Recounts for two UCP ridings that flipped to the Alberta NDP in last month’s election have solidified the New Democrats’ victory in two close ridings, though less than 100 votes still decided both ridings.
Elections Alberta released the official election for the 2023 Alberta provincial election on Thursday morning.
UCP incumbent Tyler Shandro lost Calgary Acadia by seven votes to NDP MLA-elect Diana Batten on election night. The official results following the recount reveal that Batten won by 25 votes, increasing the margin by 18 ballots.
Ridings decided by less than 100 votes automatically underwent a recount.
Shandro was the Health minister during the Covid-19 pandemic, but was shuffled to the Justice minister before former premier Jason Kenney’s leadership review. He retained that file under Smith.
Another UCP incumbent, Whitney Issik, lost Calgary Glenmore to NDP MLA-elect Nagwan Al-Guneid by 30 votes on election night. That margin widened to 42 votes following the recount, an increase of 12 ballots.
Issik was Kenney’s Environment and Parks Minister, but had no portfolio in Smith’s government.
Candidates have until June 16 to make an application to the Court of King’s Bench to request a judicial recount, if desired. Under this process, the candidate will argue the specifics of each ballot before a judge. That process would take another month.
UCP spokesperson Dave Prisco said the party is working with affected candidates to review the results and decide whether or not to request a judicial recount if warranted.
The election saw 1,777,321 votes cast, for a turnout of 59.5%. Comparatively, over 1.9 million electors voted in the 2019 election, resulting in a final voter turnout of 67.5%.
While total voter turnout dropped, a record-breaking 758,640 electors chose to vote during advance voting days, with 21.9% of people using the Vote Anywhere service.
The Vote Anywhere service was new this year and allowed voters to cast a ballot in any advance poll in any riding across the province. It also delayed the results on election night, as returning offices were responsible for reporting the results of the vote anywhere counts, which Elections Alberta said is a time consuming process.
“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,” an Elections Alberta spokesperson told True North earlier this week.
“Every stage of this process is verified for accuracy.”
