City votes no on new election laws

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on March 12, 2025.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

City council on Tuesday sent a strong message to the provincial government that it doesn’t support the ban on electronic ballot counting devices in October’s municipal election.

Council unanimously supported an official business motion presented by councillor Rajko Dodic asking the provincial government to let the City of Lethbridge tabulate votes in October’s municipal election by its own preferred method.

Council heard late last year that the UCP government’s ban on electronic voting tabulators will increase the City’s cost of running the election by about $300,000 and substantially delay results being determined. This means the fall vote could cost the City about $650,000 to run the election. And results won’t likely be known for several days after polls close, rather than after a few hours as has been the case since electronic tabulators were first used here in 1992.

Dodic’s resolution asked council to write a letter to appropriate provincial authorities requesting that the City of Lethbridge be given the option to choose whether to count ballots manually or by tabulation in the October vote.

The letter will state that if the City’s request is denied then it wants the province to confirm all increased costs borne by the City will be covered by the province.

The motion also stated that new rules calling for votes to be counted on-site after stations close will “present numerous tactical difficulties in terms of counting votes in separate locations without lack of central co-ordination” so the province is being asked to allow the City to transfer ballot boxes back to a secure location inside City Hall for counting.

In a January letter to Mayor Blaine Hyggen, the province’s Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver defended the prohibition of electronic tabulators which Lethbridge has used with no problems since 1992.

“It is important for all Albertans to feel they can trust the methods and results of local elections. A poll conducted by Leger in May 2024 found that 36 per cent of Albertans support prohibiting electronic tabulators. That means roughly one in three Albertans may not trust election results produced by a tabulator. The Government of Alberta believes the time and cost to manually count ballots is outweighed by the increased confidence in election results,” McIver wrote.

The ban on electronic tabulators was one of several changes included in Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act which was proclaimed on Oct. 31.

Dodic told his colleagues support for his resolution doesn’t mean they’re against the UCP but rather against bad law.

Mayor Blaine Hyggen, who supported the motion, told council that he understands amendments could be announced by the province in April.

Councillor Jenn Schmidt-Rempel called the new provincial rules an “unnecessary and costly change” while colleague Belinda Crowson said the logistics don’t make sense, asking how municipalities are supposed to follow the new regulation while also abiding by other provincial laws and respecting staff and people hired to count votes.

“This isn’t going to work in Lethbridge,” Crowson stated.

Councillor Ryan Parker noted that to his knowledge there was never a problem here with electronic tabulators and doesn’t know who the province talked to when it said one in three Albertans don’t trust them.

But he also said he feels the council’s vote will probably fall on deaf ears.

Dodic said during his opening address that hand counting is not necessarily more reliable than electronic tabulation and in his opinion it isn’t as accurate. He pointed out that 85 per cent of members in the Alberta Municipalities organization either want electronic tabulators or at least to have a choice.

He noted that after the 2021 municipal election here, results were ready several hours after polls closed and each ballot had the names of more than 30 council candidates plus the names of candidates for public and separate school boards and two non-binding questions on a third bridge and a ward system.

“Can we get them to change their mind,” Dodic asked of the province.

“Probably not because the minority has spoken,” he said.

While previously all candidates for mayor, council, school boards and any questions council or the province might ask voters’ input on were listed on one ballot, that changes in 2025.

Each voter will have separate ballots for mayoral candidates, council candidates, school board candidates and those questions.

This means the City will be using colour coded ballot boxes and will be utilizing 20 teams of four members each to count the ballots at three so-called super-sized voting which will be utilized instead of 14 smaller stations, council heard at a meeting last fall.

Teams will include one caller, two tickers and one supervisor. Callers read the names out while both tickers mark votes on separate improved tally sheets. The supervisor monitors, reviews rejected ballots and enters both sheet totals into a spreadsheet as well as ensuring the process is secure and adhered to.

The voting window will run from Oct. 8 to Oct. 20.

The 20 counting teams are going to need 20 rooms and large secured storage spaces for 250 or more ballot boxes from Monday, Oct. 20 until the afternoon of Friday Oct. 24 or longer if a recount is needed.

In the 2021 election, the City had one tabulator/ballot box at each voting station but in 2025 at least four ballot boxes will be needed at each station.

A hand-counting exercise conducted by Administration just for council members showed that it took 28 minutes to count 50 ballots. One team took 168 minutes to count 250 ballots, an average of 40.3 seconds per ballot. A second team took 178.5 minutes to count 250 ballots, for an average of 42.9 seconds each.

Total time to count councillor ballots at 41.6 seconds each is estimated at 370 hours. With 20 teams of four people counting at the same time, that will take an estimated 18.5 hours to complete counting those ballots after the October election.

Counting ballots for mayoral candidates will be quicker, according to another exercise. One team completed a count of 501 ballots in 33 minutes. A second team took 44 minutes to complete 485 ballots.

The exercise showed that 16 teams of five – a total of 80 people – could finish the count in 2.6 hours.

It’s estimated it will take 80 people a total of 44 hours to hand-count all votes for mayor, councillors and school trustees.