UFA is the United Farmers of Alberta. Formed in 1909 through merger of two previously existing groups. it is a farmers organization, which currently acts as a lobby group and also operates a chain of retail co-operative stores.
For about 20 years the UFA also operated as a political party, and was highly popular in Alberta, at the time heavily populated by farmers. The UFA held a majority of seats in the Alberta legislative from 1921 to 1935.
Speaking PR-wise, the UFA was right to hold power - it was the choice of a majority of the voters. In 1926 and 1930, the UFA candidate was the choice of a majority of the voters in a large number of districts.
in 1926, the UFA candidate was the majority's choice in 42 of the province's 61 districts.
In 1930, the UFA candidate was the majority's choice in 38 of the province's 63 districts.
The UFA MLAs were elected through Alternative Voting, where you had to have the support of a majority of the voters to be elected. (These were majorities in practice, not in theory. For one it is based on valid votes, not votes cast.
And also there were cases where if no candidate received a majority on the first count, many votes were declared exhausted, due to voters not having marked back-up preferences (not enough or or not any at all). In these instances, it was possible for a candidate to be declared elected with only a majority of the votes still in play and not have the proven support of a majority of the voters. This is due to the fact that in most Alberta provincial elections voters were not required to rank all the candidates. Later the rule was changed and then changed back again. This in part created a sizable number of spoiled ballots - although never so large as the number disregarded under FPTP elections. The number of spoiled ballots was then used as excuse to cancel STV and return Alberta elections to the vote-wasteful FPTP system.)
Note that in 1926, Earle Cook in Pincher Creek; Smith in Red Deer; and Hennig in Victoria won with less than a majority of valid votes cast but with a majority of votes still in play at the end of the vote count.
The same held true for Liberal and Labour MLAs elected in other rural districts at that time.
Note that in only one election did a candidate win under Alternative Voting who had not lead in the first count and therefore all but one rural UFA successful candidate would have won under FPTP, if that system had been used instead of AV. The UFA got little extra benefit out of Alternative Voting while the system did ensure that the winner in every case was the choice of the majority of voters, as the term majority was applied at that time - which was admittedly a much more strict usage compared to today where many MLAs are elected with only the support of a minority of the voters in the district.
(As well a UFA candidate was elected in Edmonton in 1926. He did not have support of a majority of the voters there, only needing quota (one-sixth) of the valid votes for election. Lymburn got just a little more than quota on the first count.)
The 1930 election saw no turnovers like this. (The next instance of a turn-over like this is the election of N.E. Cook in Olds in 1940. Cook had been second place in the first count but received enough votes to take the lead after the third-placing Independent Social Credit Candidate was eliminated. In St. Albert in that same 1940 election, the seat changed hands in the other direction with SC candidate Holder losing his First Count lead.)
The 1921 election is held up as a wrong-winner election, that the UFA won the most seats but should not have if you judge by vote totals. But voters in Edmonton could cast five votes (Block Voting) while others in the rural areas, where the UFA mostly ran candidates, could cast just one. So you cannot go by the crude vote total to assess popularity.
After its election to power, the UFA brought in a combined system of STV/AV:
STV in the cities (each city remaining as a multi-member district but each city voter casting just one vote (transferable vote);
Alternative Voting outside the cities where transferable votes were used and majority representation guaranteed. The transportation means of the time dictating that large multi-member districts, a necessary prerequisite for STV, were not do-able outside the main cities.
Alberta thus joined Manitoba in using STV, a district-level PR system, in at least part of the province. These two provinces are the only ones in Canada's history (so far) to use PR in their elections. (As well, Ontario in two elections early on (ca. 1890), used Limited Voting, a semi-proportional system at the district level, in Toronto.)
Result in 1926 -- Labour and the UFA each took an Edmonton seat, the first time that had happened in Alberta's history. As well, in Edmonton the Liberal party elected one and the Conservative party elected two. This was a much more balanced and fairer result than in the previous election when the Liberal party had taken every Edmonton seat with only a minority of the votes cast in the city.
The result was also much more transparent than the 1921 election - in 1921 the Liberal votes cast for Liberal candidates (28,000) exceeded the number of Edmonton voters who voted (18,000). Perhaps each voter gave one of their votes to a Liberal (but not likely). Or did only a third of them give all their votes to the Liberal candidates? This is more likely. We just don't know but we do see that the Liberal candidates took all the seats with a minority of the votes cast in the city.
Nellie McClung was one of the successful Liberal candidates (and well known for her suffrage activities and her authorship of popular books of the period). In her acceptance speech she said she hoped that no word had been said during the campaign that would spoil good fellowship and hoped that the best co-operation would exist among all sections that would make up the new legislature. (Edmonton Bulletin, July 19, 1921). This is the sort of civilized behaviour that is not seen overly much under our SMP elections, and in fact during her time in the legislature McClung often backed UFA proposals against other members of her own party. (She was not re-elected when she ran for re-election, as a Liberal, in Calgary in 1926. She had moved there due to her husband's work.)
The UFA actually was a predecessor of the CCF/NDP, sending delegates to the 1932 founding convention of the CCF in Calgary and naming an executive member to the first CCF executive, although not officially affiliating until the next UFA convention a few months later. In the meanwhile a UFA-CCF MLA was elected in Camrose -- Chester Ronning in an election held using Alternative Voting.
1932 by-election Camrose Oct. 25, 1932
Ronning was elected on the second count of the Alternative Voting election.
In the first Count Ronning took the most votes but did not have majority.
Second count -- the least popular candidate, a Conservative, was eliminated and his votes transferred. Many bore no back-up preference so were set aside as exhausted. More of the votes that did have back-up preferences went to Ronning's other contender, a Liberal, but Ronning was still in the lead when the count finished. Ronning was declared elected as he had majority of the votes still in play. (Ronning's total happened to be equal to a majority of the votes originally cast.)
So I hope present-day NDP-ers see how the United Farmers, one of its predecessor groups, set a pattern of perceiving the ills of the SMP and Block Voting (the systems under which we suffer again today), openly put forward an alternative (STV/AV. MMP today (which usually implies FPTP-MMP but STV/MMP should not be ruled out), and then after achieving power in the Legislature, passed the necessary change to move toward a more fair society.
Let's help them do it again!
Thanks for reading.
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