Canada's electoral history from 1867 to today
The Ontario Enigma of 1879
(Or when the math simply doesn't make sense)
by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)
The first-past-the-post electoral system is prone to yielding odd results, but those from the 1879 Ontario general election defy comprehension. This was not a "wrong winner" election, whereby the party with the most votes does not get to form government. Rather, it was a case where, with only 2 more votes province-wide, the Liberal Party managed to obtain 26 more seats than the Conservative Party. Most reasonable person would have expected that if the two parties were in a dead heat, the seat count should have been relatively close.
Complicating matters is how party lines were not firm in the 19th century as they are today. Candidates did not need to obtain the party's nomination to run in a riding; they merely declared themselves "Liberal" or "Conservative." That is why more than one candidate for the same party could be running for a seat. That said, the Conservatives still fell short in the seat count despite running seven more candidates than the Liberals.
Ontario |
4 → 1879 :: 5 Jun 1879 — 26 Feb 1883 — Majority LIB
Summary |
Government |
Opposition |
Unproductive votes |
Party |
Votes |
Seats |
Party |
Votes |
Seats |
Party |
Votes |
# |
% |
% |
# |
# |
% |
% |
# |
# |
% |
Parliament: 4 Majority
Majority=45 Ab.Maj.: +12 G.Maj.: +24
Population [1871]: 1,620,851
Eligible: 392,085 Particip.: 63.22%
Votes: 247,857 Unproductive: 8,691
Seats: 88 1 seat = 1.14%
↳ Elec.Sys.: FPTP: 88
↳ By acclamation: 2 (2.27%)
Plurality: Votes LIB Seats LIB
Plurality: ↳ +2 (+0.00%)
Plurality: ↳ Seats: +26 (+29.55%)
Position2: Votes LC Seats LC
|
Candidacies: 189 (✓ 88) LIB 80 LC 87 OTH 3 IND 19
|
LIB |
118,515 |
47.82 |
63.64 |
56 |
LC
OTH |
118,513
2,111 |
47.82
0.85 |
34.09
2.27 |
30
2 |
OTH
IND
REJ
ABS |
606
8,085
——
144,228 |
0.24
3.26
——
—— |
LIB By acclamation: 1. Got only 2 more votes than the Conservatives but won nearly double the number of seats.
LC By acclamation: 1
OTH → ICON 2 (✓ 2) LAB 1
|
|
So what could possibly explain the Ontario Conservatives' fate in 1879? Was there a third party that acted as the spoiler? Coming to an answer is an exercise in speculation and is by no means definitive, but let's try on a few theses for size.
Thesis I: There was a spoiler party
That thesis doesn't hold because, aside from the 19 independent candidates, there were only three who were neither Liberal nor Conservative: two were Independent Conservatives and won their seat, and one was Labour and he lost his seat... to a Conservative.
Thesis I: The independents were the spoilers
Nineteen candidates ran as independents. Together they got 8,085 votes (or 3.26%); none of them won. Moreover, in the 12 ridings where independents were running, the Conservative or Independent Conservative won, except in Oxford South. There, two independents were running against the Liberal winner, Adams Crooks, but the sum of their votes was less than Crooks' plurality. So the independents can't be blamed for the Conservatives' woes.
Thesis III: It's Nobody's fault!
That's a thesis worth exploring, although it can't be proven as categorically as a classic vote splitting incident can. It goes on the premise that when voter turnout dips below 72%, the chances that the number of uncast ballots exceeds the number of votes the winner received, meaning that the de facto winner is Nobody. In this particular election, there were 39 cases where Nobody won, but the turnout was below 72% in the majority of ridings. Therefore, what could have been the impact of having a 75% turnout in those ridings where the Conservatives didn't win?
To find the answer, let's:
- Set aside the 38 ridings where:
- the seat was won by acclamation,
- or no LC candidate was running,
- or the seat was won by LC
- or the seat was won by ICON but has already been counted here as LC
- or turnout was 75% or greater,
which leaves us with 50 ridings to find how many votes there would have been had turnout been 75%.
- If two or more LIB or LC ran in one riding, combine the number of votes as if there had been only one.
- Assume that a majority of those who didn't vote (3 out of 5, but adjustable below) would have voted for LC but didn't bother voting because they sensed that a victory by the incumbent LIB was inevitable.
- Add the major portion of those hypothetical votes to the votes LC obtained, and the minor portion to those LIB obtained.
- Recalculate the results in each of those 50 ridings to find the ones where the winning party might have been different.
Thus we could say that there might have been 12 differences.
The result is shocking: 6,998 more votes in 12 ridings, with 3 in 5 of those going to the Conservatives, might have led to a tie. This is pure theory based on many assumptions, but it shows that, of those 12 ridings:
- The largest real Liberal plurality — 137 votes — belonged to Edward Robinson in Kent West, but
- the largest theoretical Conservative plurality — 176 votes — would have belonged to someone named Murray in Hamilton.
- The smallest real Liberal plurality — 10 votes — belonged to George Hawley in Lennox, but
- the smallest theoretical Conservative plurality — 8 votes — would have belonged to George Denison in Addington, who would win the seat in the next general election in 1883.
With this model, the more we increase the portion given to the Conservatives, the more the distortion in the number of seats manifests itself, but in favour of the Conservatives rather than the Liberals (as in fact occurred in this election). But, we can certainly draw two conclusions:
- The more voter turnout is low, the greater the chances are that the seat count will be lopsided in favour of the winner.
- Moreover, this should prove to those who think that their vote doesn't count that they are very, very wrong.
It would have mattered in 1879, and it matters in 2024. Too bad you can no longer ask
Frank Calder!
© 2019, 2024 :: PoliCan.ca (
Maurice Y. Michaud)
Pub.: 21 May 2023 12:00
Rev.: 17 Jan 2024 22:17 (but data presented dynamically)