Coin toss could be needed following appeal of UCP nomination results; officially a 1-vote difference

More information will be known soon about what has been deemed the closest nomination vote in Alberta’s political history.

An appeal will be heard on Friday by the United Conservative Party board on the result of the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul nomination election.

While the constituency association did not disclose who after three rounds of vote counting won the election, at this point, sources have indicated to Lakeland Connect that Scott Cyr is ahead of incumbent MLA David Hanson by one vote. Greg Sawchuk was the third candidate.

Hanson is the one who filed the appeal.

In a statement online on Thursday afternoon, the constituency association (CA) said, “Because the vote was so close, we made the decision not to release the results until the party had time to receive an appeal and give due process. This beats announcing one winner on Monday, and possibly a different one after the appeal.”

Candidates had 48 hours to file an appeal. All members of the UCP board must be present at the appeal.

An announcement is expected from the party following the appeal.

According to UCP party Candidate Selection Rules and Procedures, “The Executive Director shall bring the appeal to the attention of the Party Board forthwith. The decision of the Party Board on an appeal is final and binding on the parties and is not subject to further appeal or review in any Court on any grounds whatsoever [sic].”

What could be at issue is a spoiled ballot. Returning officer and president of the CA, Ron Young, said there was seven ballots that were filed that were deemed ineligible.

The vote is a preferential ballot in which a voter ranks their preference 1-2-3. However, that is not required, and voters can just select one candidate as well.

According to party rules, in order to be the endorsed candidate of the party in the riding, one candidate must receive 50 per cent plus one support.

If that is not achieved in the first round of votes, the nomination contestant receiving the fewest number of first-preference votes will be eliminated, and their second-preference votes will be allocated to the remaining nomination contestants.

Once those votes are tabulated and if one candidate has still not received 50 per cent plus one support, a tie-breaker could be needed.

A coin toss is how the party would conduct a tiebreaker.

The three day election process began on Saturday in Bonnyville and Glendon, on Sunday in Cold Lake, and Monday in St. Paul and Elk Point.

Voting finished at 7:30pm on Monday night and the ballot count began. The total number of votes were counted three times. A total of 723 votes were cast of roughly 1500 UCP members in the riding.

After determining the nomination process was within one vote, the ballots were taken to Edmonton by the returning officer Ron Young on Tuesday morning.

The winner will be the UCP’s candidate in the upcoming spring election in 2023.

Officially, they would be running against Caitlyn Blake as the NDP nominee, and others could emerge.