Smith insistent on electronic vote tabulator ban despite pushback from municipalities

The province is not backing down on their efforts to ban electronic voting tabulators in Alberta despite a major pushback from municipalities who claim it will make ballot counting slower, more costly, and less accurate.

Premier Danielle Smith’s government passed Bill 20 as the spring sitting of the Alberta legislature wrapped at the end of May. A condition of the bill bans the use of electronic voting tabulators, forcing municipalities to hand-count ballots.

Alberta Municipalities are now asking that the decision be reversed after 85 per cent of members voted at a conference in Red Deer this week that they didn’t want the province to take away their electronic voting tabulators.

The province claims the change will better protect the integrity of elections, but municipalities fear it will do the opposite, slowing down the voting process and impacting accuracy.

Speaking to reporters after addressing the convention on Thursday, Smith says it’s not a decision that falls on the shoulders of municipal governments.

“We’re not always going to agree with the municipalities,” she says. “They’ve also debated a motion to allow permanent residents the ability to vote, even though our constitution says you have to be a citizen.”

Smith argues that municipalities are “a creature of the provincial government” and can only act under the parameters of the Municipal Government Act.

“As a provincial government we have heard that people want to go back to paper ballots, we’ve started with municipalities and we’re going to be doing that at the provincial level too,” Smith says.

The changes to electronic voting are slated to come into effect during the next round of municipal elections in October 2025.

A recent report published by the City of Red Deer administration shows the changes to manual vote counting would cost about $1.5 million in the next election — which is about three-and-a-half times more expensive than previous years.

The tabulator ban caught the attention of NDP leader Naheed Nenshi during his speech to attendees on Thursday.

“We won’t cave in to conspiracy theorists and cost you millions of dollars, we’ll let you use the damn vote counting machines,” he said.

Smith has said the province will consider helping out cities and towns if they have to spend more money counting votes come election time.

In addition to banning electronic voting, Bill 20 also makes it easier for the province to overrule local bylaws, allows the province the right to start a recall of councillors and mayors, and paves the way for political parties in Calgary and Edmonton.