Calgary 2025 election results will take longer to confirm: returning officer

While Calgary’s municipal election day is Monday, results confirming the next council and mayor will take longer to confirm than in the past, said the city’s returning officer.

This is due to the UCP government bringing in new legislation in 2024, now requiring all ballots to be counted by hand and not by electronic voting tabulators.

Bill 20 changed the Local Authorities Election Act and the Municipal Government Act, which the province says will add greater transparency to local election processes and require greater accountability from local councils and elected officials.

Calgary’s counting process starts with mayoral votes, with results expected to come in Monday night. But Calgarians won’t know about other results until at least Tuesday.

“We’re confident that around 3 p.m., we can start expecting the ward results for the councillors to be done, and then we will begin the trustee count, and that we’re projecting to complete around 8 p.m.,” Kate Martin, the City of Calgary’s returning officer, said in a news conference Sunday.

The Big Four Roadhouse building, designated as the vote-counting centre, will begin with advance votes and mail-in ballots for Calgary. About 96,000 Calgarians cast their ballot during advance voting this year – compared to 140,000 in the previous election.

There are 43 separate booths set up in this space, with each assigned an advanced vote location, and it’s going to be busy for the next few days.

“Over the next two days, we will have approximately 500 election workers that will be conducting the hand count here,” Martin said.

“We’re also anticipating about 130 scrutineers for each mayoral campaign, and each councillor campaign may have up to 120 scrutineers as well.”

The extra costs of additional employees, space rental and security have made this election much pricier than those in the past, estimated to cost about $15 million.

“We’re estimating that the cost increase is approximately $1.3 million and that was to account for the hand count, as well as for the new legislative requirement of the permanent elector register,” Martin said.

“We’ve also had some additional costs in terms of set up, once we were able to rent the facility.”

As for the integrity of hand-counting votes over electronic tabulators.

“They might certainly look different, but whether it is a tabulator count or whether it is a hand count, both have their security and integrity processes built in,” Martin said.