Recounts are almost certain in a handful of Calgary ridings after tight election races Monday. .Under the Elections Act, automatic recounts are triggered when the margin of decision is less than .1% or 100 votes, which means at least two Calgary ridings — Acadia and Glenmore — will be officially recounted..In Calgary-Acadia, NDP candidate Diana Batten defeated UCP cabinet minister Tyler Shandro by just seven votes in one of the most closely watched races in the province. In Calgary-Glemore, NDPer Nagan Al-Guneid eked out a slim 30-vote margin over UCP candidate Whitney Issik..If the difference is 101 votes or more, the Returning Officer will conduct an official results ‘verification’ by checking the accuracy of the vote, inspecting all rejected ballots and reviewing voting records and deciding any questions of procedure before signing off on the results..In that case, up to three ridings — Calgary-North, Calgary-North West and Banff-Kananaskis will likely be reviewed..The UCP took Calgary-North West by 149 votes or .6% and Calgary-North by 113 votes or .8%. Banff-Kananaskis was flipped by the NDP by 199 votes or .9%..Candidates can also request recounts in close ridings outside the margin of error within four days of the result at the discretion of a judge. Three Calgary ridings might qualify depending on the actions of the closing candidates: Calgary-Edgemont, where the NDP won by 283 votes or 1.2%; Calgary-Foothills, which the NDP flipped by 269 votes or 1.2% and Calgary-Bow, which was carried by the UCP with 385 votes or 1.5%..Finally, contested recounts — the most extreme — can be called in cases of alleged fraud or voter irregularities that could have an impact on the final result. These are less common in Canada, but more so in the US. The most famous being Bush vs. Gore in 2000, which went all the way to the US Supreme Court. In the 2020 election, former president Trump attempted to contest the use of voting machines, which were used to count the advance vote in Alberta..Although tabulators were used in all 330 advance polling locations, Alberta Elections took pains to verify the security and accuracy of the system. Voters were handed paper ballots before inserting them into the counting machine. .Those ballots will be retained for a minimum of three months in the event of recounts, which seems likely in those Calgary races. .At her final campaign appearance last Friday, Danielle Smith was asked if she would accept the results of the vote, specifically the advance vote, to which she replied: “I’ve answered before and I’ll answer again — yes. I want people to have confidence in the advance polling option. One thing I would say to give comfort to people is when you go into the advance polls ... a paper ballot goes into the machine, but we retain the paper ballots, so if there are close races and there needs to be a recount, we have the ability to go back and look at paper ballots.”.According to the Alberta Elections website, “... the Election Commissioner may, in response to a complaint or allegation made by a person or organization or request made by the chief electoral officer, conduct an investigation into any matter that may constitute an offence” under the Public Inquiries Act, not just with respect to the vote itself but also campaign finance..Thus far, none have been reported.
