Delays in Edmonton election results due to hand counting, as candidates blast ‘unnecessary’ tabulator ban

Edmontonians will likely have to wait to find out who their councillors will be, because ballots are being hand counted.

Edmonton Elections says preliminary results for councillors and school board trustees are expected Tuesday.

Counting will begin when the polls close Monday night and go on until 1 a.m., before resuming at 9 a.m. the following morning.

The provincial government banned electronic voting tabulators in municipal elections last year, despite pushback from municipalities. Premier Danielle Smith had insisted paper ballots were a way to make elections safer.

Mayoral candidate Tim Cartmell criticized the Smith government’s decision for adding to election costs.

“This was a gift from the provincial government,” Cartmell said. “It makes no sense to me. It’s going to cost the city a lot of money.”

Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Andrew Knack questioned the need to ban electronic tabulators.

“It’s rather silly that we have to go to a hand ballot counting,” Knack said. “It means people are going to have to wait much, much longer for results when there’s never been any evidence of election fraud. So this was an unnecessary step.”

Another mayoral candidate Michael Walters, a former two-time councillor, echoed Knack’s sentiment.

“I felt like our elections worked really well in the past number of years. To shift away from the tabulators to the hand counting is unnecessary,” Walters said.