How can Calgary’s elections get better? Let me count the ways

For every problem we saw in October, we should find a solution,

Many of us involved in the Oct. 16 municipal election, including the mayor’s chief of staff, strongly felt the election was poorly managed. How can we do better in 2021?

Court action was possible, but the application would have had to demonstrate that problems created a material difference in the outcome. That’s a difficult burden of proof, but not having sufficient grounds for court doesn’t mean we can’t improve things.

Within 24 hours of the election, senior city staff apologized for delays in voting, waiting times and reporting delays. They say they know they have to do better. A preliminary report may be presented to city council as early as Dec. 11.

Here are some suggestions for review. An accurate voters’ list: Provincial legislation doesn’t require that Calgary maintain a voters’ list. It’s optional and Calgary chose not to have one. A census list was used, but many of us showed up to vote at an advance poll or on election day and found our names were not on it. Anyone producing a utility bill or one of 20 or more acceptable pieces of identification could get a ballot. There was little gatekeeping going on.

The city’s response was the honour system. Most of us were asked to review and sign a card saying we were qualified to vote. That card said that we were at least 18 years of age, were Canadian citizens, had lived in Alberta for the six months before the election, resided at the address we had confirmed with elections staff, and had not voted already.

However, everyone signed on the honour system — there was no method to confirm the information. While the qualifications card was retained by staff and held until Nov. 27, if we weren’t truthful, there seems to be no way for Elections Calgary to check. If someone wanted to abuse the system, it was ripe for abuse.

Further, if a voter was prepared to be dishonest, it was possible to vote repeatedly at each of the 25 advance polls. It seems preposterous, yet the system employed by Elections Calgary left open that potential for abuse.

Better preparation: The advance voting produced a record turnout of close to 75,000. This was a 235 per cent increase in turnout compared to 2013’s advance voting. Despite knowing this, Elections Calgary issued an insufficient number of ballots on Election Day. Lineups of up to two hours were the result at many polls. Voters had other things to do than wait. The worst thing that could happen in an election, frankly, is that voters who want to vote are turned away — and they were.

Better training and more workers: I heard from many folks who worked on the election or who tried to vote dealing with myriad possible elections errors — torn ballots, badly perforated ballots, elections workers on duty for over 12 hours, rigid interpretation of procedures, turning away people in line, rebuffing challenges made by scrutineers, shortages of ballots, irregularities in vote counting, the closure of many of the former seniors’ voting stations, having all the backup ballots located at the Elections Calgary office out near the airport, using Uber drivers to deliver ballots, having little or no relief staff, and so on. These are all obvious low-hanging fruit that can be improved in 2021. Transparency: We also heard from election day hires that they were required to sign a nondisclosure statement as part of their employment. Not helpful if you are looking to improve elections processes. Any review by the city should encourage, not discourage, feedback from the front lines.

Use better technology: With the recent hiring of a new chief returning officer, and based on her experience in Edmonton with electronic tabulation of votes — a system used throughout most of Alberta for the last 20 years — we hope that city council will adopt this technology and make other apparent changes to its elections procedures.

I urge city council and city officials to look closely at what happened on Oct. 16 and to listen to those who saw the problems first-hand. Changes are critical, so we won’t have to hear on the third Monday in October 2021 the words, “It didn’t really happen here again, did it?”