1944 Alberta general election

1944 Alberta general election

← 1940 August 8, 1944 (1944-08-08) 1948 →
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60 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta 31 seats were needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   IM Leader Ernest Manning James H. Walker Party Social Credit Independent Movement Leader since May 31, 1943 1944 Leader's seat Edmonton Warner (lost re-election) Last election 36 seats, 42.9% 19 seats, 42.5% Seats before 35 15 Seats won 51 3 Seat change 16 12 Popular vote 146,367 47,239 Percentage 50.5% 16.3% Swing 7.6% 26.2%   Third party Fourth party   V&AF Leader Elmer E. Roper William J. Williams Party Co-operative Commonwealth Veterans' and Active Force Leader since 1942 1944 Leader's seat Edmonton Edmonton Last election 0 seats, 11.1% pre-creation Seats before 1 0 Seats won 2 1 Seat change 1 1 Popular vote 70,307 3,532 Percentage 24.2% 1.2% Swing 13.1% —
Premier before election Ernest Manning Social Credit Premier after election Ernest Manning Social Credit

The 1944 Alberta general election was held on August 8, 1944 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

As well, in late 1944 and early 1945, Armed Forces voters voted for separate representation - by electing an Army, an Air Force and a Navy representative.^[1]

The election was the first contested by leader Ernest C. Manning. Previously Provincial Secretary, he became leader of the Social Credit Party and premier after party founder, Premier William Aberhart, died in 1943. Manning steered the party down a more moderate path, largely dispensing with the party's social credit policies of monetary reform that it had been mostly unable to implement. The provinces's improved economic position meanwhile made such reforms less pressing.

Manning led Social Credit to a third term in government with a resounding victory in the 1944 election, winning 85 percent of the seats with just over 50 percent of the popular vote on the first count of ballots. Preferential voting was used, under Single transferable voting in the cities and Instant-runoff voting elsewhere.

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation entered the election with only one seat in the legislature belonging to party leader Elmer Roper who had won a 1942 by-election. Despite winning almost a quarter of the popular vote the party won only two seats in the general election.

The Conservative party and former United Farmers continued their strategy of running joint candidates as Independents. Not supported by the Liberals, who left the coalition, the anti-SC joint effort lost much of its previous share of the popular vote.

Albertan servicemen and veterans from World War II were able to vote in the first phase of the election on August 4, 1944. There was also a second vote held to elect three Canadian Armed Forces representatives from amongst the Albertans who were in active service overseas, or those who missed the first vote.

This provincial election, like the previous four, saw district-level proportional representation (Single transferable voting) used to elect the MLAs of Edmonton and Calgary. City-wide districts were used to elect multiple MLAs in the cities. All the other MLAs were elected in single-member districts through Instant-runoff voting. All voters in the province had the opportunity to cast ranked ballots. The Army, Navy and Air Force members were elected through single-winner first-past-the-post voting.^[2]