Electronic vote counters won’t be used in next Alberta election

CALGARY New electronic vote counters speedily delivered the results in the recent CalgaryLougheed byelection, but they won’t be used in the 2019 provincial vote, Elections Alberta says.

New rules may even mean vote results in the next election come in slightly slower, the independent agency said this week.

As a pilot project, Elections Alberta used electronic vote tabulators that automatically count the paper ballots in the Dec. 14 CalgaryLougheed vote that saw United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney gain a legislature seat.

Using the machines, a large number of results were out within five minutes of polls closing at 8 p.m., with the majority out by 8:20 p.m.

Pamela Renwick, spokeswoman for Elections Alberta, said from the agency’s perspective the experiment — which also included the use of electronic pollbooks to speed up the voting process — went “really well.”

However, utilizing the machines in 2019 would require both a change to legislation and more lead time for implementation, she said.

Elections Alberta estimates it would cost $4.4 million to use the machines for all polls in a provincial election, $1.4 million if they were used only at advanced polls.

The NDP government passed Bill 32, which made a series of amendments to the Election Act, but did not change the law to allow the use of electronic voting tabulators.

One change in Bill 32 may contribute to slowing down the vote count.

The legislation allows for Albertans to vote at any advanced poll station across the province. However, all those ballots have to be returned to the Elections Alberta central office for sorting and counting.