Days after civic elections were held throughout Alberta, the final results for a number of communities were finally being released.
In some, close results necessitated recounts – and in three races, the final decision came down to draws.
In Edson, officials carried out a recount to choose the mayor, and six councilors.
Unofficial results released Wednesday named Greg Pasychny as mayor-elect and Gean Chouinard, Janet Wilkinson, Tammy Strang, Trevor Bevan, and Brian Boyce as councilors.
However, the last spot on council came down to a tie between council candidates John Walker and Jim Gomuwka, both of whom collected 727 votes each.
To break the tie, town officials said a draw was held – as per the Local Authorities Election Act – and John Walker’s name was drawn.
The same procedure was used to break ties for two council seats in Red Deer County.
In that county, the races in Division 3 and Division 4 came down to ties.
In Division 3, candidates Penny Archibald and Don Church each garnered 288 votes, a third candidate, Darlene Schmidt, collected 90 votes.
For Division 4, the two candidates, David Hoar and Connie Huelsman, each collected 328 votes.
Draws to break those ties chose Don Church and Connie Huelsman as the respective councilors for their wards.
Recounts in Morinville completed
In another community, the wait to hear who had been chosen as mayor and councillor in the community ended Wednesday after unofficial recount results were released.
The election in Morinville had boiled down to close results in two races – original numbers revealed mayoral candidates Lisa Holmes and Sheldon Fingler had gathered 1034 and 1016 votes respectively.
A recount added two votes to Fingler’s total, but that was not enough to change the end result – with Holmes having the most votes.
An even closer result in the council race ended with a change to the original result for two candidates: Jacki Luker and Rob Ladouceur ended up vying for the sixth spot on council.
Original unofficial numbers had Luker ahead of Ladouceur by two votes, but a recount found Ladouceur had 689 votes, with 684 votes for Luker.
The rest of the votes for council ended up as follows: Gord Putnam (1452 votes), Nicole Boutestein (1205), Barry Turner (1145), Stephen Dafoe (952), and Brennan FitzGerald (801).
