On Friday morning (Oct. 18), Alberta's Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver announced new rules that will be put in place under the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 20).
The bill, which was first unveiled in April, will make changes to the Local Authorities Election Act and the Municipal Government Act.
Those changes include introducing political party affiliations to civic elections starting in Edmonton and Calgary, prohibiting the use of automated voting equipment and vote counting equipment, allowing the provincial cabinet to require municipalities to amend or repeal bylaws, and more.
It's amassed criticism from numerous municipal politicians and representative bodies including the mayors of High River and Okotoks, who have raised concerns over the bill's political and economic implications and a perceived lack of consultation.
The new regulations announced by McIver revolve around the introduction of parties into local elections, namely establishing rules and limits for campaign financing and giving candidates the option to register under a slate.
How will this affect towns like Okotoks and High River?
Since the introduction of parties in civic elections is being piloted in Calgary and Edmonton during the next election, which is scheduled for 2025, these new changes to Bill 20 won't have an effect on any other municipalities.
However, the many other changes that Bill 20 will make to the Local Authorities Election Act and the Municipal Government Act will be felt in many municipalities.
That includes the decision to prohibit the use of electronic voting tabulators, which has been criticized both due to the safeguards used to ensure the machines' accuracy and efficacy and because of the cost that the decision would incur on municipalities that will have to switch manual vote counting.
The Town of Okotoks estimates a cost of $60,000 to facilitate the change for the next election, with estimates of $1.3 million and $4.8 million from the cities of Calgary and Edmonton, respectively.
McIver took questions from the media following Friday's announcement, many of which revolved around the tabulator machine ban.
When asked about the possibility of providing funding to municipalities to help cover the additional cost, McIver didn't mince words.
"You know what? Municipalities are responsible to pay the cost of municipal elections. That's always been the case and that has not changed."
"They always have had. For a hundred years municipalities have had to pay for municipal elections," said McIver in response to a separate question about municipalities potentially passing the increased cost onto taxpayers.
Prompted as to the possibility of other amendments being made to Bill 20, McIver said the Province is looking at changing the fine amounts that would be faced by parties, slates, or candidates that infringe on election rules.
The same reporter then asked if any other aspects of the bill might yet be altered.
"The legislation is passed, it's in place, the regulations, most of them, are passed and in place. If we're looking for where we might improve upon them, and one of the places we are going to look to see if the fine amounts are correct, adequate," answered McIver
Several questions were also raised about the reasoning behind prohibiting tabulator machines.
McIver emphasized the Province's stated goal of increasing trust in the electoral process amongst Albertan voters, citing a Leger poll from May that showed 36 per cent of respondents supporting the notion of switching to solely counting votes by hand.
"I think we can all agree we'd like all Albertans to respect the results of every election, a hundred per cent. This gets us closest to 100 per cent of people having confidence in the results. I'm pretty confident in that, myself."
Alberta Municipalities (ABMunis) released a statement from its Board of Directors soon after the announcement decrying the changes and reiterating their past criticisms of the bill, including a section on the tabulator ban.
"The new rules will compound unwelcome expenses, complexity and potential delays to election results due to the requirement to count ballots by hand. In this respect, the regulation and legislation are completely at odds with the Government of Alberta's commitment to reduce red tape," the statement partially reads.
Bill 20 is set to take effect on Oct. 31.