New Brunswick 2018

The Canadian province of New Brunswick held its provincial assembly election on 24 September. The result is an assembly with no majority of seats.

The incumbent Liberal government, which won a majority in 2014 but had fallen to minority in the interim, came in second place in seats but first in votes in the 2018 election. The main opposition, Progressive Conservatives (PC), won just one seat more, and are short of a majority.

The Liberals have 21 seats on 37.8% of the vote, the PCs 22 seats on 31.9%, while a previously underrepresented party, People’s Alliance (PANB) and the Green Party each won three seats. The PANB won 12.6% of the vote and the Greens 11.9%. The NDP won 5% of the votes, but no seats.

The district-level results are interesting. The People’s Alliance leader, Kris Austin, won a clear majority (54.6% in Fredricton-Grand Lake, with the runner up being a PC incumbent with only 27.7%; in 2014, Austin had lost to the PC candidate 28.8%-28.5%!). In another riding, Fredricton-York, the PANB candidate defeated another PC incumbent, 33.7%-30.9%. The third PANB winner was in Miramichi and won 57.0% to 35.0% over a Liberal. I counted six other seats in which a PANB candidate came in second, although only one of these was really close (Southwest Miramichi-Bay Du Vin, where a PC has 35.4% over the PANB on 35.0%). The three districts the PANB won and the one where they are very narrowly behind, are all contiguous. It is clearly a regional party; it ran in 30 of the 49 ridings.

As for the Green winners, leader David Coon, who was their first elected MLA (2014) retained his seat easily, 56.3%-20.1% over a Liberal. In Kent North their candidate won 45.9%-37.4% over a Liberal. In Memramcook-Tantramar, Megan “Landslide” Mitton won by 11 votes (38.3%-38.2%) over a Liberal.  It seems there are two districts in which a Green came in second, but neither was close; in both cases the Liberal winner had a majority. The Green wins are not contiguous districts; the leader represents a seat in Fredricton and the other two are geographically large coastal districts. (See results and map at CBC; these are, of course, not necessarily final at this point, and there is even one Liberal lead of just 10 votes over a PC.)

It is not clear what the government result will be. I’ve been listening to CBC on the post-election discussions, and it seems the Greens have rejected a possible coalition with the Liberals; given that the results revised above suggest the Liberals are the Greens’ main opponent at district level, this reluctance has some (FPTP-based) logic to it. The Conservatives have said they will vote down a Liberal throne speech (not surprisingly). The PCs have declared all of their members are unwilling to stand for Speaker, and the Liberals also do not want any of their own to take the post. Without a Speaker, no other business can be transacted. So, for now at least, we have a stand off. (Update: The Liberal leader and current Premier Brian Gallant has said his party will put forth a candidate for Speaker today.)

It is worth noting that New Brunswick has quite a record of unusual election outcomes, and electoral-reform proposals. Just click “N.B.” at the bottom of this post to see previous entries on this recent history. Of particular interest is the time the Liberals took power thanks to a plurality reversal and promptly called off the previous (Conservative) government’s planned referendum on adopting MMP. Maybe it is time to dust off those proposals. The voters of the province seem unwilling to play the old FPTP game the way “the law” says to play it.

New Brunswick electoral reform proposal (yes, again)

The New Brunswick Commission on Electoral Reform has issued its report, “A pathway to an inclusive democracy”.

There are many recommendations regarding changes to voting procedures in the proposal, but those that focus directly on the electoral system are as follows (quoting form p. 19):

The government enhance the voting system by moving to Preferential Ballots.
Š Consideration be given to some form of Proportional Representation during the process of considering the redistribution of electoral boundaries.

While preferential ballots could mean STV, from the overall context of the report, it is clear that “Preferential Ballots” is a term limited in application to the alternative vote (instant runoff), in other words keeping single-seat ridings (districts). The weak “consideration” for “some form of” PR follows an indication earlier in the report that exploration of proportionality was “not within the mandate of the commission”, but that the commission would be “remiss” not to address the issue.

New Brunswick once had an electoral commission report in favor of a mixed-member proportional system. The recommendation was never put to a vote–notwithstanding that the decision to shelve the proposal came after yet another anomalous outcome in a provincial election. And that anomaly was not the last, so far, even if the latest election was somewhat “normal” (by FPTP standards).

Given its record, New Brunswick has an “objective” need for electoral reform if any democratic jurisdiction does. I doubt the alternative vote really is the answer to its electoral needs. And, given the recent past in the province and elsewhere in Canada, including at the federal level, it might be getting ahead of the story to expect even such a tepid reform to happen. But there the issue is, again, in a nice independent report.

New Brunswick election 2014

The Canadian province of New Brunswick held a general election on 22 September. Notwithstanding some problems with the vote-tabulation system, and several lead changes during the night, the Liberals won by a good margin: 42.7% of the votes against 34.7% for the Progressive Conservatives (PC). The seats split 27-21, giving the Liberals 55.1% of the seats and an advantage ratio (%seats/%votes) of 1.29. This is not particularly remarkable by the standards of plurality (FPTP) systems, and is nothing compared to some significant anomalies the province has experienced in the past (see previous posts).

The Green Party won a seat. It had 6.6% of the vote province-wide. Its one victory was in the riding (district) of Fredericton South, where it won 31% of the vote, against 26% for the PC, 22% for the Liberal, and 20% for the NDP. Not even a third of the vote–sometimes plurality is good for small parties. But not as good, obviously, as the proportional system (of the MMP type) that was formally proposed but for which the planned referendum was cancelled–by a party that had just won on a plurality reversal. (I said NB elections had been anomalous!)

A “populist” party known as the Peoples Alliance elected no one on its 2.14% of the vote, but it did miss in one riding by a mere 27 votes. The NDP won no seats despite 13% of the vote. I am not sure how closely it missed in key ridings. Of course, it is hardly unheard of for a third party to win no seats under plurality rules despite such a substantial vote total. Nor is it unusual for a fourth party to win a seat despite having half the votes such a third party. It is a disproportional system, especially given the small assembly size, and regional distributions of support are critical. It is hard to argue against the proposition that New Brunswick should dust off that old proposal for a new electoral system.

New Brunswick 2010: Another anomaly

The eastern Canadian province of Canada has a history of anomalous results from its FPTP electoral system. Yet, despite the province’s record (of which I have written before–click “N.B.” above), a referendum planned on an MMP system was canceled three years ago–just after a spurious alternation! (In 2006, the incumbent Conservatives won a plurality of the vote, but the opposition Liberals won a majority of seats.)

In this year’s vote, the Conservatives won the vote by a wide margin, 48.9% to 34.4%. This translated into over three quarters of the seats for the plurality party. Meanwhile, the NDP won over 10% and the Greens 4.5%, but neither of these parties won a seat.

Yes, New Brunswick needs electoral reform. But that’s not news.

The shuffle demons

Britt Dysart, a lawyer who practises in Fredericton and president of the New Brunswick Liberal Association, reflects on the difficulties a PM faces in assembling, shuffling, and holding together, a single-party cabinet. The item begins:

From the day someone dreamed up the concept of an executive council, premiers, prime ministers, presidents and other heads of state [of course, a PM is a head of government] have at some time or another suffered from the shuffle demons.

While there might be a few exceptions to the rule, generally speaking every caucus member from outside of cabinet wants in. Those within cabinet generally want to stay.

That makes shuffling a cabinet, which happened this week [in New Brunswick], one of the most difficult job a premier faces. [continue at original source…]

New Brunswick government will not hold referendum on MMP

The Liberal Party government of New Brunswick, which took power in elections last fall, thanks to the existing FPTP system’s reversal of the popular-vote outcome, has called off the referendum on the electoral system planned for February, 2008. That referendum had been scheduled by the previous Conservative government in response to the recommendation of the independent Commission on Legislative Democracy. The major recommendation of the Commission had been to move the provincial legislative elections to MMP. Instead, the current government calls for a series of relatively timid steps towards political reform, not including any the reform of the very electoral system that produced the current spurious-majority government.

In the run-up to that election, I asked if electoral reform was “stalled” (on account of the major parties’ ignoring the already public reform recommendations in their platforms). After the anomaly of the plurality reversal, I speculated on whether a government that was based on the second-most vote thanks to the system the Commission proposed to abolish through referendum would have the nerve to call off a referendum that had been agreed to by the party that, in fact, obtained the plurality when seeking reelection. Well, now we know. Some nerve!

Anomaly watch: New Brunswick

UPDATED below

Well, so the party that appointed an Independent Commission that recommended MMP, scheduled a referendum for May, 2008, then called yesterday’s election, was reelected. Yes, it was. The voters rewarded it with a plurality of the vote (47.7% to 47%), and a higher share than in 2003.

But hold on just a moment. A funny thing happened on the way to the seat allocation. While the Conservatives won the most votes, the Liberals won the seats, 29-26, and will have sole control over the next provincial government.*

Folks, we have here a reversed plurality. A spurious majority. A wrong winner. And right smack dab in the middle of an electoral reform debate. Well, not much of a debate; as I noted in previous posts on this campaign, the Commission on Legislative Democracy and its recommendations, and the favorable government response to them, and the scheduled referendum were mentioned only in the platform of the third party (no seats, over 5% of the vote).

So, the Conservatives had committed to a referendum that would make future reversed pluralities impossible. The Liberals are in power only because of an electoral system that makes reversed pluralities possible. Will the referendum go ahead?

This was not New Brunswick’s first anomalous outcome. Will it be its last?

Pardon my glee, but I just love real-time experiments for my theories.

* The new district boundaries may have had an effect, as changing demographics meant that “two rural seats were lost and two urban seats were created,” according to the CBC.

How refreshing that districts are not drawn by the incumbents, but by an independent boundaries commission, such that the incumbent government can actually lose districts. I mean, that is almost, well, democratic. Voters get to pick their legislators, rather than vice versa. But of course, they still can only do so within the confines that the line-makers create for them–a reminder of the limits of fair redistricting.

Of course, any electoral system that assigns political power to parties but does so according to regional distributions has an inherent tendency to produce votes-to-seats anomalies. Districting, even the fairest, can’t prevent anomalies in single-seat district systems. Only an electoral system that distributes power among parties based on the parties’ actual voting strength can do that.

---

Update: Check out the comment thread on the NB election at Idealistic Pragmatist. It is interesting in that the comments encapsulate the various threads of my ongoing work on electoral reform in first-past-the-post systems.

One commentator says that the reversed plurality is no big deal because the Tories gained most of their votes in districts they already held. This could be considered the inherent-conditions argument, in that it defends the system against normative charges of “anomaly” by reference to the way FPTP works: a series of self-contained regionally circumscribed contests. (The logical extension would be that those votes deserved to be wasted, because they simply weren’t needed in the districts where they happened to have been cast. Such an argument, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that the aggregation of these races determines who controls the agenda of the body so elected; in a parliamentary system, that means the majority party–in seats, the aggregated votes being irrrelevant–monopolizes the government itself.)

Another comment suggests that the Liberals would have no interest in continuing with the referendum because–as I alluded to above–they just benefited from the status quo system. This is the outcome-contingency argument: the party in power weighs its position on electoral reform based upon calculations of which electoral system will benefit it. If it is better off under FPTP, it will cancel the referendum to prevent PR from being adopted.

And another notes that it would be quite an act of “chutzpah” for the new government to call off the referendum, inplying they might not be willing to do it. This is the act-contingency argument: the party in power will weigh its position with respect to electoral reform according to its calculation of the political cost of appearing to stand in the way of reform (whether or not it actually wants the reform).

Credit where credit is due: The whole outcome/act contingency argument is my adaptation from occasional F&V propagator Mike. The inherent vs. contingent concept is my adaptation of the late Harry Eckstein’s clasification of explanations of revolution.

New Brunswick voting today

Today’s election for New Brunswick’s provincial legislative assembly is too close to call, and the outcome could depend on about fifteen “volatile” ridings (out of 55).

Please see previous discussion here.

CBC will have on-line coverage of the results (thanks to Late Night for the pointer).

UPDATE: As results come in, it looks like the Liberals have won a majority of seats–perhaps by a few seats. The votes remain a dead heat, and a reversed plurality/spurious majority remains possible.

Dead heat in New Brunswick: Electoral reform stalled?

Updated to include reference to the party platforms and to another blog (18 Sept.)

Polls in advance of New Brunswick’s provincial legislative election for 18 September show a dead heat between the incumbent Conservatives and their main challenger, the Liberals.

As noted here previously, this election was called early on account of the retirement of a Conservative member. The June, 2003 election likewise was a virtual dead heat (45%-44%), such that the member’s impending retirement would cost the government its 28-26 seat majority.

This election will be held under a new electoral map, in which the boundaries of almost every one of the 55 single-seat ridings have been altered. Canada East reports:

A poll-by-poll breakdown of results from the 2003 election indicates that, had the new ridings been in effect, the Liberals would have won the election with a one-seat majority, switching the results that gave Premier Bernard Lord and his Progressive Conservatives the same slim edge.

When routine alterations of constituency boundaries* potentially can affect who holds power, a jurisdiction is a prime candidate for an entirely new electoral system. And, of course, the incumbent government, upon the recommendation of an independent Commission on Legislative Democracy that it appointed in December, 2003, has set a referendum for next spring on exactly that. However, if the Liberals win on Monday, it is uncertain whether the referendum on MMP (among other reforms) will go ahead.

The governing Conservatives just released their full platform on 13 September, which includes a promise of an 8% personal income tax cut, a 30% cut in the gas tax, and other tax breaks. The leaders of the two large parties and the NDP held a “rancorous” debate yesterday, with insurance rates and a failed deal to secure cheap fuel from Venezuela among the issues they sparred over.

The electoral system and the referendum are not mentioned in news accounts of the campaign (despite multiple attempts on my part to search for stories including these themes). Nor does the major nationwide proportional-representation advocay organization, Fair Vote Canada, have any recent updates about New Brunswick on its web site.

While the Conservative Party’s platform book (available at the party’s website) includes a plank on “Democratic Renewal and Accountability Plan” (p. 20) it does not mention the commission, the electoral reform, or the referendum. The opposition Liberal party has a section of its platform devoted to “An Accountable and Responsible Government” (pp. 31-3). However, none of the points within it contains any reference to PR, the referendum, or any of the other institutional reforms proposed by the Commission on Legislative Democracy.

Theoretically, when major electoral reform is being proposed, one might expect the issue to be raised in an election campaign–especially in a close election, in which even if the percentage of voters who could be swayed by the issue of “reform” is small, it could be decisive. Given that the government responded to the Commission’s recommendations–favorably–only three months ago, the fact that it is not an issue in this campaign can’t be exactly good news for the prospects that the referendum will go forward (especially if the incumbent party loses), or that it will pass if held.

(The NDP, on the other hand, takes the government to task on its decision to call a general election before introducing any of the Commission’s recommendations. Of course, the NDP is the one party that has the most to gain from the direct consequences of the introduction of PR. (See the final page of their platform.))

Is electoral reform in Canada, which looked so promising just over a year ago, now stalled?

* Not to say that all of the redisrticting was minor, as reported by the above-linked Canada East story:

in Fredericton, Liberal candidate T. J. Burke, the first-ever aboriginal member of the New Brunswick legislature, lost the St. Mary’s First Nation from his riding in redistribution.

The riding altered most significantly is in northwestern New Brunswick where voters will have to choose between two incumbents battling it out in one large new constituency.

---

Some blogospheric discussion: At least I found someone who agrees with me that the high stakes of the NB election are being overlooked by those who don’t notice the PR debate. Alas, Liberal for Life has views on the matter more like Urquhart‘s, if not worse (though, unfortunately, common): The view that small parties in coalitions “rule” the resulting coalition. Such a stubbornly held view, such a wrong view.

New Brunswick going to the polls

Premier Bernard Lord of New Brunswick has called an early election for the provincial legislative assembly. The election will be 18 September. Lord, a Tory, had little choice but to call the election approximately a year early:

The election became inevitable when a backbencher told Lord he was resigning his seat to return to private life, a move that would have plunged Lord’s fragile Conservative government into minority status.

(“Plunged.” How dramatic!)

Lord’s party currently holds 28 seats to the Liberals’ 26. The two parties split the provincial vote in 2003, 45%-44%. There was one NDP member elected in 2003, but she resigned last year, and was replaced by an independent.

Lord’s government had made comprehensive political reform, including fixed election dates, a priority. How will the proposed reforms, which include the adoption of proportional representation (specifically MMP) and internal party primaries, be affected by an early election? Just two months ago, the government had given its formal (and favorable) response to the recommendations of the independent Commission on Legislative Democracy (see Wilf’s summary). The response included setting a referendum on the proposed reforms for 12 May, 2008, which was supposed to be within the life of this government. Now it will not be, and so I assume the referendum is in limbo.