Edmonton will need to spend about $4.8 million more on its next municipal election than expected because of new rules brought in by the Alberta government this year.
Hiring more people to count votes by hand and make the permanent electors list are the most expensive — $1.8 million and $1 million more than budgeted, respectively. The city will need to hire 1,230 more temporary election workers for advance and regular voting days, plus another 87 temporary or short-term employees for other work related to the election. Edmonton will have to print 1.6 million extra ballots and 240,000 more voter information cards.
There is no evidence of voter fraud in Alberta associated with vote-counting machines.
Ward Nakota Isga Coun. Andrew Knack is frustrated to see how much the new rules will cost the city.
“It’s frustrating because it’s (equivalent to) a 0.3 per cent tax increase at a time where we’re already staring down significant costs including other things the province hasn’t been paying for, such as their property taxes,” he said. “All of this is cumulatively adding up at a time Edmontonians are asking us to do everything possible to minimize their costs.
“Albertans didn’t ask for this. It doesn’t have in most cases any real benefit, so why should we be the one required to pay for that?”
Knack said it doesn’t make sense to change the rules because a small group of people are distrustful because of misinformation.
Edmonton city council is set to discuss the report from Elections Edmonton at the city council meeting Wednesday or Thursday.
Will Alberta cover the bill?
“There is nothing more important than the confidence Albertans have in the results of an election,” McIver told reporters Thursday. “We’re going to do it without the electronic counters. It’s worked for decades and it will work again.”
On Wednesday, the premier said she has asked the 30-or-so municipalities using tabulators to tally up the added costs to see if the province can help out.
But McIver had a different response Thursday.
“What we implemented many, many years ago — decades ago — is that municipalities actually pay for the cost of their own elections. That hasn’t changed and will not be changing this time around.”
– With files from The Canadian Press