The clock struck midnight and 70,000 advance votes still had not been counted in the Alberta general election..But Elections Alberta says there was no issue in counting the Monday votes.."We are not experiencing tabulator issues. We are uncertain where this information is coming from," Elections Alberta said in a statement..The machine was used in Alberta for the first time in history in the hopes they would speed up the counting process. .About 70,000 advance votes still had not been counted as of 12:30 a.m. MST. .Elections Alberta claimed there were no issues and it just takes time. ."Due to delays in opening, Sunchild Admin Building in Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre will offer voting until 9:46 p.m. Election results for this electoral division will be delayed until voting has concluded at this location," Elections Alberta said on Twitter.."We are not seeing any issues at this time, but understand people are keen to see the results. Processing the votes takes some time. The hand count of today's ballot is occurring. Our returning officers and election officers are being thorough in their process and that takes time. The integrity of the vote counts is the priority for us this evening. We thank Albertans for their patience.”.Twitter users were quick to fire back at the explanation.."Hand counting electronic ballots," one user said..The Western Standard was told by Elections Alberta Tuesday morning: "A returning office on election night is a busy place." ."Office staff are supporting their voting places with the count, receiving results called in from locations and entering them, completing the count of special ballots, mobile voting and generating results from the tabulator, responding to candidate and scrutineer questions and concerns, and receiving supplies back from voting places," said Robyn Bell, from media relations with Elections Alberta.. "Managing all this activity takes time and we prioritize the accuracy of our reporting over speed." .Bell said for the first time, returning offices were also responsible for reporting the results of the voter anywhere counts. ."In 2019, these ballots were transported back to Elections Alberta for the count; a process which delayed results for two and-a-half days after the election," Bell said.."Entering results for a vote anywhere, however, is time-consuming. Every location provides results for all 349 candidates. Before these counts are reported, they are generated from the tabulators, transcribed onto Statement of Votes and then input into our results site. Every stage of this process is verified for accuracy.".Bell said while results from other jurisdictions may be reported quicker when using tabulators, this is often due to the electronic submission of results. ."We did not use any electronic data transfer from the tabulators, as the tabulators used for advance voting were never connected to a network at any time," Bell said. ."As a result, it was a manual process to verify and enter these results."
