British Columbia general election, 1953

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The British Columbia general election of 1953 was the 24th general election in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. It was held to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. The election was called on April 10 1953, and held on June 9 1953. The new legislature met for the first time on September 15 1953.

This was the second and last election to use the alternative voting system. Rather than marking the ballot with an X, numbers were to be placed opposite the names in order of choice. If, after the first count, no candidate received an absolute simple majority, the candidate with the least number of votes was dropped, and the second choices distributed among the remaining candidates. This process continued until a candidate emerged with the requisite majority vote. Some voters only indicated a first choice (plumping), and others did not utilize the full range available. Consequently as the counts progressed, some ballots would be exhausted and total valid votes would decline, thereby reducing the absolute majority required to be elected. In multi-member ridings, there were as many ballots as members to be elected, distinguished by colour and letters.

The minority government formed in 1952 by the conservative Social Credit of Premier W.A.C. Bennett lasted only nine months before new elections were called. Social Credit was re-elected with a majority in the legislature to a second term in government with almost 38% of the popular vote.

The social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation formed the official opposition with the only significant opposition caucus (14 seats).

The British Columbia Liberal Party lost two of its six seats despite and maintained its 20% share of the popular vote.

The Progressive Conservative Party lost three of its four seat in the legislature, as its share of the popular vote fell from almost 17% to under 6%.

One seat was won by a Labour candidate.

Results

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	1952	Elected	% Change	First count	%	Change	Final count	% \|- \|bgcolor="lightblue"\|	Social Credit	W.A.C. Bennett	48	19	28	+47.4%	274,771	37.75%	+10.55%	300,372	45.54% \|- \|bgcolor="#EEDDAA"\|	Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.	Robert Martin Strachan	47	18	14	align="right"
224,513	30.85%	+0.07%	194,414	29.48% \|- \|bgcolor="lightcoral"\|	Liberal	Arthur Laing	48	6	4	-33.3%	171,671	23.59%	+0.13%	154,090	23.36% \|- \|bgcolor="#9999FF"\|	Progressive Conservative	Deane Finlayson	39	4	1	align="right"
40,780	5.60%	-11.24%	7,326	1.11% \|- \|bgcolor=#EEBBBB\|	Labour	Tom Uphill	1	1	1	align="right"
1,601	0.22%	+0.06%	1,793	0.27% \|- \|bgcolor="tomato"\|	Labour Progressive		25	align="right"
align="right"
-	7,496	1.03%	+0.70%	816	0.12% \|- \|bgcolor="#F1FFDD"\|	Christian Democratic		14	align="right"
align="right"
-	5,036	0.69%	-0.24%	752	0.12% \|- \|bgcolor="gainsboro"\|	Independents		6	align="right"
align="right"
-	1,951	0.27%	0.10%	-	- \|- \|bgcolor="#97D26C"\|	People's		1	*	align="right"
*	20	x	*	-	-
Total			229	48	48	-	727,839	100%	-	659,563	100%
Source: [Elections BC]

Notes:

* Party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.

x - less than 0.005% of the popular vote.

Results by riding

|- |bgcolor="lightblue"| |align="center"|William Neelands Chant |bgcolor="lightblue"|

|- |bgcolor="lightblue"| |align="center"|Walter Percival Wright |bgcolor="lightblue"|

|- |bgcolor="lightblue"| |align="center"|Irvine Finlay Corbett
|align="center" |Yale
Social Credit |bgcolor="lightblue"| |- | |align="center"|¹ Premier-Elect |align="center"|² Leader of the Opposition |- |- | align="center" colspan="10"|Source: [Elections BC] |- |}

British Columbia general election, 1953

Results

Results by riding

See also