New rules coming at the end of October will prohibit the use of electronic voting tabulators, which have been used in previous civic votes in Calgary and Edmonton.
It’s part of a swath of changes announced to the Local Authorities Election Act by Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver that also included more information on local political parties, slates and campaign financing.
The tabulators were first used in Calgary as a part of the 2026 Winter Olympic vote and then again in the last municipal election. It provided swift results and a cost-effective alternative to traditional hand counting paper ballots.
Minister McIver cited a Leger survey done in May 2024 that showed a blended 37 per cent of Albertans were either somewhat supportive (22 per cent) or strongly supportive (15 per cent) of prohibiting the use of electronic tabulators for election night counts. Roughly the same percentage of respondents expressed somewhat or strong opposition to their prohibition.
It’s worth noting that outside of Calgary and Edmonton the number that supported prohibition jumped to 44 per cent, while dropping to 33 per cent in the major cities.
“I myself don’t feel that way, but the fact is, I don’t want one out of three Albertans walking around feeling like they can disrespect their local municipal council because they think that they weren’t legitimately elected,” Minister McIver said.
“I think it’s a real important part of our democracy, whether it’s a municipal, provincial or federal level, is that people respect those that put their names, the legitimate authority of the people that get elected to make rules around bylaws and stuff around a municipality. I think that supporting that respect for elected municipal elected people is something really important and something that we should be supporting.”
A February 2024 report done by the Voting Rights Lab showed, in several cases, that hand-counted, paper ballots resulted in more inaccurate results and also opened the door to heightened voter concern about corruption.
The cost of going back to hand counts
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek slammed the province’s decision to move back to hand-counted paper ballots.
“What I understand is that Minister McIver was concerned that the public, a portion of the public, didn’t trust tabulators and that we needed to regain the trust of the public,” she said.
“I would say that it’s probably our job to dispel the myths around tabulators, more so than try to appease people who have a conspiracy theory.”
There’s also an additional cost to cities, now that they’re back to hiring more election staff to do the hand counting. Alberta Municipalities previously said that it would cost cities millions more to administer 2025 elections without tabulators. It would also delay results.
The City Clerk provided a report back to council indicating that Bill 20 required them to alter plans for the 2025 municipal vote.
“Through Bill 20, significant changes to the Local Authorities Election Act (LAEA) were introduced which will significantly impact the
administration of the 2025 General Election,” the report read.
“Operational plans are in progress to accommodate new requirements, including the introduction of a permanent register of electors, hand-counted ballots and political parties and slates.”
Minister McIver wasn’t sympathetic to the added cost for cities to go back to hand counting for election night. He said for decades Alberta municipalities have had to pay for municipal elections. McIver did say that if cities had ongoing contracts for tabulators that won’t be used next year, the province would compensate them for that.
Mayor Gondek said she found it “rich” that Minister McIver would say that local municipalities run elections.
“We are the worker bees that make those elections happen,” said Mayor Gondek.
“The rules are set out by the province, yet the cost incurred falls squarely on us as municipalities, and it falls on Calgary’s taxpayers. You’re going to be paying more for an election because this government doesn’t want tabulators.”
