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1927 Manitoba general election

← 1922 June 28, 1927 1932 →
55 seats of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba 27 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader John Bracken Fawcett Taylor Party Progressive Conservative Leader since August 8, 1922 April, 1922 Leader's seat The Pas Portage la Prairie Last election 28 7 Seats won 29 15 Seat change 1 8 Popular vote 52,805 44,320 Percentage 32.4% 27.2% Swing 0.4pp 11.7pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Hugh Robson John Queen Party Liberal Independent Labour Leader since 1927 1923 Leader's seat Winnipeg Winnipeg Last election 8 6 Seats won 7 3 Seat change 1 3 Popular vote 33,852 17,133 Percentage 20.7% 10.5% Swing 2.5pp 0.6pp
Premier before election John Bracken Progressive Premier after election John Bracken Progressive

The 1927 Manitoba general election was held on 28 June 1927 to elect Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Manitoba, Canada. The result was a second consecutive victory for Manitoba farmers, following its 1922 win.

This was the first election in Manitoba history to elect MLAs through casting of ranked ballots in all districts. Ten MLAs were elected in Winnipeg through Single transferable vote, as they had done since 1920. The other districts now began to elect MLAs through Instant-runoff voting.

The Progressive Party of Manitoba, led by Premier John Bracken, won a second consecutive majority government in 1927. Progressive candidates won twenty-nine seats out of fifty-five to win their second majority government. During the campaign, the Progressives stressed that they were not a party in the traditional sense and promised "A business (not a party) government". Many Progressive candidates simply described themselves as Bracken supporters. The Progressive Party was supported by the powerful United Farmers of Manitoba organization.

The Conservatives won fifteen seats under the leadership of Fawcett Taylor, an improvement from seven in the election of 1922. This election re-established the Conservatives as the leading opposition party in Manitoba, and made the party a credible challenger for government in the next election.

The Manitoba Liberal Party was unable to regain the support it had lost to the Progressive Party in the previous election. The Liberals won seven seats under the new leadership of Hugh Robson, down one from their 1922 total. After the election, many senior Liberals began to work for an electoral alliance with the Progressives. Robson, who opposed this plan, was persuaded to resign as leader in 1930. The alliance was formalized in 1932.

The Independent Labour Party fell to three seats, down from six in the previous election. All three members, including party leader John Queen, were elected in the city of Winnipeg. Candidates of four separate parties - Liberal, Conservative, ILP and Progressive - plus an Independent - were elected to fill that city's ten seats. Winnipeg seats were filled using a form of proportional representation, Single transferable voting.

Jacob Penner ran in Winnipeg as a Communist candidate, but was not successful. He lasted 19 rounds of transfers but picked up very few votes so was eliminated.

Independent candidate John Edmison was re-elected in Brandon.

The proportion of the vote received by the Progressive Party (based on first-preference votes) was enough to assure a functioning government, but it was one of lowest in Canadian history.

The Legislature experienced a significant turnover of members, with 23 seats electing new MLAs. Twelve incumbents (one in Winnipeg, and 11 more in other ridings) went down in defeat, six failed to be renominated, and five chose not to stand for reelection.

Under the instant-runoff voting used to elect 45 MLAs, the leader in the first count of the district's votes was the one elected in all but three districts,so the final results in the districts outside Winnipeg were almost the same as under First-past-the-post voting .

Of the 45 single-member ridings, two MLAs were returned by acclamation. Twenty-one were decided solely on first-preference votes, with no vote transfers conducted. The remainder (22) went to runoff counts. There were only three "turn-overs" where the first count leader did not win due to vote transfers - in Minnedosa, Morden & Rhineland and Springfield. The Progressive candidate was leading on the first count in all three districts but after vote transfers, Conservatives won two of them and Liberals won one.

Seventeen seats in the single-member districts went to parties different from the previous election. Eleven rural incumbents running for re-election under their old party label were defeated. Three other incumbents changed their party label and were re-elected. Three open seats flipped to another party.

Results

Manitoba general election (June 29, 1927)

Party		Leader	First-preference votes		Seats
			Votes	% FPv	Cand.	1922	Elected	Change
	Progressive	John Bracken	52,423	32.12	44	28	26	2
	Conservative	Fawcett Taylor	44,320	27.15	40	7	15	8
	Liberal	Hugh Robson	33,852	20.74	40	8	7	1
	Independent Labour	John Queen	15,987	9.80	10	6	3	3
	Independent		8,495	5.20	12	4	1	3
	Independent-Moderationist		3,200	1.96	2	1	–	1
	Communist		2,015	1.23	1	–	–	–
	Independent-Progressive		1,618	0.99	3	–	2	2
	Independent-Farmer		1,302	0.80	1	1	1
Valid			163,212	100.00	153	55	55	–
Rejected			n/a
Total votes cast			163,212
Registered voters/Turnout			233,453	69.9

1. includes Robert Curran, who campaigned as a Liberal-Progressive
2. after consolidation in the labour movement
3. number is for contested ridings only

Results by riding

Bold names indicate members returned by acclamation. Incumbents are marked with *.

Seats changing hands

In the single-member ridings, 17 seats changed allegiance:

(Italics indicate that incumbent changed allegiance)

In Winnipeg, the seat distribution was changed as follows:

Winnipeg - distribution of seats (1927 vs 1922)

Party		1922	1927	change
	Progressive	1	2	1
	Conservative	2	3	1
	Liberal	2	2
	ILP	4	3	1
	Independent-Moderationist	1	–	1
Total		10	10

Turnovers on runoff

In the single-member ridings, there were three cases where the first-place candidate on first-preference votes failed to win:

First-preference votes by riding

  = won on first-preference votes, by receiving majority of valid votes in the first count.

The candidate in the winning position in the first count won in the end in every district, except in the Minnedosa, Morden and Springfield districts, where the winner is indicated with vote tally in bold.

1. ^ multiple Independent candidates

Winnipeg

Eligible voters 67,124 Valid votes 50,706 Turnout: 76%

10 seats. Quota: 4,610

Elected: 2 Progressive Party, 3 Conservatives, 2 Liberals, 3 ILP (listed in same order as in above table)

Rogers and Ivens passed quota in Round 21. Their surpluses were not transferred as they could not possibly have bridged the gap between the least-popular remaining candidate and the other two remaining contenders. With their election, there were only three remaining candidates and two remaining open seats. Downes was then declared defeated - his votes were not transferred as Tobias and Montgomery were the only ones still standing and there were two seats left to be filled Tobias and Montgomery were elected with partial quota, as the field of candidates had been thinned to the number of remaining open seats.

Transfers of surplus votes belonging to elected Conservatives Haig and Evans went in large numbers to Tobias, helping him take a seat although he was not in top ten in the first count. Communist candidate Penner's vote tally was not large enough for him to win a seat and he received few vote transfers, but many of his votes were transferred to help elect Ivens, the last ILP member to be elected. The Independent-Moderationist candidate Downes received some vote transfers from supporters of candidates running under other labels, but not enough to maintain a lead over party candidates (Rogers and Ivens) who although initially lower ranking compared to Downes, received many vote transfers from elected or eliminated candidates of the same party. In each party the most popular candidates maintained their position visa vis other candidates of the same party all the way through. The question was how many quota each party had at the start (taking all the party candidates together) and how many they would pick up from cross-party transfers - this set up how many seats each party would take. The seats were filled by the candidates in popularity order set by the voters. Party lists, if they had been used as in Party-list proportional representation, might have dictated that different persons would have filled the seats that were indirectly allocated to each party than were the choice of voters in this election.

Sources

The first ballot results for Winnipeg and results for all other constituencies are taken from an official Manitoba government publication entitled "Manitoba elections, 1920–1941", cross-referenced with the 1928 Canadian Parliamentary Guide, and an appendix to the Manitoba government's report of the 2003 provincial election.

All ballot results for Winnipeg after the first count are taken from reports in the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper. It is possible that some errors appeared in the original publication.

Post-election changes

Birtle (John Pratt leaves the government side, early in the parliament).

Lansdowne (res. Tobias Norris, 1928), 10 November 1928:

• Donald McKenzie (Liberal/Progressive) 1527
• Harvey Hicks (C) 1260

Morris (William Clubb to new cabinet post, 18 May 1929), 30 May 1929:

• William Clubb (P) accl.

Turtle Mountain (dec. Richard G. Willis, February 1929), 22 June 1929:

• Alexander Welch (C) 1327
• W.E. Campbell (P) 995

Winnipeg (res. Hugh Robson, January 1930)

Mountain (dec. Irving Cleghorn, 1930), 20 January 1930:

• Ivan Schultz (L ) accl.

The Liberals formed an alliance with the governing Progressives in 1932.

Brandon City (dec. John H. Edmison, 22 March 1932)

References

1. Madden, Wayne D., ed. (1998). Canadian Guide of Leadership and Electoral History - Analytical Supplement. Fort McMurray: W.D. Madden.
2. "18th Legislature Will Have Many New Faces". The Winnipeg Tribune. 4 July 1927. pp. 1–2.
3. ^ "Eighteenth General Election Held June 28, 1927 - Summary of Results" (PDF). electionsmanitoba.ca. Elections Manitoba. Retrieved 25 January 2023. - valid for first-preference totals by riding
4. Winnipeg Tribune, June 30, 1927
5. "As Winnipeg Votes Were Counted". The Winnipeg Tribune. 2 July 1927. p. 2.

Further reading

• Hopkins, J. Castell, ed. (1927). The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, 1926–27. Toronto: The Annual Review Company.

• 1927 elections in Canada
• Elections in Manitoba
• 1927 in Manitoba
• June 1927 events