Canada’s electoral encyclopedia
Base → People → That winner called Nobody → Nobody’s stand-ins
Printable version

The seats won by Nobody

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

Let's find...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:

→ 71.96% of the races held at the federal level (8,716 of 12,113), and
→ 80.77% of the races held at the provincial or territorial levels (20,497 of 25,378).

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 2025.

Races won by Nobody
Juri. Races → General Elections Races → By-Elections
Federal Provincial/Territorial Federal Provincial/Territorial
∑ N N% ∑ N N% ∑ N N% ∑ N N%
8,307 3,146 37.87 19,502 7,642 39.19 409 228 55.75 995 576 57.89
597 260 43.55 1,961 1,123 57.27 17 15 88.24 59 51 86.44
730 386 52.88 1,936 850 43.90 18 13 72.22 135 77 57.04
394 166 42.13 1,821 773 42.45 21 16 76.19 69 31 44.93
302 71 23.51 805 184 22.86 12 2 16.67 40 19 47.50
139 109 78.42 937 285 30.42 12 12 100.00 64 45 70.31
366 101 27.60 1,145 415 36.24 22 5 22.73 64 37 57.81
24 19 79.17 256 134 52.34 0 0 0.00 11 9 81.82
9 9 100.00 112 54 48.21 0 0 0.00 11 5 45.45
3 0 0.00 0 0 0.00 0 0 0.00 0 0 0.00
2,967 1,119 37.71 4,505 2,647 58.76 155 82 52.90 80 78 97.50
97 6 6.19 504 11 2.18 4 0 0.00 30 12 40.00
2,232 757 33.92 3,784 816 21.56 135 76 56.30 335 168 50.15
420 133 31.67 1,509 309 20.48 11 6 54.55 84 40 47.62
27 10 37.04 227 41 18.06 2 1 50.00 13 4 30.77
     If CA, show
    and     

© 2005, 2025 :: PoliCan.ca (Maurice Y. Michaud)
Pub.:  9 May 2025 21:11
Rev.:  4 Jul 2025 08:51 (but data presented dynamically)

© 2005-2025 :: PoliCan.ca
Given that electoral results are by their very nature public information, such data presented in PoliCan are considered to be in the public domain. However, unless indicated otherwise, all other elements — the concept of consolidating these data into a single format, the detailed research on each election, legislature and candidate, the organization and searchability of the data, the programming allowing the entry and maintenance of the data, as well as the analyses, explanatory articles and opinions found in this website — are the intellectual property of Maurice Y. Michaud.