Edmonton’s vote count drags on for hours after Calgary finishes

While Calgarians may be angry with their municipal election results, Edmontonians still have no idea who their next mayor is.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

While Calgarians may be angry with their municipal election results, called early Tuesday morning despite the two frontrunners being separated by mere hundreds of votes, Edmontonians still have no idea who their next mayor is.

By Tuesday afternoon, not even half the polling stations had been counted in Edmonton, despite every single polling station reporting in Calgary hours earlier.

By the time of this article’s publication, Edmonton had reported only 41 per cent of mayoral polling stations, while Calgary had released full results for all 380 stations hours earlier.

While Andrew Knack leads Tim Cartmell in Edmonton’s race, it’s still too soon to call the election, given the delayed results.

Lawyer and Edmontonian Eva Chipiuk raised her concerns on X.

“Edmonton is the capital of Alberta. If it wants to be taken seriously, it needs to act seriously,” she said. “The problem is not the process: it’s the people running it.”

Thanks to Alberta implementing sweeping changes to local election laws in April 2024, all automated voting equipment, like electronic tabulators, became prohibited at municipal elections, and votes were required to be counted by hand.

While some left-wing pundits have tried to blame the government’s change for Edmonton’s slow pace in tallying the votes, that is clearly without substance, considering Calgary had no issue getting the results out in a timely fashion.

Some X users suggested that this could be a ploy by NDP supporters in Edmonton to create the illusion that the province cannot hold elections.

Local journalist David Staples raised a similar point, reminding Edmontonians that paper ballots had been counted in a timely fashion for decades without electronic vote counters.

“The incompetence of our modern City Hall is breathtaking,” he said.

As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, Staples highlighted that Edmonton had counted and reported 54,477 votes. Conversely, Calgary had counted and reported 348,642, enough to crown the new mayor — Jeromy Farkas.

Despite him and other Edmontonians raising issues with City Hall, the mayoral race is clearly between two sitting councillors: Andrew Knack and Tim Cartmell. Therefore, Edmonton’s next mayor may be more of the same than anything new.

The recent electoral changes also allowed municipal candidates to appear on the ballot with party affiliations and were introduced for this year’s elections in both cities. Calgary and Edmonton conducted their own counts independently.

As for how long it will take to tally the votes in Edmonton and declare its new mayor, that remains in limbo.