St. Albert resolution asks province to reverse ban on vote-counting machines

ST. ALBERT -

The City of St. Albert says changes to Alberta election rules will make voting costlier and less reliable and is asking the province to reverse its ban on vote-counting machines.

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At the Alberta Municipalities (ABmunis) Convention in Red Deer next week, St. Albert will bring forward a motion to advocate to the Government of Alberta to permit municipalities to use vote counting systems of their choosing in local elections, “to ensure accurate, cost-effective and timely results for Albertan voters.”

Vote tabulators had been used in local elections in Alberta since at least the 1990s, but changes to the Local Authorities Election Act earlier this year disallowed their use.

Mayor Cathy Heron says that if ballots have to be manually counted, future votes would require additional election workers and the city expects results will be significantly delayed.

“The results are going to be delayed. We're predicting at least three to four days, if not more. So on election night, you will not get your answers, which is going to be kind of frustrating for the candidates,” she said.

St. Albert’s convention resolution notes that in municipal elections, ballots often contain several individual votes, such as choosing the mayor, councillors, school board trustees, senate nominees, provincial referendums, and local plebiscites. Aside from the time it takes to manually count each ballot, the process would increase the risk of votes not being counted and vote counting errors, the motion states.

Preventing human errors in ballot counting was part of the reason the province initially chose to use electronic tabulators, Heron said.

“The province allowed municipalities to bring in their electronic counting machines to eliminate any question of reliability, because they felt at the time that the electronic machines were better than human counts,” Heron said.

Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver has said the province did not have concerns about the reliability of vote counting machines, but that distrust in the machines among voters threatened to undermine trust in elections outcomes.

Some of the messaging around tabulators has “some echoes of some of the mistrust of the voting machines down in the States,” Heron said. “But I think it's important to note that these are just counting machines you don't actually vote on it. You still have to have your piece of paper and your pencil,” Heron said.

An administrative report to Red Deer council earlier this month estimated getting rid of vote tabulators would make the 2025 election 3.5 times more expensive than previous years. Heron said St. Albert has not yet calculated its own additional election costs but will be reviewing business cases and funding options in upcoming budget talks.