List of Alberta general elections

The Canadian province of Alberta holds elections to its unicameral legislative body, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The maximum period between general elections of the assembly is five years,[1][2] but the Lieutenant Governor is able to call one at any time.[3] However, the Premier has typically asked the Lieutenant Governor to call the election in the fourth or fifth year after the preceding election. The number of seats has increased over time, from 25 for the first election in 1905, to the current 87.

Number of seats won by major parties at each election

Conservative/PC   Liberal   CCF/NDP   Social Credit

United Farmers   Labo(u)r   Independent   Other

To date, the only political party to have been in government for one term has been the NDP, under the leadership of Rachel Notley.

The province has been ruled by four "dynasties": the Liberal Party (1905–1921); the United Farmers of Alberta (1921–1935), the Social Credit Party (1935–1971), and the Progressive Conservative (PC) Association (1971–2015). No minority government has ever been elected. Thus, Alberta can be said to have continuously had a dominant-party system for its entire political history, though the dominant party has changed over time. In 2015, the NDP were elected to government for the first time in Alberta's history, ending the longest political dynasty in Canada. In 2019 the newly formed United Conservative Party formed the government, effectively turning the direction of Alberta back into Conservative hands. As noted above, the NDP has been Alberta’s only one term government.

Summary

The table below shows the total number of seats won by each political party in each election. Full details on any election are linked via the year of the election at the start of the row, and details for the legislature that followed the election are available at the legislature number.[4][5]

Year	Seats	Winner	Legislature	United Conservative Party	Progressive Conservative^[A]	Liberal	NDP^[B]	Social Credit	United Farmers	Dominion Labor	Ind.	Other parties	Other parties	Voter turnout[6][7]
1905	25	Liberal	1st		3	22
1909	41	Liberal	2nd		2	36					2	1	Socialist
1913	56^[C]	Liberal	3rd		17	38
1917	58	Liberal	4th		19	34					2	3	1 Labor Representation 2 Alberta Non-Partisan League
1921	61	United Farmers	5th			15			38	4	4
1926	60	United Farmers	6th		4	7			43	5	1
1930	63	United Farmers	7th		6	11			39	4	3
1935	63	Social Credit	8th		2	5		56						81.8%
1940	57	Social Credit	9th			1		36				20	Independent Movement (19), Labour (1)
1944	60	Social Credit	10th				2	51			3	4	Independent Movement (3), Veterans' and Active Force (1)
1948	57	Social Credit	11th			2	2	51			2
1952	60	Social Credit	12th		2	3	1	53			1
1955	61	Social Credit	13th		3	15	2	37			3	1	Coalition
1959	65	Social Credit	14th		1	1		61			1	1	Coalition
1963	63	Social Credit	15th			2		60				1	Coalition
1967	65	Social Credit	16th		6	3		55			1
1971	75	PC	17th		49		1	25
1975	75	PC	18th		69		1	4			1			59.58%
1979	79	PC	19th		74		1	4						58.71%
1982	79	PC	20th		75		2				2			66.00%
1986	83	PC	21st		61	4	16					2	Representative	47.25%
1989	83	PC	22nd		59	8	16							53.60%
1993	83	PC	23rd		51	32								60.21%
1997	83	PC	24th		63	18	2							53.75%
2001	83	PC	25th		74	7	2							53.38%
2004	83	PC	26th		62	16	4					1	Alberta Alliance	45.12%
2008	83	PC	27th		72	9	2							40.59%
2012	87	PC	28th		61	5	4					17	Wildrose	56.96%
2015	87	NDP	29th		10	1	54					22	Wildrose (21), Alberta Party (1)	58.4%
2019	87	UCP	30th	63			24							64.0%

Notes

^A Known as the Conservative Party prior to 1959.[4]

^B Known as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) prior to 1963.[4]

^C In 1913, 55 people occupied 56 seats.[4]

Electoral system

Alberta has used a variety of electoral systems in its history, notably a combination of single transferable vote (STV) and instant-runoff voting (IRV) for nearly four decades.

Electoral system of Alberta

Elections	Edmonton	Calgary	Medicine Hat	Rest of Alberta
1905	First past the post
1909	Double-member plurality-at-large		First past the post
1913	Double-member	First past the post
1917	First past the post
1921	Five-member plurality-at-large		Double-member	First past the post
1926–1955	Multiple-member single transferable vote		Single-member instant-runoff voting
1959–present	First past the post

Alberta's first election was fought in 25 single-member first past the post districts, and like other Canadian jurisdictions at the time, introduced double-member constituencies in Edmonton and Calgary in 1909 to accommodate their population. These were both broken up into three single-member districts by 1917, as the overall number of districts increased rapidly.

The Liberal government introduced five-member block voting constituencies in Edmonton and Calgary in 1921, and briefly made Medicine Hat a double-member district. Because each voter in the cities was given five votes, the Liberal party was defeated despite winning a higher total number of votes than the United Farmers, who had much higher support in the rural single-member districts.[8]

The UFA government, which had campaigned on electoral reform, introduced instant-runoff voting (IRV) in the rural constituencies in 1926. Edmonton and Calgary were also converted to single transferable vote (STV) districts, where exhaustive vote transfers resulted in roughly proportional results.[9]

These parallel systems, STV in the cities and IRV in the rest of the province, lasted until Ernest Manning's Social Credit government abolished both for the 1959 election, without public consultations or a referendum. This broke the urban constituencies into single-member districts and reintroduced first past the post across the province, which remains the system used in Alberta and throughout Canada.

See also

• Timeline of Canadian elections
• List of political parties in Alberta – for present and historical political parties in Alberta.

References

1. "Legislative Assembly Act". Queen's Printer. 1983. Section 3(1). Retrieved March 17, 2011.
2. Elections Alberta (2008). "Common Questions". Elections Alberta. Retrieved March 9, 2010.
3. Office Consolidation (2000). "Election Act". Province of Alberta. Alberta Queen's Printer. Retrieved April 9, 2011.
   1.1.1.nn ""writ" means a writ of election issued by the Chief Electoral Officer pursuant to an order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council."
   39.0 "Every election shall be commenced by the passing of an order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council"
4. Elections Alberta (May 30, 2008). "Candidate Summary of Results (General Elections 1905–2004)". Archived from the original on April 3, 2012. Retrieved March 31, 2011.
5. Elections Alberta (2008). "General Election Reports (1997–2008)". Archived from the original on May 18, 2011. Retrieved March 31, 2011.
6. Election Alberta (July 28, 2008). 2008 General Report (PDF). p. 158. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
7. Elections Alberta (November 25, 2007). "General Elections 1975-2004 (Overall Summary of Ballots Cast and % of Voter Turnout)". Archived from the original on August 15, 2011. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
8. "The PC dynasty falls: Understanding Alberta's history of one-party rule". Retrieved July 12, 2018.
9. Barnes, André; Lithwick, Dara; Virgint, Erin (January 11, 2016). "Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in Canada and Elsewhere: An Overview". Library of Parliament. Ottawa. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 12, 2018.