Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Duruss]

As a disabled person I am terrified, if there was ever a government that would completely betray the social contact it's the current UCP.

I already lost 1 doctor directly because of the UCP, now I might loose another and end up homeless if they destroy AISH.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Duruss

As a disabled person I am terrified, if there was ever a government that would completely betray the social contact it's the current UCP.

I already lost 1 doctor directly because of the UCP, now I might loose another and end up homeless if they destroy AISH.

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm pretty worried, too. Unfortunately, voters don't seem to care.

[Torture]

No seats for the UCP in Edmonton, less than half the seats in Calgary. We are officially governed by rural Alberta. Neat.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1663572386606903298

[Duruss]

Rule by vast tracks of land. Miles and miles of miles and miles

[boogerz]

Originally Posted by Torture

No seats for the UCP in Edmonton, less than half the seats in Calgary. We are officially governed by rural Alberta. Neat.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1663572386606903298

It's pretty crazy that Calgary proper and Edmonton proper account for 68% of the population, but only 52% of the 87 provincial seats

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by boogerz

It's pretty crazy that Calgary proper and Edmonton proper account for 68% of the population, but only 52% of the 87 provincial seats

And yet, the UCP still won the popular vote. Regardless how you want to gerrymander the lines, the majority of our population still wants this government. As flawed, worrisome and shifty as it is.

[Ozy_Flame]

Welcome to classic FPTP, where regional vote concentration only goes so far.

[#-3]

Calgary North kinda looks like it's the blue team giving the rest of us the middle finger.

[DoubleF]

NDP representation in Calgary looks like a Lego hand.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Welcome to classic FPTP, where regional vote concentration only goes so far.

Do you feel like fptp was why the UCP won? They won the popular vote. And the ridings they lost (especially many in Calgary) were much closer than the rural ridings they won.

In multi seat ridings or some other system they would likely have a bigger margin of victory, because they would have picked up more pity seats in than they'd have lost.

Eg they received about 1/3 of the votes in Edmonton but got 0 seats there. If you moved to a proportional representation the seats they would pick up there would offset the extra seats the NDP would get in rural areas, especially given those ridings were often much less close.

[Ozy_Flame]

Again, the election showed the limitations of classic FPTP.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Again, the election showed the limitations of classic FPTP.

Can you explain that? Final results aren't in but the results seem like the number of seats is pretty close to the ratio of popular vote. The geographic distribution of the seats isn't perfect (eg, ucp should have a few in Edmonton and NDP a few rurally) but it's pretty close all things considered.

This isn't a situation like the NDP federally where they have 10% of the votes in 100 ridings and get no seats, or where the Federal conservatives can get 35% of the votes in Ontario and get 15% of the seats or something.

[#-3]

This is certainly the Alberta, Albertans asked for, can't really make a real argument that the election rules stole this from the NDP.

I suspect a bunch of people from this thread will be back here with a bunch of great graphs on how Albertans are worse off 4 years from now, and bunch of others will state that you can't prove a counter factual, and the NDP laid the ground work for any problems we have when they were in power 8 years early. Then we'll all call each other stupid, and Albertans ever to optimists will vote again in the hopes that selling a few more over priced barrels of oil can make everything free again for a few more years.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Can you explain that? Final results aren't in but the results seem like the number of seats is pretty close to the ratio of popular vote. The geographic distribution of the seats isn't perfect (eg, ucp should have a few in Edmonton and NDP a few rurally) but it's pretty close all things considered.

This isn't a situation like the NDP federally where they have 10% of the votes in 100 ridings and get no seats, or where the Federal conservatives can get 35% of the votes in Ontario and get 15% of the seats or something.

In this specific election, the failings of FPTP weren't in the election results directly, but the fact that so many Albertans either a) voted for a side they didn't like or b) didn't vote because no one represented them.

Last election it was much more obvious with the AP taking their 10% of the popular vote, but they weren't even a thing this election. FPTP takes away choice and breaks voting down to the binary.

The failing of this election is that with an electoral system that promoted choice, and the ability for more parties to actually have an ability to land a seat, most Albertans wouldn't have been stuck with the impossible choice.

Maybe the UCP wins, maybe they win a minority, maybe the NDP loses a ton of it's votes to these other parties. But with something better than FPTP, those could have been options instead of blue or orange.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Can you explain that? Final results aren't in but the results seem like the number of seats is pretty close to the ratio of popular vote. The geographic distribution of the seats isn't perfect (eg, ucp should have a few in Edmonton and NDP a few rurally) but it's pretty close all things considered.

This isn't a situation like the NDP federally where they have 10% of the votes in 100 ridings and get no seats, or where the Federal conservatives can get 35% of the votes in Ontario and get 15% of the seats or something.

Sure. Look at Edmonton Centre. David Shepherd won with 73% of the vote. Richard Wong was 2nd place with 23%. That means Shepherd really only needed 24% to win in our current system, which means 50% of Edmonton-Centre were not critical votes - in other words, not really needed. Thousands of votes became effectively 'useless'.

Likewise, the same situation happened in many rural ridings in Alberta.

The most glaring problem was in 2019 when 10% of the popular vote went to the Alberta Party, but received none of the representation.

FPTP also encourages tactical voting — casting a ballot not for the person you want to vote for, but for the candidate best positioned to defeat the candidate you most dislike. So people who hold their nose and vote NDP or who hold their nose and vote UCP. I'd say that was a pretty obvious phenomena if you even just look at the comments in the GT Election thread.

There are probably better systems out there that means that people can actually have their votes count equally and with greater representation in the Leg. FPTP does not allow for that.

Here's a great link if you'd like more reading:

First Past The Post: An Outdated Electoral System

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by boogerz

It's pretty crazy that Calgary proper and Edmonton proper account for 68% of the population, but only 52% of the 87 provincial seats

68% seems high, i think you mean 58% as quoted in this Nenshi article

Instead, every poll has the NDP only slightly ahead, but their vote is relatively inefficient and there is a bit of historical gerrymandering in favour of rural and small-city Alberta (this isn’t as bad as city-dwellers sometimes believe – Calgary and Edmonton account for about 58% of the population and 52% of the seats, but this could make a difference in a very close election). Most commentators, therefore, give Smith and her United Conservatives a small edge as the election kicks into high gear.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Can you explain that? Final results aren't in but the results seem like the number of seats is pretty close to the ratio of popular vote. The geographic distribution of the seats isn't perfect (eg, ucp should have a few in Edmonton and NDP a few rurally) but it's pretty close all things considered.

This isn't a situation like the NDP federally where they have 10% of the votes in 100 ridings and get no seats, or where the Federal conservatives can get 35% of the votes in Ontario and get 15% of the seats or something.

It seems to be muscle memory for most to blame the system of being undemocratic if their preferred party doesn't win even in situations where the result matches the popular vote pretty well. ~53% of voters voted for the UCP, UCP won the most seats and formed a majority government. It's not like there's any real argument grounded in any democratic legitimacy that the NDP should be the legitimate government.

I'm waiting for my personal favorite salty post-election take: 'even though a majority of votes cast went to the winning party, only xx% of eligible voters voted, which means only a small minority (xx%) of the electorate actually cast a ballot for the winning party so therefore 'insert their preferred party' should have won and are the real legitimate preferred choices of the people' as if somehow everyone who didn't vote if forced to would have all lined up materially different and shifted the results.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I'm waiting for my personal favorite salty post-election take: 'even though a majority of votes cast went to the winning party, only xx% of eligible voters voted, which means only a small minority (xx%) of the electorate actually cast a ballot for the winning party so therefore 'insert their preferred party' should have won and are the real legitimate preferred choices of the people' as if somehow everyone who didn't vote if forced to would have all lined up materially different and shifted the results.

[Ozy_Flame]

Some of you thread cowboys can't seem to separate yesterday's election from a legitimate criticism of FPTP, something that doesn't seem to be a critical reform priority for either provincial or federal governments.

And for the record, the problems of FPTP are routinely accentuated - AFTER an ELECTION. Each. And. Every. Time.

Give your heads a shake.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

68% seems high, i think you mean 58% as quoted in this Nenshi article

I think 68% of population is a figure including the "Edmonton donut" and not representative of Edmonton proper. Mid 50's is the population percentage of Calgary and Edmonton and low 50's is the seat percentage as you pointed out.