A high voter turnout and rush hour traffic are being cited as reasons why some Calgarians experienced delays at the polls on Monday, Oct. 16 as they voted in the 2017 Calgary election.
Scroll down to see Calgary results
Multiple voters told Global News that councillor ballots were running out at the Scandinavian Centre in Ward 7 as of 6:30 p.m.
READ MORE: Naheed Nenshi holds on to mayor’s seat in 2017 Calgary election
Watch below: Joel Senick interviews one voter who says he was told the polling station is running out of ballots for councillor.
The City of Calgary said it was replacing ballots at voting stations that had run out or were running low as of 7 p.m. but couldn’t confirm the number of stations that were affected.
Spokesperson Vicki McGrath said there’s a process in place to ensure ballots are re-filled, adding the city should never run out completely as there are “always” more ballots available than eligible voters.
Click here for Calgary mayoral and councillor candidate results broken down by wards
Click here to find results from Alberta municipalities outside Calgary
McGrath said there was a delay in transporting ballots due to rush hour traffic and high voter turnout, which may explain why some stations ran out.
Stations reported voting turnout of 157,697 as of 6 p.m. Monday. The final turnout for this year’s advance vote was 74,965, for a total voter turnout so far of 232,662 (34.89 per cent), according to the City of Calgary. The city said there were 666,663 enumerated electors during the 2017 civic census.
A spokesperson said the Elections Calgary website was experiencing technical issues as of 9:40 p.m., which was preventing the results page from refreshing.
Global News had extensive live coverage on multiple platforms — radio, online and social media — in order to bring results as soon as they came in.
Watch below: Calgary voters are wondering what happened after some polling stations ran out of ballots. Jill Croteau reports.
Online election coverage at 8 p.m. on Globalnews.ca/Calgary
Global News livestreamed a three-hour election special online followed by Global News at 11. The coverage was also streamed live on Facebook.
Global Calgary anchors Linda Olsen and Scott Fee hosted the coverage.
The coverage included live reports from reporters at several campaign headquarters, including mayor-elect Naheed Nenshi and opponent Bill Smith.
The three-hour election special included analysis from an expert panel made up of political commentator Janet Brown, former city councillor John Mar and Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt. The panel was moderated by News Talk 770’s Danielle Smith.
Special guest Gord Gillies and reporter Lisa MacGregor were on hand for social media reaction.
Social media
Check out Global Calgary’s coverage on Twitter and Facebook.
Television
Global News provided updates during commercials of your regularly scheduled programming on television and a special election wrap-up edition of Global News at 11 with Scott Fee, which was also streamed online.
Radio
Corus radio station News Talk 770 simulcasted the online election special and provided election recaps every 30 minutes all evening.
With files from Global’s Bindu Suri
Comments