What If Saskatchewan Had Proportional Representation? #skpoli #skvotes

With at least eight ridings still to be decided, I’ll likely do a longer post with some thoughts on the Sask Election once the mail-in ballots are counted and we know what the final count is.

But after a conversation on Twitter with a former high school classmate who felt the BC election didn’t represent the true value of the Liberal support (he’s actually wrong – the Liberal votes and seat count actually matched up pretty evenly, even under a FPTP system as shown in the graphic above. It was the Greens who totally got screwed by FPTP in BC!)

But it made me wonder what the results would be if Sask had PR?

The Sask Party ended up 50 seats on election night. They got 63% of the popular vote and since Sask has 61 seats total, they would’ve only gotten 38 seats under PR.

The NDP ended up with 11 seats on election night. They got 29% of the popular vote and since Sask has 61 seats total, they would’ve gotten 18 seats under PR.

Interestingly, PR would also benefit the much smaller parties (you may not agree with them whether they’re the Greens on the left, the PCs on the right or the Buffalo party on the exit ramp but if you believe in democracy, you should want their voters to be heard too.)

Buffalo – 2 seats under PR
Greens – 1 seat under PR
Independent – 0 seats under PR
Liberals – 0 seats under PR
PC – 1 seat under PR

Bonus – because of rounding, I end up distributing 60 seats instead of the 61 we currently have which is a small cost saving to have one less highly paid MLA plus all the supports they get – constituency offices and staff, expenses, etc. – assuming a PR system could also let the size of the legislature ebb and flow like that instead of distributing a set number of seats.

(Oh, and if anyone thinks I’m bellyaching because the Sask NDP lost, the earliest reference I could find on this blog of me me saying proportional representation is a good idea is from 2006, the same year I *started* this blog. I mean, our Prime Minister also thought it was a good idea so I’m in powerful company, right? Okay, maybe he’s not quite as committed to the idea of a fair voting system as he said he was but a guy can dream.)

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