Electoral official predicts smooth sailing at ballot
Returning officer encourages residents to head to voting stations early
The city’s returning officer says Calgary is ready for Tuesday’s plebiscite, as thousands of citizens head to the polls to have their say on whether they want Calgary to host the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Laura Kennedy told councillors on Monday that the city is expecting a smooth process at the ballot boxes.
“The process has worked really well and the advance vote is evidence of that,” she said. “We did make modifications to our processes, and with those process changes we were able to break records … It was a very good test.”
More than 760,000 Calgary residents are eligible to vote in the plebiscite. About 55,000 either already voted during last week’s advance polls, or have requested a mail-in ballot.
“So the balance, we’re ready for,” said Kennedy, adding that Elections Calgary will have 160 voting locations across the city, and will also be going to hospitals and homeless shelters to collect ballots.
The city also shouldn’t run into issues seen during the 2017 municipal election, which experienced ballot shortages, according to Kennedy.
“If more ballots or more supplies are required at a voting station, or more staff, we actually have two wards paired up and there’s a location central to those two wards where there’s additional supplies and staff at the ready to be deployed to any voting station,” she said.
For the plebiscite, the city unveiled electronic tabulator machines to tally results. But some early voters reported problems with the machines during the advance voting period, claiming ballots were being rejected, which kept lineups of people waiting at the McKenzie Towne Hall voting station.
But Kennedy said those problems were due to human error, as voters were accidentally pulling back their ballots as the machine tried to accept the piece of paper, causing the tabulators to reject them.
She encouraged Calgarians to vote early, if possible, in order to avoid lineups, as data shows that 60 per cent of voters tend to hit the polls between 4 and 8 p.m.
Elections Calgary timed how long it took voters to go through the voting process last week, finding it ranged anywhere from “a couple minutes” to 22 minutes.
Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday. You must vote at your designated voting station (in the voting subdivision in which you live), which can be found by visiting vote2018.calgary.ca/When-and-where-to-vote.html and entering your home address.
There is no need to register in advance to vote.
Voters must provide one piece of authorized identification at the voting station, such as an Alberta driver’s licence or an Alberta Identification Card that confirms their name and current residential address.
For more information, visit vote2018.calgary.ca/FAQs.html