City of Lethbridge says hand-counted ballots will delay results in next municipal election

LETHBRIDGE -

While a municipal election is still 11 months away, the City of Lethbridge says it expects recent changes to Bill 20 will have significant impacts.

In October, Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver announced the changes, including the banning of electronic tabulators during municipal elections.

"It's about confidence in the results of the election," McIver said.

"We think that's worth something."

But the challenges are raising some concerns within municipalities across the province.

"We'll be hand-counting ballots instead of using tabulators; therefore, the results will be significantly delayed," said Bonnie Hilford, Lethbridge's city clerk and returning officer.

"We won't get them the Monday night of the election like we usually do."

Instead, Hilford says, it will take a minimum of four days before the results are known.

Rather than having one ballot with everything on it, Hilford says voters will receive five colour-coded ballots, which will then be placed in five colour-coded ballot boxes to be counted.

"We'll have a separate ballot for the mayor, which will be one colour," Hilford said.

"A separate ballot for councillor, which will be another colour. Separate ballots for separate and public school trustees.

"And if council decides to put any questions on the ballot as well, there will be separate ballots for each question."

Since being announced, the city has undertaken two test runs for counting ballots by hand.

On average, it takes roughly 28 minutes to count 50 ballots.

With 32,000 voters expected, the city will have to count more than 160,000 ballots.

There will be an increase in ballot boxes needed from 48 to more than 250.

The increase in work will result in a price tag of $323,000, which the city will have to cover.

The added cost is on top of the current standard election expenses of $342,186.

"The last time we hand-counted was in 1989," said David Sarsfield, deputy city clerk.

"I did talk to the returning officer of the day because I know her personally, and she aligned the circumstances which led to their decision to go to tabulators and we've used tabulators with extreme success since then."

Since 1992, when electronic tabulators were introduced, there have been no recounts needed.

To reduce cost, this election will have three super stations for voting during nine days rather than 14 smaller stations.

Along with a municipal election, the federal election is also planned for the same day.

"We're aware of that," Sarsfield said.

"We've talked to the federal people to try to mitigate it and make it easier as much as possible for the individual, but we sense there will be confusion."

He says voting will likely take place at the same locations, but different areas and lineups will be needed.

"Speed is admirable, but it's not the goal we're achieving," Sarsfield said.

"The goal we're trying to achieve is accurate results."

Nomination packages to run for either mayor, council or school trustees can be submitted starting Jan. 1.