New election math

While we have laws on the books specifying elections only every four years, they seem to be guidelines only.

The current government still calls the elections as they see fit, to best suit their chances for reelection.

There are rumours that the next election could be as soon as this fall, presumably to catch the other parties unprepared. Who knows?

What I do know is that the current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system is full of surprises.

Look at the recent election of Green MLA Hannah Bell. This would have been unheard of a few decades ago. Back then it would be just the Conservatives and Liberals battling it out, with the winner taking more than 50 per cent of the vote.

But we no longer have a two-party system. We now have four parties and although the newcomers like NDP and the Greens only took a little over 10 per cent of the vote each in the last general election, that could change. As it did when Hannah Bell got elected with 35.3 per cent of the vote. This was clearly the largest vote, but just as clearly not a majority. (The Liberals were second with 28.5 per cent, PCs 26.9 per cent and NDP 9.3 per cent).

In fact, with four parties, just a little over 25 per cent of the vote is needed to be elected, if each party has a very similar share of the votes. Bear with me for a bit of grade school math involving addition and percentages:

We have 27 electoral districts on P.E.I. Just win 14 districts and you have a majority government. In turn, those 14 winning MLAs only need a little over 25 per cent of the vote in each district to win their seat, assuming that all four parties have similar popularity.

Theoretically a party could win a majority government with only around 15 per cent of the popular vote. Of course, the votes are not that evenly distributed between the four parties. Yet.

However here is clear strategy for the Liberals, that is most likely to succeed:

First, run only in 14 districts, picking only those districts where the party did well in the last election. This will clearly be the best use of the party’s resources.

Second, remember: Even less than 14 MLAs may be actually needed to win. If the Liberals got 9 districts, the Greens 8 districts, NDP 5 districts and Conservatives 5 districts, the Liberals could still form a minority government or a coalition majority government with any one of the other parties.

Third, note that a party winning 8 or 9 MLAs can theoretically form a minority government or a coalition majority government with less than 10 per cent of the popular vote. This is exactly why we need Proportional Representation. The more parties we have, the more ridiculous the possibilities are under FPTP.

Fourth, the scary thing, if you are a Liberal Premier with dropping popularity, is of course, that other parties can use this strategy too, and actually win.

Whatever you can say about the FPTP system, it will always be full of surprises. I am looking forward to the next election.