List of post-confederation Prince Edward Island general elections

This article provides a summary of results for the general elections to the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island's unicameral legislative body, the Prince Edward Island House of Assembly. The number of seats has varied over time, from a high of thirty-two between the 1960s and 1990s, to the current low of twenty-seven.

File:PEI elections2.gif

Number of seats won by major parties at each election

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The chart on the right shows the information graphically, with the most recent elections on the right. [Could someone fix the election results chart? It omits the elections of 1890 and 1893.] It shows that Prince Edward Island has effectively a two-party system - the Liberal party (red) and Conservative party (blue). After the first two elections (when not all MLAs declared a party allegiance), only one MLA has been elected who has not been a member of these two parties. The Liberal party have won eighteen out of twenty-nine of the elections in the 20th century.

Prior to 1996, PEI used 16 dual-member ridings; the 32 members have sat together since the 1893 abolition of the Legislative Council. The boundaries for these ridings were drawn in 1893; a single change was made in 1966 (when the riding of Charlottetown, also known as 5th Queens, was split into two parts). In 1996, a court determined that the number of electors varied too much between ridings, and was therefore unconstitutional. This resulted in a new set of (single-member) ridings being created.

This article only covers elections since Prince Edward Island became part of the Canadian Confederation in 1873. Prior to that, Prince Edward Island was a British colony. The Prince Edward Island House of Assembly dates back to 1769.

Summary

The table below shows the total number of seats won by the major political parties at each election (if greater than zero). It also shows the percentage of the vote obtained by the major political parties at each election, if greater than 0.1%. The winning party's totals are shown in bold. To date, no party has formed a government that did not have the largest share of the vote. Full details on any election are linked via the year of the election at the start of the row.

Election date		Win.	Total seats	Conservative		Liberal		NDP		Green		Other
				Seats	Vote (%)	Seats	Vote (%)	Seats	Vote (%)	Seats	Vote (%)	Seats	Vote (%)	Seat-winning party
1873	April 1, 1873	CON	30	15		10							5	Non-partisan
1876	August 10, 1876	CON	30	15		7							8	Non-partisan
1879	April 2, 1879	CON	30	24		6
1882	May 8, 1882	CON	30	21		9
1886	June 30, 1886	CON	30	18		12
1890	January 30, 1890		30	15		15
1893	December 13, 1893	LIB	30	7		23
1897	July 28, 1897	LIB	30	11		19
1900	December 12, 1900	LIB	30	9	46.5	21	53.5
1904	December 7, 1904	LIB	30	8	45.9	22	54.1
1908	November 18, 1908	LIB	30	13	48.4	17	51.6
1912	January 3, 1912	CON	30	28	60.3	2	39.7
1915	September 16, 1915	CON	30	17	50.1	13	49.9
1919	July 24, 1919	LIB	30	6	46.1	24	53.9
1923	July 26, 1923	CON	30	25	51.5	5	43.8						4.7
1927	June 25, 1927	LIB	30	6	46.9	24	53.1
1931	August 6, 1931	CON	30	18	51.7	12	48.3
1935	July 23, 1935	LIB	30	–	42.0	30	58.0
1939	May 18, 1939	LIB	30	4	47.0	26	53.0
1943	September 15, 1943	LIB	30	10	46.1	20	51.3		2.1				0.5
1947	December 11, 1947	LIB	30	6	45.8	24	49.8		4.3				0.1
1951	April 26, 1951	LIB	30	6	46.7	24	51.6		1.7
1955	May 25, 1955	LIB	30	3	45.0	27	55.0
1959	September 1, 1959	CON	30	22	50.9	8	49.1
1962	December 10, 1962	CON	30	19	50.6	11	49.4
1966	May 30, 1966	LIB	32	15	49.5	17	50.5
1970	May 11, 1970	LIB	32	5	41.7	27	58.3
1974	April 29, 1974	LIB	32	6	40.2	26	53.9		5.9
1978	April 24, 1978	LIB	32	15	48.2	17	50.7		1.1
1979	April 23, 1979	CON	32	21	53.2	11	45.3		1.3				0.2
1982	September 27, 1982	CON	32	21	53.6	11	45.7		0.7
1986	April 21, 1986	LIB	32	11	45.6	21	50.4		4.0
1989	May 29, 1989	LIB	32	2	35.8	30	60.7		3.5
1993	March 29, 1993	LIB	32	1	39.5	31	55.1		5.4
1996	November 18, 1996	CON	27	18	47.4	8	44.8	1	7.8
2000	April 17, 2000	CON	27	26	57.9	1	33.7		8.4
2003	September 29, 2003	CON	27	23	54.0	4	42.9		3.1
2007	May 28, 2007	LIB	27	4	41.4	23	52.9		2.0		3.0		0.7
2011	October 3, 2011	LIB	27	5	40.2	22	51.4		3.2		4.4		0.9
2015	May 4, 2015	LIB	27	8	37.4	18	40.8		11.0	1	10.8

Notes

^A Includes results for Progressive Conservatives from 1942 onwards.

^B Includes results for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1943 to 1951.

^C Vote share not known for the elections in the 19th century.

^D Tie between Conservatives and Liberals, resulting in the incumbent Conservatives remaining in power until losing a motion of confidence in 1891 after a series of by-election losses and the Liberals taking power for the remainder of the term.

^E Includes 3.4% for the Progressive Party / United Farmers.

Historical voter turnouts

Year	Turnout (%)
1966	85.65
1970	87.32
1974	82.10
1978	86.30
1979	83.80
1982	78.20
1986	87.60
1989	80.80
1993	80.70
1996	85.48
2000	84.86
2003	83.27
2007	83.84
2011	76.53

Bibliography

• (Number of MLAs per party for all elections)
• (Full results back to 1966)

See also

• Timeline of Canadian elections
• List of political parties in Prince Edward Island