Yukon - A unique look at electoral reform

With only 19 ridings, and under 40K residents, the Yukon is an excellent (read: small and easy) area to examine.

This may be a series of posts due to my attention being segmented on today, US election day, but lets begin with proportional representation.

Somehow, for reasons I don't fully understand, people assume that proportional representation means one proportional district including everything. This is terribly uncommon on the national, and even some subnational levels.

The Yukon in particular is divided between "Rural" and "Whitehorse" areas. I've taken care to look at the vote by poll, and taken the Whitehorse polls. This basically means all "Whitehorse Ridings" plus 1 poll in an otherwise "Rural Riding".

As such I'm keeping the current split in Yukon ridings, 11 Whitehorse seats and 8 Rural seats. I do, however, note that even in 2 of these 8 seats, Whitehorse is within the commutershed; meaning the area where you can drive in to town every day and home every day. It's generally intended for working folk, but it can apply to people in schools or even just shopping. It means that roughly 25% of the "rural" area is so close to Whitehorse that one could argue it should be included within it; but, I am going to keep the boundary as close to the official municipal boundaries as possible.

I've decided to use the same thresholding method with largest remainders I've used before, as that's easiest to calculate.


RURAL BALLOTS CAST (8 ridings) 6,320 votes (703 threshold)
2447 LP (3) 2109
2216 YP (3) 2109
1570 ND (2) 1406
49 GP
38 IND

RURAL
3L-3Y-2N

WHITEHORSE BALLOTS CAST (11 ridings) 12,467 votes (1134 threshold)
4957 LP (4) 4536
4056 YP (3) 3402
3358 ND (2) 2268
96 GP

Remainders (2)
421 LP
654 YP (1)
1090 ND (1)
96 GP

WHITEHORSE
4L-4Y-3N

As such the new Legislature would look like this:

7 Liberals
7 Yukon Party
5 New Democrats



More posts to come!