Ban on tabulators means election results will arrive much later in 2025, official says
While the unofficial results for Edmonton's 2021 municipal election were ready by 8:30pm on voting day, voters should not expect similar in 2025.
"We had all the results before people went to bed on election night, and that will not be the case this time," Aileen Giesbrecht, the returning officer and city clerk for the City of Edmonton, told Taproot.
The reason is changes to election rules that the United Conservative Party government created with Bill 20 in 2024. Giesbrecht said specifically the law's ban on vote tabulation machines means the count will take at least an extra day, and that manual counts for municipal votes will take longer than the recent federal election, which itself spilled over into an extra day, because of the added complexity of municipal ballots. Bill 20, or the Municipal Affairs Statute Amendment Act, includes multiple changes to the Local Authorities Elections Act and the Municipal Government Act. Alberta Municipalities criticized the bill immediately when it was tabled. Municipal politicians did the same, including Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi (who will conclude his term but not seek re-election now that he lost a race for a seat in the federal election).
In October, just after the new rules came into effect, the City of Edmonton estimated the changes would mean holding the 2025 election would cost $4.8 million more than holding the 2021 election. In 2021, the municipal election cost just more than $7.3 million, though the City of Edmonton only spent a bit more than $3.2 million due to a provincial grant and cost sharing with Edmonton's school boards.
Giesbrecht said the $4.8 million estimate is likely in the right ballpark but that the actual amount could still change.
"Sometimes legislation changes right up until the last minute," she said. "Right now, the information (we're working with) is what was passed in the legislature for Bill 20, and then any other changes that might be coming."
In April, the UCP government introduced further changes to municipal elections with Bill 50, which is also called the Municipal Affairs Amendment Act. That bill tweaks recount procedures, and adds requirements to offer private voting areas for voters with disabilities. The bill makes many further changes outside of election processes.
Giesbrecht said the city worked on analyzing the 2021 election process to improve it, only to now need to start over. The biggest cost that the new rules create boils down to extra staff hours, which are needed given that manual counting takes longer and requires more workers. She added that the city will have to hand count four types of ballots — for mayor, councillor, public school trustee, and Catholic school trustee — and pay for those ballots, too.
"We purchase a ballot for every single elector in Edmonton, whether they show up or not, because, obviously, it's your right to vote," Giesbrecht said.
In October, Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver told reporters that mandating manual counts by banning tabulators will improve voter trust in the election process. Giesbrecht, meanwhile, said there have been "no issues with tabulators," and that the city doesn't know for sure when the last time it hand-counted ballots. Her office later provided Taproot with a scan of an Edmonton Journal article from 1968 that announced the adoption of tabulators.
