Less than 10 per cent of Red Deer’s eligible voters turned out for Monday’s byelection to fill an empty seat on Red Deer city council.
Returning officer Jessica Robinson said 6,802 ballots were cast out of a total eligible voter pool of about 80,000 Red Deerians — which is about an 8.5 per cent turnout.
About 40 per cent of the ballots were cast at advance polls.
Robinson said turnout was much lower than the more than 30 per cent of voters who went to the polls in the general municipal election of 2021. But this is usually the case for byelections, which generally draw less voter interest.
Robinson was heartened that 10 candidates were vying for one empty seat on city council, which she feels does indicate some strong local interest exists in municipal government.
Red Deer’s first-ever byelection went smoothly overall, said Robinson, who noted most voters used the polling station at Parkland Mall to cast their votes. The two other polling stations were at Westerner Park and Baymont Inn and Suites.
Chad Krahn, constituency assistant for Red Deer-South MLA Jason Stephan, was the winner of Red Deer’s first-ever byelection on Monday and the result was known within a couple of hours of the polls closing because of electronic tabulators.
But on Thursday, the provincial government announced it is introducing legislation to get rid of electronic vote counting so they all must be done by hand.
“All Albertans should be able to trust the methods and results of local elections; requiring all ballots to be counted by hand, clarifying rules and streamlining processes for scrutineers will provide voters greater assurance in the integrity of the results,” stated a release from Alberta Municipal Affairs.
The provincial government would also have the authority to remove democratically elected councillors, according to a criteria that has yet to be decided by Premier Danielle Smith.
Municipal Affairs minister Ric McIver told the CBC it would have to be a last resort, and for very good reason, or the public would hold the government to account.
As well, the provincial legislation would allow political parties to run candidates at the local level. This could happen in Calgary and Edmonton by next year.
Red Deer’s byelection was held because of the death of Coun. Michael Dawe in December.