1930 Alberta general election

1930 Alberta general election

← 1926 June 19, 1930 (1930-06-19) 1935 →
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63 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta 32 seats were needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Leader John E. Brownlee John W. McDonald Party United Farmers Liberal Leader since November 23, 1925 March 27, 1930 Leader's seat Ponoka ran in unknown Last election 43 seats, 39.7% 7 seats, 26.2% Seats before 44 6 Seats won 39 11 Seat change 5 5 Popular vote 74,187[1] 46,275 Percentage 39.4% 24.6% Swing 0.3% 1.6%   Third party Fourth party   Leader David M. Duggan Fred J. White Party Conservative Dominion Labor Leader since 1930 between 1921 & 1926 Leader's seat Edmonton Calgary Last election 4 seats, 22.1% 5 seats, 7.8% Seats before 4 5 Seats won 6 4 Seat change 2 1 Popular vote 27,954 14,354 Percentage 14.8% 7.6% Swing 7.3% 0.2%
Premier before election John E. Brownlee United Farmers Premier after election John E. Brownlee United Farmers

The 1930 Alberta general election was held on June 19, 1930, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

The United Farmers of Alberta won election to a third term in government, and John E. Brownlee continued as premier.

This provincial election, like the previous election (1926), used district-level proportional representation (Single transferable voting) to elect the MLAs of Edmonton and Calgary. (Medicine Hat no longer had multiple seats.) City-wide districts were used to elect multiple MLAs in the two main cities.

All the other MLAs were elected in single-member districts through Instant-runoff voting.

Th United Farmers again ran one candidate in Edmonton and won that seat and did not run in Calgary.

Altogether in the cities the UFA won just one seat in the cities (in Edmonton) but won a great share of the rural seats, by securing the support of a majority of votes in each district, as required under IRV (AKA Alternative Voting).

The effect of STV in the cities was that candidates of four parties - UFA, Conservative, Liberal and Labour - were elected in Edmonton reflecting votes cast.

STV in Calgary similarly produced mixed representation reflecting votes cast. Candidates of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour parties were elected there.^[2]

There were a significant number of Independent nominations, many of which were in districts where the Liberals chose not to field candidates. In addition, four Communist Party candidates were nominated:

The most closely contested race in the election happened in the Beaver River electoral district. The election was a three-way race between incumbent United Farmers MLA John Delisle Liberal candidate Henry Dakin and Independent candidate Luc Lebel.^[4]

The first count results showed Delisle leading Dakin by seven votes. Lebel was in third place with 87 votes. Under Instant runoff voting, when no candidate has a majority, the least-popular candidate is eliminated and his votes transferred.^[4] Lebel was eliminated and his 87 votes were transferred where second-choice preference had been marked. The new vote tallies showed Delisle with 21 more votes than Dakin. Delisle was declared elected on June 25, 1930, six days after the election was held.^[5]

The Liberals challenged the results in provincial court. A judicial recount was ordered. Judge Taylor concluded on August 21, 1930, that the second count results showed Dakin had four more votes than Delisle. Delisle's election was overturned, and Dakin picked up the seat.^[6]

An Act was passed in 1930 providing for an increase of seats from 60 to 63, upon the next election.^[7] Calgary and Edmonton now returned six MLAs each instead of five each, and the following other changes were made:

Elections to the 7th Alberta Legislative Assembly (1930)

Party		Leader	Candidates	First-preference votes						Seats
				Votes	±	% Fpv	Change (pp)			1926	1930	±
	United Farmers	John E. Brownlee	47	74,187	2,220	39.41	-0.27			43	39 / 63	4
	Liberal	John W. McDonald	36	46,275	1,175	24.59	-1.58			7	11 / 63	4
	Conservative	David M. Duggan	18	27,954	12,137	14.85	-7.25			4	6 / 63	2
	Labour	Fred J. White	11	14,354	231	7.63	-0.16			5	4 / 63	1
	Independent		25	23,266	10,712	12.36	11.66		11.66	–	3 / 63	3
	Communist	Jan Lakeman	4	2,183	2,183	1.16	1.16		1.16	–	0 / 63	–
	Independent Labour		–	Campaigned as Independent			-1.37			1	0 / 63	1
Total			141	188,219		100.00%
Rejected ballots				7,707	1,148
Turnout				195,926	11,934	66.7%	0.5
Registered voters				293,798	20,048

  = Open seat

  = turnout is above provincial average

  = Candidate was in previous Legislature

  = Incumbent had switched allegiance

  = Previously incumbent in another riding

  = Not incumbent; was previously elected to the Legislature

  = Incumbency arose from by-election gain

  = previously an MP in the House of Commons of Canada

  = Multiple candidates

  = on judicial recount

  = Candidate was in previous Legislature

  = First-time MLA

  = Previously incumbent in another district.

Nine districts went beyond first-preference counts in order to determine winning candidates:

But of the remaining votes, 88 percent were used to elect someone in Edmonton; 90 percent were used to elect someone in Calgary; more than 50 percent were used to elect the winner in each district outside Edmonton and Calgary.^[10]

Electing six MLAs

The vote count proceeded in the following order:^[11]

• Irwin and Webster, having achieved the quota, were declared elected on the first count, and their excess amounts were distributed in 2nd and 3rd Count.
• Vickers, O'Sullivan and Turner were then eliminated in turn. (A candidate once eliminated or elected does not receive more votes.)
• MacKay was then eliminated. His vote transfer pushed White over the quota and he was declared elected.
• White's surplus votes were transferred
• Patterson was eliminated. His vote transfers pushed Farthing over the quota and he was declared elected. It was not necessary to allocate Farthing's surplus votes as it was less than the difference between the remaining candidates.
• Weir was eliminated. The transfers of his votes did not affect the order of popularity of the three remaining candidates. There were two remaining open seats. Bowlen and McGill, being the top two of the remaining three candidates, were declared elected. Parkyn was the only incumbent MLA to be defeated, and he was the only candidate who was not either elected or eliminated.

Electing six MLAs

Lymburn, Gibbs and Duncan were the only candidates that won by achieving the quota. Howson, Weaver and Atkinson won by attaining the three largest vote tallies of the four candidates still in the running in the final count.

• The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, 1929–30. Toronto: The Annual Review Company. 1930.

• Elections Alberta
• Legislative Assembly of Alberta