2025 Calgary election to be costlier, results to take longer under new law
Global News
Council and school board trustee election results likely won't be known until after election day, according to Elections Calgary, due to a provincial ban on vote count tabulators.
Changes to provincial legislation will likely mean additional costs and a lengthy delay in counting the council and school board trustee votes in the upcoming municipal election, Elections Calgary said Friday.
The legislative changes, introduced in Bill 20 in 2024 in an effort to “increase transparency in local elections,” include new requirements for a permanent electors to register and a ban on the use of electronic tabulators to count ballots.
The new rules mean election workers in Calgary will be required to count each ballot by hand on election night.
“The process is significantly different,” said Kate Martin, returning officer with Elections Calgary. “We will be working as efficiently as we can to deliver those results with integrity, but yes it will take some time.”
Elections Calgary said it is opening additional polling stations across the city for a total of 42 during advance voting between Oct. 6-11. There will be 261 stations on election night, a 40 per cent increase over the 2021 election.
A total of 4,500 election workers are being hired, as well as stand-by workers, to help ensure adequate staffing for counting.
Originally pegged at $1.3 million, the additional costs due to the legislative changes are now estimated at $3.3 million for a total budget of $11.94 million.
“Those costs are really to account for the hand counting of the ballots,” Martin said. “That is going to cost us more in terms of the number of voting stations, the number of election workers that we’re hiring, and of course all the supplies. We are also looking at increasing our technology costs.”
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