He's called... Nobody!

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

Allow me to introduce you to Nobody. He has won thousands of elections throughout Canada since 1867. Astounding, isn't it? And even more astonishing is the fact he wins more often today than ever before. So I'm surprised you never heard of him.

But in fact, no. I'm not surprised. Actually, I'm chuckling, because you are probably asking yourself, "What on earth is this Maurice guy talking about?!" And that's a fair question.

For an example, take a look at the results in this riding from the 1984 federal election. There were 46,791 eligible voters, and 28,831 votes were cast (including the 163 rejected), giving a voter turnout rate of 61.62%.

			Grand Falls—White Bay—Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador		4 September 1984 First-past-the-post 1 seat		General Election Assembly 33 Candidacies: 3
Rank			Candidacies		Results		Plurality	Eligible
1				William H. Rompkey ( 48 ) *	12,938	45.13%	+824	27.65%	2
2				Peter J. Walsh ( 53 ) *	12,114	42.26%		25.89%	3
3				Ernest J. Condon	3,616	12.61%		7.73%	4
				Nobody	17,960			38.38%	1
ID: 3828 (F)			Total		28,668	100.00%		100.00%
Eligible					46,791
				Votes cast/Turnout	28,831	61.62%
Rejected					163	0.57%

Except that, on election night, broadcasters never show the row for Nobody. The story that was probably told that night was that this was a tight race, and that it was one of the few where the Liberal Party came on top (because, after all, that night, the Progressive Conservative Party did win 211 of the 282 seats nationwide). But the hidden truth? Nobody had "won" 5,022 more votes than Rompkey. In fact, 5,022 is 1,406 more votes than what the NDP's Condon had won!

To be fair, it's unreasonable to expect a 100% turnout rate. One of the highest turnouts in recent memory was for the second Québec referendum on sovereignty in 1995, at a whopping 93.52%. But up until the 1980s, in most jurisdictions in Canada, a normal turnout rate was considerably higher than 70%. When it would go below that, the reasons were circumstantial: it was war time, or one party was so dominant that the outcome of the election was a foredrawn conclusion. However, when the rate goes below 72% in a riding, Nobody has a far greater chance of winning. And given that a 72% turnout is almost considered a triumph these days, you can understand why he is more successful now than he has ever been.

For instance, the participation rate in the 2022 Ontario general election was a shameful 44%. As a result, who do you think won the 124 seats up for grabs?

To ask the question is to answer it, because indeed, it was...

Nobody.
 

Making a mountain out of a molehill?

I really wish I could say that I'm only winding you up, but the truth is that Nobody has been the winner in more than half of the current legislatures in Canada. The more the participation rates tumble, the more he's making a fool of us. And our democracy! One might argue that many of the current legislatures were formed during the pandemic era, but frankly, let's not kid ourselves. As much as the pandemic wasn't easy, it has, at times, been used as a scapegoat for all current ills, not to mention that Nobody's rise began long before it did. A more apt but disturbing argument would be to call into question the legitimacy of those who were elected by such a small proportion of eligible voters.

Nobody is the hands down favorite candidate in every election today. If we take the 1,110 races that have been held in general elections for the current legislatures, he has won 857 of them. In other words, his success rate was 77.21%. And no need to do the math for the by-elections, for which the turnout is always very low. For those, we already know that he has had a perfect record!

These tables show, by party, how frequently Nobody was the winner rather than the person elected.

Statistics and lists

The number of people having the right to vote is not available for all the ridings where an election has been held. It is known for the 15 races in Manitoba and 16 races in Alberta that were held using the single transferable vote proportional system (STV) in the first decades of the 20th century, but those are excluded because the way votes are counted in that system leaves the misleading impression that Nobody always won. Therefore, excluding as well races won by acclamation, the number of eligible voters is known for:

→ 71.11% of the races held at the federal level (8,366 of 11,765), and
→ 82.69% of the races held at the provincial or territorial levels (20,094 of 24,299).

For those, we can determine the number of times that Nobody has won. However, the aggregate data in this table does not show how declining voter turnout is leading Nobody to be the winner of most races today, except on Prince Edward Island. In order to see that, please select a jurisdiction to see the list of where Nobody was the real winner in that jurisdiction (CA for federal). You can play with the date range, and you will see how the list gets longer as the years are closer to 2024.