Canada’s voting system
FPTP- First Past The Post
Can a party in Canada have more than half of the votes in an election and not win?
Answer: Yes and here’s how. (Note: this is a fictitious example)
The Conservatives win 168 Seats and the Liberals win the remaining 140 seats.
Conservatives 168Win with a Majority government!
Liberals140
NDP0
Green0
Bloc0___
Total308
Now lets look at a possible scenario for the break down of the votes:
There are 308 Ridings in Canada. To make it easier to calculate, lets pretend that there were exactly 1000 votes cast in each Riding in a Federal Election. That’s:
308 x 1000 votes = 308000 total votes cast in the election.
In the 168 ridings that the Conservatives won, the votes looked like this:
350 votes for the Conservatives
300 votes for the Liberals
300 votes for the NDP
50 votes for the Green Party
1000 total votes
In the140 ridings that the Liberals won, the votes looked like this:
800 votes for the Liberals
00 votes for the Conservatives
100 votes for the NDP
100 votes for the Green Party
1000 total votes
Total votes for Conservatives across Canada are:
168 x 350 = 58800 or 19% of the 308000 total votes cast in Canada(19% of the popular vote)
Total votes for the Liberals across Canada are:
168 x 300 = 50400 votes plus
140 x 800 = 112000 votes
= 162400 votes across Canada or 52.7 % of the 308000 total votes cast in Canada(52.7% of the popular vote)
So… our system of electing one candidate from every riding and the party with the most seats wins the election does not guarantee that the party with the most votes across Canada will win!
Now Lets look at the 2011 Ontario Election Results and Discuss what the results would be like if it was by popular vote.
Updated: Oct. 7, 2011, 8:56 AM EDT
Actual Election Results
Party / Elected / Share of the Popular Vote (%)Liberal / 53 / 37.62
Progressive Conservatives / 37 / 35.43
New Democratic Party / 17 / 22.73
Green Party / 0 / 2.93
Independents / 0 / 0.20
Other fringe parties / 0 / 1.09
Totals / 107 seats / 100
Results if Done by Popular Vote (or by Percentage of the Votes Cast Across Ontario
Party / Popular vote / Translation into percentage of available 107 seats. /Actual Seats Won
Liberal Party of Ontario / 37.62 / 40 / 53Progressive Conservatives / 35.43 / 38 / 37
New Democratic Party / 22.73 / 25 / 17
Green Party of Ontario / 2.93 / 3 / 0
Independents / 0.20 / 0 / 0
Other / 1.09 / 1 / 0