Alberta provincial electoral districts
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Alberta provincial electoral districts are currently single member ridings that each elect one member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. There are 83 current districts fixed in law in Alberta.
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[edit] History
The original twenty five districts were drawn up by Liberal Member of Parliament Frank Oliver prior to the first general election of 1905. The original boundaries were widely regarded as being gerrymandered to favor the Alberta Liberal Party. Every boundary redistribution since 1905 has been based off the original boundaries, with districts being split or merged.
From 1905 to 1926 with only a few exceptions districts were elected with one man on the First Past the Post system. Calgary and Edmonton as well as Medicine Hat were elected on a plurality block vote, where each voter had as many votes as candidates were elected.
There have also been a couple of cases where members were elected at large, and did not represent any districts.
From 1926 to 1955 members in Calgary and Edmonton were elected in Single Transferable Vote super ridings that had five to seven members. Outside of the two cities one member was elected under the optional system, with vote transfer taking place only if one candidate had less then 50% of the vote. There was no district changes between 1926 and 1940.
With Alberta in a population boom in the fifties and Calgary and Edmonton growing, single transferable vote was becoming too complicated, with vote counting taking days before any results could be announced. In 1959 the super ridings were broken up and the voting system was made standard across the province.
In 1977 Elections Alberta was created to independently over see election laws. Independent boundary commissions were setup to tweak the boundaries to population changes that occurred after every census.
As is the case with nearly every other Canadian jurisdiction, the number of districts has not increased in proportion to the population. Prior to the 1986 election the number of districts was fixed by law at 83 thus any change to that number would have to be enacted by the legislature. Even though the population has increased by more than 40% since 1986, the number of districts has not been changed. Because much of the population increase has taken place in Calgary, there has been a decline in the number of districts in rural areas and, more recently, in Edmonton in favor of more city districts in Calgary, leading some to criticize Alberta's largest city for having too much power. However, there seems to be limited support for changing the law.
Unlike some provinces such as Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan districts are created and abolished with great frequency, where as districts in those provinces have remained the same for decades.
