Editor’s note: Elections Alberta released the official election results on April 26, which showed voter turnout was actually 64 per cent. Read more here.
Unofficial results of Tuesday’s provincial election were released Friday afternoon and show the United Conservative Party with 63 seats and Alberta’s NDP with 24 seats.
While most of Alberta’s 87 ridings were declared on Tuesday night, some of them remained too close to call until all of the out-of-district advance poll results were reported.
WATCH: Elections Alberta has released the results of the “vote anywhere” ballots cast in advance polls. Joel Senick looks at which parties captured the seats that were deemed too close to call on election night.
The 2019 Alberta election was the first time the province used a “vote-anywhere” system during the advance polls. For the five days of advance voting, Albertans could cast a ballot at any electoral district.
Of the record-breaking nearly 700,000 advance ballots cast across the province, Elections Alberta said more than 223,000 were cast at a polling station that was outside the voter’s riding. Officials did not start counting those 223,000 ballots until Wednesday afternoon.
That left the following five ridings undeclared until Friday afternoon:
The unofficial results released Friday showed UCP candidates winning seats in four of the above five ridings — Calgary-Currie, Calgary-Falconridge, Calgary-Varsity and Edmonton-South West.
NDP candidate Jonathon Carson won the seat in Edmonton-West Henday, according to the unofficial tally.
The unofficial NDP win in Edmonton-West Henday means Edmonton will likely have just one UCP MLA in the Alberta legislature: Kaycee Madu who will represent Edmonton-South West.
Watch below: Premier-designate Jason Kenney hopes to elect more Edmonton UCP MLAs in the future. He also weighs in on the possible reasons for the regional vote difference. (Filed April 17).
Unofficial voter turnout is 71.1 per cent, based on 1,880,508 votes cast and 2,643,453 registered electors, Elections Alberta said.
In total, 1,030,560 people voted for the UCP — or about 54.8 per cent of voters. A total of 615,428 people — or 32.7 per cent — voted for the NDP. The Alberta Party received 170,872 votes — 9.1 per cent — and the Liberal Party received 18,457 votes, about one per cent of eligible voters.
Neither the Alberta Party nor the Liberal Party won a seat.
In the 2015 election, voter turnout was 57 per cent.
To see a riding-by-riding vote map, with results, click here.