When you can't see the forest for the trees

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

Sometimes you get to the point where you have so much information in front of you that you can no longer make sense of it all. Like a friend of mine once observed about when we hear a government announcing that it will spend, say, $451 million on a new program: the numbers get so big, they cease to have meaning. One might ask, "Why not $463 million while they're at it?" Suddenly, 12 million dollars becomes an abstraction — a drop in the proverbial bucket — even though it's nothing to spit at!

In similar fashion, when I tell you that this database contains 2,729 electoral events with 40,591 individual races within them — or that it seems as though there have been about 653,680,421 votes cast at the federal and provincial or territorial level since 1866 — I am losing you with big numbers. How is anyone supposed to make sense of all that data?

That is the intention behind this subsection of the website.

The next subsection, "Detailed election results," allows you to dig deeply yet easily in each election ever held. This subsection, however, displays only a summary of the results for all the general elections that have been held, by jurisdiction. This helps you do two things:

1. See the evolution over time.
2. More importantly, instantly see the disconnect between two critical percentages: popular vote and seats obtained.

In the 1952 general election, Québec's Union nationale obtained about half the popular vote, but it won nearly three quarters of the 92 seats that were up for grabs in that election. The runner-up, the Québec Liberal Party, obtained a respectable 45.3% of the popular vote and won the remaining quarter of the seats. In other words, with a vote share lead of about 5.3% over the Liberals, the Union nationale was ahead almost 49% in its seats share compared to the Liberals' (i.e., UN seat share minus the Liberals').

Québec

24 → 1952 :: 16 Jul 1952 — 19 Jun 1956 — Majority  UN  Summary Government Opposition Unproductive votes Party Votes Seats Party Votes Seats Party Votes # % % # # % % # # % Parliament: 24    Majority Majority=47  Ab.Maj.: +22  G.Maj.: +44 Population [1952]: 4,153,000 (est.) Eligible: 2,246,998  Particip.: 75.86% Votes: 1,695,359  Unproductive: 82,643 Seats: 92   1 seat = 1.09% ↳ Elec.Sys.:  FPTP: 92   ↳ By acclamation: 0 (0.00%) Plurality: Votes  UN  Seats  UN  Plurality: ↳ +88,808 (+5.32%) Plurality: ↳ Seats: +45 (+48.91%) Position2: Votes  QLP  Seats  QLP  Candidacies: 236 (✓ 92)   m: 232 (✓ 92)   f: 4 (✓ 0)  UN  90   QLP  92   IND  4   CCF  23   OTH  27   UN 845,157 50.62 73.91 68 QLP IND 756,349 11,210 45.30 0.67 25.00 1.09 23 1 IND CCF OTH REJ ABS 2,636 16,037 38,322 25,648 551,639 0.16 0.96 2.29 1.51 —— Because of missing raw data for a few ridings, "Eligible," "Participation" and "Rejected" were taken from the Assemblée nationale du Québec.  OTH  →  UNI  10   ILIB  9   NAT  1   LPP  4   OI  3  !!!  11 (11.96%)

Or let me grab a much more recent example that, for reason, has a lot of people upset: the 2021 federal general election.

The Conservative Party did indeed win the popular vote — not by much... by only 1.2%. But in a reverse scenario of the above example from Québec, the Conservatives, despite their 1.2% vote share lead over the Liberals, were behind 11.9% in their seat share in comparison, where one seat in per­cent­age terms is about 0.3%. This is a classic case of how our FPTP electoral system can lead to the "wrong winner." "Partisan Maurice" might be tempted to exclaim, "Thank God!" But "Fair-minded Maurice" understands that this is a recipe for (at best) getting people to stop voting or (at worse) intensifying social and political discord.

Canada

44 → 2021 :: 20 Sep 2021 — Present     — Minority  LIB  → Majority  LIB   NDP  Summary Government Opposition Unproductive votes Party Votes Seats Party Votes Seats Party Votes # % % # # % % # # % Parliament: 44    Minority Majority=170  Ab.Maj.: -11  G.Maj.: -20 Population [2021]: 36,991,981 Eligible: 27,509,496  Particip.: 62.56% Votes: 17,209,811  Unproductive: 1,192,177 Seats: 338   1 seat = 0.30% ↳ Elec.Sys.:  FPTP: 338   ↳ By acclamation: 0 (0.00%) Plurality: Votes  CPC  Seats  LIB  Plurality: ↳ +202,436 (+1.19%) Plurality: ↳ Seats: -40 (-11.83%) Position2: Votes  LIB  Seats  CPC  Candidacies: 2,010 (✓ 338)   m: 1,247 (✓ 235)   f: 760 (✓ 103)    x: 3 (✓ 0)  LIB  337   CPC  336   BQ  78   NDP  336   GRN  252   IND  95   PPC  312   OTH  264   LIB 5,537,638 32.51 47.04 159 CPC BQ NDP GRN IND 5,740,074 1,301,615 3,022,328 396,988 18,991 33.70 7.64 17.74 2.33 0.11 35.21 9.47 7.40 0.59 0.30 119 32 25 2 1 IND PPC OTH REJ ABS 53,837 840,993 121,779 175,568 10,299,685 0.32 4.94 1.18 1.02 —— The electoral system brought the "wrong winner" at the head of the seat count.  LIB  Rajinder (Raj) Saini withdrew his candidacy but after closure of nominations, so remained listed as the candidate in Kitchener Centre (ON).  LIB → IND  Kevin Vuong was elected in Spadina—Fort York (ON) but had been dropped from the ticket and sat as an independent MP (votes received recorded as such).  CPC → IND  The candidate in Beaches—East York (ON) had been dropped from the ticket. Votes received recorded as independent.  NDP → IND  The candidates in Cumberland—Colchester (NS) and Toronto—St. Paul's (ON) had been dropped from the ticket. Votes received recorded as independents.  OTH  →  FREE  59   MAV  29   CHP  25   RHIN  27   LBT  13   COMM  26   ML  36   PPIQ  10  OTH  →  APPC  10   MP  9   VCP  7   CENT  4   NCAC  4   PAT  2   CFF  2   CNP  1  !!!  268 (79.29%)

Arguably the most distorted results in recent history were those of the 2022 Québec general election. It was so distorted that just about everybody, including people who never before talked about or always refuted the idea of switching to a proportional representation system, started talking about it! However, every wise political pundits agree that such a change is not in the cards, for during the election campaign, the winning party — the Coalition avenir Québec — dismissed the idea as "only important among some intellectuals" and, drunk on their massive victory, categorically shut down even the notion of thinking about it. Clearly for them, the results were fair and natural.

The distortion is so odd that it is not immediately discernable on this table, other than the CAQ's obviously crushing majority. The runner-up in terms of seats was the Québec Liberal Party, but in terms of votes, that party came in fourth place. However, the runner-up in terms of votes was Québec solidaire but it finished in third place in terms of seats, while the Parti Québecois came in fourth on the seat count but third in the vote count. For its part, the Conservative Party of Québec, with about only 1.5% (or 60,291) fewer votes than the QLP that came in second in terms of seats, got shut out of the National Assembly. In short, with about 25.6% more votes than Québec solidaire, the CAQ obtain 55.2% more seats ...than the Liberals! You can't get more distorted than that!

Québec

43 → 2022 ::  3 Oct 2022 — Present     — Majority  CAQ  Summary Government Opposition Unproductive votes Party Votes Seats Party Votes Seats Party Votes # % % # # % % # # % Parliament: 43    Majority Majority=63  Ab.Maj.: +28  G.Maj.: +55 Population [2022]: 8,650,692 (est.) Eligible: 6  Particip.: 66.15% Votes: 4  Unproductive: 657,244 Seats: 125   1 seat = 0.80% ↳ Elec.Sys.:  FPTP: 125   ↳ By acclamation: 0 (0.00%) Plurality: Votes  CAQ  Seats  CAQ  Plurality: ↳ +1,051,038 (+25.55%) Plurality: ↳ Seats: +69 (+55.20%) Position2: Votes  QS  Seats  QLP  Candidacies: 881 (✓ 125)   m: 503 (✓ 67)   f: 378 (✓ 58)  CAQ  125   QLP  125   QS  125   PQ  125   CPQ  125   IND  14   OTH  242   CAQ 1,685,573 40.98 72.00 90 QLP QS PQ 591,077 634,535 600,708 14.37 15.43 14.61 16.80 8.80 2.40 21 11 3 CPQ OTH IND REJ ABS 530,786 68,021 2,121 56,316 2,133,652 12.91 1.67 0.05 1.35 ——  OTH  →  GPQ  73   CAPQ  20   CQ  54   BM  13   DDQ  28   QNP  9   UISQ  9   P51  5  OTH  →  ML  12   AUTO  10   ML  12   CULI  2   PHQ  2   UN  1   AFC  2    LBT  1   PAPE  1  UN  It's unclear whether this comeback attempt was serious or humorous.  !!!  64 (51.20%)

And something similar happened four months earlier in Ontario, with the Liberal Party finishing far behind in third place in the seat count despite having several more votes than the NDP.

Ontario

43 → 2022 ::  2 Jun 2022 — Present     — Majority  PC  Summary Government Opposition Unproductive votes Party Votes Seats Party Votes Seats Party Votes # % % # # % % # # % Parliament: 43    Majority Majority=63  Ab.Maj.: +21  G.Maj.: +42 Population [2022]: 14,996,014 (est.) Eligible: 10,740,426  Particip.: 44.06% Votes: 4,732,476  Unproductive: 276,196 Seats: 124   1 seat = 0.81% ↳ Elec.Sys.:  FPTP: 124   ↳ By acclamation: 0 (0.00%) Plurality: Votes  PC  Seats  PC  Plurality: ↳ +795,840 (+16.92%) Plurality: ↳ Seats: +52 (+41.94%) Position2: Votes  LIB  Seats  NDP  Candidacies: 897 (✓ 124)   m: 571 (✓ 77)   f: 325 (✓ 46)    x: 1 (✓ 1)  PC  124   NDP  124   LIB  121   GRN  124   IND  40   NBPO  123   OP  105   OTH  136   PC 1,919,905 40.83 66.94 83 NDP LIB GRN IND 1,116,383 1,124,065 280,006 15,921 23.74 23.91 5.96 0.34 25.00 6.45 0.81 0.81 31 8 1 1 IND NBPO OP OTH REJ ABS 9,411 127,462 83,618 25,188 30,517 6,007,950 0.20 2.71 1.78 0.53 0.64 ——  LIB  Won 23 fewer seats than the NDP which won 7,682 fewer votes.  IND  One candidate officially ran as having no affiliation.  OTH  →  NOTA  28   LBT  16   PPO  13   FR  11   COMM  12   CO  11   OMP  17   CC  2   COR  3  OTH  →  PPPO  3   OPF  3   STSX  3   CENT  2   PPSN  2   NOP  2   PBP  2   CPJ  2   ERP  2   ALLI  2  !!!  124 (100.00%)

So go ahead and explore the summaries for the jurisdictions that interest you (from the selections on the right). Each year's summary can be expanded or collapsed, which can perhaps help you compare two general elections that were not consecutive.

For the technically minded: These summaries are static. I compiled the data manually in PHP data files from the dynamic MySQL data, which gave me the opportunity to review them carefully and correct them, if necessary. The data presented everywhere else, particularly the "Detailed election results" subsection, are entirely dynamic.