As Edmontonians cast their ballots Monday, many were faced with long wait times due to short staffing alongside ballot and technology issues and even a power outage. On top of that, results trickled in, with around 75 per cent of votes reported as of late Tuesday afternoon. “Multiple factors impacted our procedures for both voting and the counting of ballots,” said a social media post by Edmonton Elections. “We know it is taking longer than initially anticipated, but we are working to ensure the confidence and integrity of the vote.” This was the first year where municipalities in Alberta had to count votes by hand after the provincial government banned tabulators in 2024 through Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act (2024). Minister of municipal affairs Dan Williams said hand-counted paper ballots are the “gold standard” when it comes to elections of all kinds. “We made these legislative changes over a year in advance,” said Williams. “My hope and expectation is that (municipalities) are prepared.” The province also legislated attestation forms for voters to complete at voting stations before they cast their ballots. “This is a good thing. This shows that we know the results are something Albertans can have trust in,” he said. “It reinforces the democratic role that we have in elections in our society.” Pollster and political commentator Janet Brown said the delays Albertans experienced voting is bad for democracy. “There was low voter turnout in this election. There was low interest, and I think all of these delays are going to add to the cynicism and are going to discourage people from voting in the future,” Brown told CTV News Edmonton. She said Calgary and Edmonton, two cities that saw the most difficulties in the election process, should conduct an investigation to better prepare for future elections. “There’s a lot of finger-pointing: the province wants to make this about the city, the city wants to make this about the province,” she said. “I think there’s plenty of blame to go around, and I would hope the mayors want to know what their cities can do to make this situation better in four years.” Williams said the province intends to conduct an “after-action report” looking at where municipalities needed supports. “I think that municipal officials running these elections are professionals, and where we need to tweak the process is to make sure they understand what’s asked of them in advance,” said the minister. Brown said she waited to vote in Calgary for about an hour and although she had her voting card, identification and was registered to vote, she still needed to take a couple of minutes to fill out the attestation form before she cast her ballot. “For a government that prides themselves on red tape reduction, it sure felt like a lot of red tape,” said Brown. “I’m a committed voter, but man, I’m discouraged.” She said she’s worried that young people and first-time voters will be even more discouraged about the democratic process going forward, adding that with a lower voter turnout, it should’ve been easier to vote – not harder. Edmonton Elections unofficially reported a 30.27 per cent voter turnout with 205,758 out of an estimated 679,830 eligible voters casting their ballots. There was a voter turnout of 37.6 per cent for the 2021 municipal election, the highest in 15 years. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg
