Hatters arrive at the opening of the Esplanade municipal polling station in this October 2021 file photo. City officials are suggesting that taking away electronic vote tabulators will likely cost around $500,000 more than last election.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
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City staff are now contemplating how much it will cost to meet the new provincial protocol to hand count ballots in the 2025 municipal election, while elected officials from across Alberta are discussing how to reverse a decision to ban electronic vote scanning.
The City of Red Deer recently announced that its cost to conduct and oversee the election could more than triple compared to three years ago if extra hiring is required. Even so, election results might not be known for more than three days.
“It is equally unrealistic to expect we will find 1,200 temporary counting staff,” reads a memo to that city’s council in August.
If the same cost estimate applies in Medicine Hat, an additional $500,000 in city funds might be needed.
Last May, Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver introduced new local election rules, including an end to the practice of using vote tabulators after claiming a need to bolster confidence in election security.
“I’ve never called their integrity into question,” he told a press conference at the time. “But if you talk to Albertans, you will find a number of them don’t have faith in machines counting ballots.”
Medicine Hat and dozens of other municipalities have for decades used tabulators that were the focus of a number of unsubstantiated challenges in the United States to overturn the 2020 presidential election, among other races.
City finance officials are now finalizing items in the 2025-2026 budget, including one-time major expenses like the election, which is tasked to the city clerk’s office.
Estimates could be known later this fall, officials said Wednesday, when the operational budget is presented for approval. Included will be potential options to offset cost.
This week however, delegates to the Alberta Munis conference will debate a resolution calling for the province to allow them to continue using vote tabulators.
St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron is sponsoring the resolution which states that electronic reading of ballots is a well-established practice with safeguards in place.
A switch will cause delays, introduce human error and potentially backfire in its goal of boosting public confidence, the resolution reads.
“Such delays and errors could undermine the trust of residents in their local government’s ability to uphold the principles of democratic integrity and effective local government,” the resolution reads.
City of Red Deer officials told their council in August that tabulators are secure from tampering and are much more efficient at handling ballots in locations that do not employ a ward system.
Those races require one mark per race, whereas in “at-large races” – like in Medicine Hat – voters make multiple votes among dozens of choices on a single ballot.
The 2019-2022 city budget estimated that the 2021 election would cost $250,000 to conduct, while a long-term estimate for the 2025 vote was pegged at $270,000.
Eventually however, the October 2021 vote was $80,000 over that budget as officials added stations and moved locations to generally space out operations during the COVID pandemic.
A portion of the overrun was reimbursed by the province as the city also handled two referendum questions related to time change and equalization, as well as senator-in-waiting elections.
The city also typically handles ballots for trustees in two urban school divisions.
About 19,000 ballots were cast for mayor in 2021, when there were five candidates.
On the council race however, 33 candidates were on a ballot where voters chose up to eight selections – a situation that Red Deer officials say negates the ability to simply sort ballots and count relatively quickly.
In similar fashion, voters chose between 14 candidates who ran for five public school trustee positions, or seven candidates for five local Catholic school trustee positions.
