 2, BQ 1
Ottouais 4 seats now 3 seats -- Liberal 2, Conservative 1, BQ 0
Perhaps 47 single-member districts, producing usual dis-proportional results
(if same as 2021 Canadian election: Liberal 9, Conservative 8, BQ 30
seat totals of district elections: Liberals 22, Conservatives 14, BQ 35, NDP 3
PR party seats (based on 90 seats):
Liberal 30, Conservatives 17, BQ 29, NDP 9, Green 2, People's Party 3
BQ is expected to take more district seats than its PR due.
Top-up: say 16 seats
(parties with more than 3 percent only eligible for this, so Greens and People's Party wold get no top-up. (their vote totals would likely increase in future elections under PR)
Eligible parties that need top-up:
for full top-up we need Lib 8, Cons 3, NDP 6 total of 17 seats.
with only 16 top-up seats, here is likely top-up:
Liberals: 7 top-up total seats 29 (32 p.c. of total 90 seats) close to vote share 34 p.c.
Conservatives 3 top-up; total seats 17 (19 p.c. of the 90 seats) close to vote share 19 p.c.
NDP 6 top-up total seats 9 (10 percent of the 90 seats) close to vote share 10 p.c.
BQ 0 top-up total seats 35 (39 p.c. of the 90 seats) more than vote share 32 p.c.
Total seats 90
This produces very balanced and proportional result. Even with BQ over-representation, the result is light years ahead of the result in 2021 under FPTP.
just as in votes cast, no party has majority of seats.
BQ is only party that gets more seats than a party with fewer votes.
(such "overhangs in districts seats could be cancelled out if there were
more top-up seats and/or
more STV MM districts, and/or
special top-up where any party that suffers this result is given enough seats to make the ordering reflect the ordering of party vote shares. (thus Hof C would have to have varying number of seats, not easy under our Constitution)
ONTARIO - 121 seats (2021 election) after 15 percent increase under MMP/STV: now 139
District results: (115 districts)
City breakdowns -
GTA - 52 seats in 2021 47 now -- Liberal 25, Conservative 15, NDP 7
perhaps 6 districts of 8-9 seats in each but here we'll assume one city-wide district
Ottawa - 8 seats in 2021 7 now -- Liberal 4, Conservative 2, 1 NDP
Rest of ON - 61 seats in 2021 seats and results same as 2021-- Liberal 24, Cons. 32, NDP 4, Greens 1, Pple's Party 0
Seat totals of district elections:
Liberals 52, Conservatives 49, NDP 13, Green 1 (total 115)
PR party seats (based on 139 seats): Liberal 55, Conservatives 48, NDP 25, Green 3, People's Party 8 (total 139)
Conservatives are expected to take more district seats than their PR due.
Top-up: say 18 seats
(parties with more than 3 percent only eligible for this, or if wins at least one district seat so NDP and People's Party are both eligible.
Eligible parties eligible for top-up:
Liberals: 3 top-up NDP 12 top-up, Greens 2, Peoples 8 total 25
With only 24 top-up seats, here is likely top-up:
Liberals: 3 top-up total seats 55 (40 pc of 139 seats) close to vote share of 39 pc
Conservatives: 0 top-up total seats 49 (35 pc of 139 seats) close to vote share of 35 pc
NDP 12 top-up total seats 25 (18 pc of 139 seats) close to vote share of 18 pc Green 2 top-up total seats 3 (2 pc of 139 seats) more than vote share of 2 pc
People's Party 7 top-up total seats 7 (5 pc of 139 seats) more than vote share of 5 pc
Total seats 139
This produces very balanced and proportional result. The result is light years ahead of the result in 2021 under FPTP.
MANITOBA - old 14 now with 15 seats
District results: (13 districts)
City breakdowns -
Winnipeg - 8 seats in 2021 7 now -- likely STV result Liberal 3, Conservative 2, NDP 2
Rest of MN - 6 seats in 2021 seats and results same as 2021- Liberal 0, Cons. 5, NDP 1, Greens 0, Pple's Party 0
Seat totals of district elections: Liberals 3, Conservatives 7, NDP 3, Green 0 (total 13)
PR party seats (based on 15 seats): Liberal 4, Conservatives 6, NDP 4, Green 0, People's Party 1 (total 15)
Conservatives are expected to take more district seats than their PR due.
Top-up: say 2 seats
(parties with more than 3 percent only eligible for this, or if wins at least one district seat so Green and People's Party not eligible.
Eligible parties eligible for top-up:
Liberals: 1 top-up NDP 1 top-up, Greens 0, Peoples 0 total 2
with only 2 top-up seats, here is likely top-up:
Liberals: 1 top-up total seats 4 (27 pc of the 15 seats) close to vote share 28 pc
Conservatives: 0 top-up total seats 7 (47 pc of the 15 seats) close to vote share 39 pc
NDP 1 top-up total seats 4 (27 pc of the 15 seats) close to vote share 23 pc
Green 0 top-up total seats 0 (0 pc of total 15 seats) vote share less than 3 pc
People's Party 0 top-up total seats 0 (0 of the 15 seats) vote share less than 3 percent
Total seats 15
This produces very balanced and proportional result. The result is light years ahead of the result in 2021 under FPTP.
SASKATCHEWAN - old 14 under MMP/STV with 15 seats
with only top-up seats, here is likely top-up:
vote PR
p.c. seats districts top-up total seats
Liberals: 11 2 0 1 1 (7 pc of 15 seats) close to vote share 11 pc
Conservatives: 59 9 11 0 11 (73 pc of total 15 seats) larger than 59 pc
NDP 21 3 2 0 2 (13 pc of 15 seats) less than its vote share 21 pc
Green 1 0 0 0 0 (0 of the 15 seats) vote share less than 3 pc
People's Party 7 1 0 1 1 (7 percent of 15 seats) about same as vote share
Total seats 15 13 2 15
This produces very balanced and proportional result. The result is light years ahead of the result in 2021 under FPTP.
ALBERTA - old 34 under MMP/STV with 39 seats
district elections 28 top-up 8 seats
with 8 top-up seats, here is likely top-up:
DISTRICT SEATS
Edmonton Calgary Rest total District seats
Libs: 2 2 4
Cons: 4 5 16 25
NDP : 1 1 2
Greens
People's
7 8 16 31
vote PR District
p.c. seats seats top-up total seats
Liberals: 15 6 4 1 5 (13 pc of 39 seats) close to vote share 15 pc
Conservatives: 55 22 25 0 25 (64 pc of 39 seats) close to vote share 55 pc
NDP 19 8 2 5 7 (18 pc of 39 seats) close to vote share 19 pc
Green 1 0 0 0 0 (0 of 39 seats) vote share less than 3 pc
People's Party 7 3 0 2 2 (7 pc of 39 seats) close to vote share 7 pc
Total seats 15 31 8 39
This produces very balanced and proportional result. The result is light years ahead of the result in 2021 under FPTP.
BC - old 42 under MMP/STV with 48 seats
district elections 40 top-up 8 seats
with 8 top-up seats, here is likely top-up:
DISTRICT SEATS
Vancouver Rest total District seats
Libs: 4 7 11
Cons: 3 13 16
NDP : 4 8 12
Greens 0 1 1
People's 0 0 0
11 29 40
vote PR district
p.c. seats seats top-up total seats
Liberals: 27 13 11 2 13 (27 pc of 48 seats) almost same as vote share 27 pc
Conservatives: 33 16 16 0 16 (33 pc of 48 seats) almost same as vote share 33 pc
NDP 29 14 12 2 14 (29 pc of 48 seats) almost same as vote share 29 pc
Green 5.3 3 1 2 3 (6 pc of 48 seats) almost same as vote share 5.3 pc
People's Party 5 2 0 2 2 (4 pc of 48 seats) almost same as vote share 5 pc
Total seats 48 40 8 48
This produces very balanced and proportional result. The result is light years ahead of the result in 2021 under FPTP.
The most popular parties -- Liberals, Conservatives and NDP (plus BQ in Quebec) -- likely would each take a seat or two in each major city under STV, thus ensuring rough proportionality for them anyway. If they failed somehow to do this, some top-up seats could be used to address the under-representation, to the extent that top-up seats are available.
As seen here, three, four or five parties would be expected to elect representation in each of these major provinces.
So a very fair result, which would end the artificial regionalism created by FPTP today in some places.
Judging by these numbers, it seems that about 15 percent of the total seats used for top-up would be enough to ensure rough proportionality, a far cry from the 40 percent now used in New Zealand for top-up seats. And that is giving each party approximately its due share. The use of a threshold of 5 percent of votes in order to get top-up (as New Zealand basically does) might reduce the needed number of top-up seats still further.
The result under MMP/STV (or MMP/SNTV) was much more balanced and fair than the result in 2021 under FPTP.
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MMP/SNTV
If SNTV was used in MM district contests instead of STV, much the same fair results would result in the MM districts. In fact, some small parties might win a seat if more popular parties got greedy and ran many candidates in the district and suffered from vote splitting. This would free up a top-up seat that would otherwise be used for that small party. It could be that the large party that suffered such a reverse under SNTV would not be eligible for a top-up seat anyway as it might win more than its due share of district seats elsewhere.
If less fair representation resulted in MM district contests than shown in the MMP/STV model above, the top-up seats allowed in the model would likely be able to address it, anyway.
Under our present FPTP, vote splitting creates odd results currently, and many people accept it calmly.
The result under MMP/SNTV would be much more fair than the current FPTP, while still asking each voter to cast just a single X vote.
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Conclusion
Each of the systems described here would be more fair than our present FTP system - fair to both small and large parties. Each system has each voter casting a vote directly for a candidate.
In SNTV the vote is wasted if not cast for a successful candidate.
But in STV, MMP/SNTV and MMP/SNTV systems described above, the vote even if not cast initially for a successful candidate, may be used to help elect someone else so that most voters have an effect on the result, and the representation elected reflects as much of the sentiment of voters as possible.
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FOOTNOTES:
Why FPTP, STV or SNTV instead of other voting systems?
Canadians know about FPTP.
STV was known at one time, being used in three or four cities in provincial elections from the 1920s to 1950s and in municipal elections in 20 Canadian municipalities.
STV and SNTV are simple to vote under. For voters, the manner of voting under SNTV is no different than FPTP. The manner of voting under STV is preferential voting, which obviously is not a problem as there is a little recent use of it in a London (Ontario) city election and it is much talked about in its single-winner variation (Instant-runoff Voting/ Alternative Voting).
The difference between STV or SNTV is STV's non-compulsory marking of back-up preferences.
Other systems offer less guarantee of mixed, blanced representation.
Block voting, used in all elections where multiple seats are filled in a single contest in Canada today, allows one group to take all the seats, leaving none to other voting groups.
Compulsory Voting, where voters cast multiple votes in MM district and a voter can place multiple votes on one candidate, in my view, offers no advantages over STV or SNTV and further is an unknown thing compared to FPTP.
STV and SNTV more strongly guarantee mixed, balanced and thus proportionate representation, while FPTP is simple and any MMP using it would depend on the top-up seats for its proportionality.
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NZ's 1996 change to MMP
The first NZ election using the MMP system was held in 1996. Districts were re-drawn because in this election there were 34 fewer district members than had been elected in the 1993 election. As well, the Parliamentary seating had to be reconfigured as overall there were to be 21 more members than had been elected in 1993.
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City breakdowns are based on info compiled by Real Lavergne:
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MARITIMES
(I just lumped these four provinces together and assumed that results would be similar to the 2021 election result but expecting more fair results due to a MM district in Halifax and to top-up, where the second-most popular-party would get four more seats and the third-most popular party three more seats.
total seats 32 in 2021 new seat total 37 Districts 30 top-up 7
seats
from 2021 District TOTAL
NF PEI NS NB Total top-up SEATS
Liberal 6 4 6 5 21 21
Conservative 1 3 4 8 4 12
NDP 1 1 3 4
Green 0 0 0
People's Party 0 0 0
TOTAL 7 4 10 9 30 7 37
Greens were lucky to win a seat in Fredericton in 2019, but such a victory under FPTP may arise either from a combination of vote-splitting and a strong individual local candidate, or is just the tip of an iceberg of voters hidden, ignored and under-represented, - it is difficult to know which, FPTP being such a flawed way to measure public sentiment. In the case of Green's victory in Fredericton in 2019, Atwin won the seat with fewer than 34 percent of the vote in the district. Altogether the Greens took 17 percent of the vote so that one-seat victory was actually under-representation. But such is FPTP that even that one seat was not secure. and Atwin crossed the floor to run for re-election as a Liberal. She is now a sitting Liberal MP. I did not accord the Greens a seat in this MMP/STV model, as the party in 2021 took only about 5 percent of the vote in NB, a province that has only 10 seats, and it did not receive many votes in the other Maritime provinces either.
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"10 percent increase in overall seats" model
NZ added 20 percent more seat when changing to MMP. I thought that with MM districts, Canada might get away with adding only 10 percent more, but I found that with such a moderate increase, the available top-up was not enough to overcome the massive district sweeps of such parties as the BQ in Quebec and the Conservatives in Saskatchewan. The above SNTV/MMP and STV/MMP models add 15 percent of seats to existing provincial totals, and the resulting predicted representation is more fair.
Quebec as test case
2021 78 seats in Quebec 10 percent increase means 86 seats
likely district result (same as explained in the 15 percent increase model above)
seat totals of district elections: Liberals 22, Conservatives 14, BQ 35, NDP 3 total 74 district seats
PR party seats (based on 86 seats):
Liberal 29 (28.9), Conservatives 17 (16.04), BQ 28 (27.61), NDP 9 (8.39), Green 1, People's Party 2
BQ thus is expected to take more district seats than its PR due.
Top-up: say 12 seats (overall increase of 8 plus 4 from seat reductions in cities)
(parties with more than 3 percent only eligible for top-up)
Eligible parties that need top-up:
for full top-up you would need Lib 7, Cons 3, NDP 6, a total of 16 top-up seats
with only 12 top-up seats, here is likely top-up:
Liberals: 5 top-up total seats 27 (31 percent of total 86 seats) close to vote share of 34 percent)
Conservatives: 2 top-up total seats 16 (19 percent of total 86 seats) close to vote share of 19 percent)
NDP 5 top-up total seats 8 (9 percent of total 86 seats) close to vote share of 10 percent)
BQ 0 top-up total seats 35 (41 percent of total 86 seats) more than its vote share of 32 percent)
Total seats 86
(This produces very balanced and proportional result)
just as in votes cast, no party has majority of seats.
But the BQ's larger-than-PR seat result means that a 15 percent overall increase of seats is needed to achieve rough proportionality and was used in models in the text above.
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