Premier Smith criticizes electronic voting machines as cities support using them at conference

An example that could not be clearer of her statement on taking opposite stances came Thursday when municipalities voted approximately 85 per cent in favour of allowing electronic vote tabulators to be used in municipal elections.

In her media scrum, Smith said tabulators have unfortunately posed issues, such as when candidate Miranda Rosin appeared to have been elected for the UCP in 2019, and was set to make a victory speech, only for late mobile votes to finally come in and prove she’d lost.

Smith said these kinds of situations are avoidable if hand-counting is used, thus municipalities will continue to have to do it, “the old-fashioned way.”

Red Deer city council recently voted unanimously in support of the tabulators, and even used them in a spring by-election this year.

“These are the kinds of things where you have to make sure municipalities are going to honour the laws of our land,” Smith said. “One thing I’d say about municipal governments is that they operate within the parameters we set under the Municipal Government Act. They are a creature of the provincial government, and what we’ve heard is that people want to go back to paper ballots.”

Though asked, Smith did not elaborate on who she’d heard that from, and despite 85 per cent of municipalities voting the opposite way.

Rocky Mountain House Town Councillor Len Phillips speaks to a resolution at the AB Munis convention in Red Deer on Sept. 26, 2024. (rdnewsNOW/Jordan Rein)

On the same subject, Nenshi said Smith is giving too much credence to conspiracy theories, adding that the tabulators are not connected to a network and therefore cannot be hacked.

He promised delegates Thursday that if elected premier, he would let municipalities, “use the damn vote counting machines.”

Meanwhile, Smith praised Jasper for it’s, “grace under fire,” this summer.

She also said that while maintaining the ‘Alberta Advantage’ takes a lot of fine-tuning, Alberta is thriving because of reductions in red tape, and growing per capita investment.

She noted, however, that her government doesn’t have all the answers, and that rapid growth — a net increase of 50,000 people in Q1 2024 alone — has put pressure on K-12 education and housing stock, among other things.

“Fiscal discipline is what makes it possible to start thinking big,” she told delegates. “Cooperation with municipalities is what enables us to deliver, and we’re looking to you to tell us what you need and what we need to watch out for.”

Red Deer Mayor Ken Johnston was in attendance with council colleagues, and reacted to the premier’s comments on vote tabulators.

NDP leader Naheed Nenshi speaks to delegates at AB Munis in Red Deer on Sept. 26, 2024. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

“I’ve met with Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver and was encouraged that he understands that if this isn’t a whole Alberta issue, it certainly is a mid-sized city issue,” he said, naming Red Deer, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie and Airdrie.

“I’ll be frank, we’re not getting a lot of positive response from the province on this, but we still have 13 months until the next election and we hope the province will rescind that part of Bill 20.”

In April, Johnston told rdnewsNOW he was perplexed about Bill 20, with Red Deer County Mayor Jim Wood expressing a similar sentiment.

Johnston says now that he remains perplexed — even “gobsmacked” — particularly around the tabulator issue, and he still believes that allowing political parties into the municipal arena is a bad idea.

“My first reaction was to ask ‘What is the problem trying to be solved?’

On Bill 18, which restricts the federal government from working directly with municipalities on certain funding, he says to this point, the City of Red Deer has not encountered any roadblocks.

Johnston added he was happy to hear Smith talk up her plan to accelerate construction of schools, as well as her openness to helping municipalities with the collection of property taxes.

He was equally if not more happy to gain strong support on Red Deer’s three resolutions:

Federal Funding for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Clean Diesel Busses Resolution
Provincial Emergency Shelter Strategy Resolution
Permanent Supportive Housing Capital and Operational Funding

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Johnston believes discussion on the Provincial Emergency Shelter strategy will help get Red Deer closer to the finish line on its permanent shelter issue, also sharing there is an expression of interest in the works, with more details to come on that longstanding critical issue.

Among other things like making sure the Alberta government pays property taxes on provincially-owned buildings, Nenshi promised delegates he would repeal Bill 18 and the election provisions of Bill 20.

Nenshi told media he made those promises because he’s heard ‘extraordinary frustration’ from municipalities.

Premier Danielle Smith speaks to delegates at AB Munis in Red Deer on Sept. 26, 2024. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

“A lot of folks in the room today are from areas where friends and neighbours have voted Conservative for 50 years, but have been very clear that this batch of conservatism is not the Peter Lougheed or even the Ralph Klein [conservatism] that they voted for [previously],” said Nenshi.

“They’re very angry with how this government has treated municipalities with contempt. It does not have any respect for people as democratically-elected officials, and it’s trying to put it’s thumb on that tail in the next election so that only people who like the government will be elected.”

Added Nenshi: “That’s fundamentally undemocratic and fundamentally insulting to the hard-working people in the room; also, it’s not going to work.”

The conference wraps up Friday in Red Deer and rdnewsNOW will have continuing coverage.

by Josh Hall | @Vancan19

Premier Smith criticizes electronic voting machines as cities support using them at conference

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