A vote is successfully cast at an advance voting station on May 23, 2023 in Medicine Hat. (Photo Courtesy Kevin Kyle)

By Chris Brown

Instantly recorded: Electronic tabulators in use at advance voting stations

May 25, 2023 | 2:44 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – If you voted at an advance poll this you may have noticed a new feature at the station.

Full Election Coverage: Alberta Votes 2023

For the first time in Medicine Hat, Elections Alberta is using electronic tablulators to accept advance votes. Instead of dropping your ballot in a box to be counted later, you can insert your ballot into the tabulator and your vote is recorded instantly.

The tabulators are being used hand in hand with the vote anywhere capability of advance voting and allows for full reporting of results on election night.

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“The number of ballots that are cast in advance polls, they’re in the thousands. So to do a hand count on election night at the end that would take many hours trying to get that done,” says Randy Drefs, in charge of IT in Medicine Hat for Elections Alberta.

“At the end, the closing of elections at 8 o’ clock on election night we can just push a button, it’ll give us a results of all the people that voted for every ED {district} in Alberta. Anybody in Alberta can come down to our advance poll locations and be able to vote for their person wherever they live.”

The electronic tabulators are only being used for advance voting, which is open until Saturday. Hand counts will be used on election day May 29.

As of 2:30 p.m. Thursday, 383,578 advance votes were cast in the province.