42% of the popular vote, but 0 of 17 seats awarded

An excellent example of the disenfranchisement that can be caused by using single winner districts to elect members to a legislature can be seen in the 1926 Canadian federal election for the province of Manitoba.

The province of Manitoba was entitled to 17 seats. The Conservative party had 42.2% of the popular vote within Manitoba but was unable to win any of the single winner districts.

Here is the data care of RangeVoting.org :

Political party % votes Number of seats % seats
Conservative 42.2% 0 0%
Liberal-Progressive 19.5% 7 41%
Liberal Party 18.4% 4 24%
Progressive 11.2% 4 24%
Labour 8.7% 2 12%

More information about the 1926 Manitoba election can also be found on wikipedia

2 responses to “42% of the popular vote, but 0 of 17 seats awarded

  1. How does the modern model compare?

  2. I am not familiar with Canada’s current system. From a very cursory examination of the wiki page referenced in this post, it looks like they are using the same system they used in ’26.

    Here is the 2006 data:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election%2C_2006

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