STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.
(Supplied: City of Grande Prairie, Facebook)
By Abby Zieverink
Voter Turnout

Slight increase in voter turnout for Grande Prairie municipal election

Oct 19, 2021 | 1:11 PM

Voter turnout for the municipal election in the City of Grande Prairie saw a slight increase from the 2017 election, with roughly 21.7 per cent of eligible Grande Prairie voters casting their ballots for the 2021 municipal election.

According to the unofficial results, City of Grande Prairie Returning Officer Arlene Karbashewski says there were nearly 800 more voters in 2021 compared to 2017.

While city officials were expecting the voter turnout to have a larger increase, as the voter turnout at advanced polls was higher than usual, Karbashewski says it was still exciting to see more voters casting their ballots.

“We were super excited to see such a large turnout at the advanced polls for this election, understanding that the provincial ballot was a large draw, as well as the vacant mayor position; we did anticipate higher numbers to come out for election day,” she said.

“Although it was a small increase, it still is a huge win for Grande Prairie. As long lineups were seen at both advanced polls, and at polling stations across the city on election day,

Karbashewski added there are a few reasons why there wasn’t as large of a jump in the number of people voting this time around.

One of those reasons, she suggests, may have resulted because of the number of items on the ballot that residents could vote on.

“It was unusual to have the second ballot, with over 50 candidates in total across both ballots. There were a lot of decision points for our voters in this election, including, of course, the referendum questions,” she said.

“So, the process itself was quite a bit longer for each person who came out to vote this time.”

Karbashewski suggests another reason the city believes turnout wasn’t as high was because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She says in previous years, there are 13 polling stations located around the city, and this year, that number was reduced down to eight.

“We were challenged with not using our school facilities as the voting stations (to protect the children), and only using the facilities we felt would be able to support the new restrictions, and, some of those facilities weren’t ideal.”

She tells EverythingGP, it was especially difficult learning how to organize the municipal election during the pandemic, including social distancing and enhanced cleaning was maintained.

“We understood those challenges, and we increased the number of workers that we could that we hired for each voting station to support those new requirements, but it is still a challenge.”

For the next election, Karbashewski says although it was tough to have the increased polling stations for this election, it will be the city’s top priority is to increase that number in the 2025 municipal election.

“We believe that this election hopefully is as unprecedented as it was what we learned from COVID, hopefully, we do not have to apply in the next election.”

by Abby Zieverink