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Kennedy, who had been in the role for just three months at the time of the Oct. 16 election, resisted blaming colleagues more involved in planning for the vote and instead offered a mea culpa:

“Ultimately, the returning officer by legislation is responsible. So I took this very seriously,” Kennedy said. “I was fairly new to Calgary (at the time of the election), but I know we can do it differently. I know we can do it better, I know we can do it smarter and we’re going to.

Photo by Leah Hennel / Postmedia

“The next vote will show that.”

Council’s audit committee heard that a new “decentralized” distribution method for ballots will prevent what occurred in 2017 from happening again.

Next election, each voting station will have 100 per cent of the ballots they require on the morning of the vote. If additional ballots are required, they will be dispatched from backup ballot supply locations spread across the city, rather than from the election office in northeast Calgary.

Kennedy said she couldn’t account for why some stations waited for more than six hours to be resupplied but said plans are in place to ensure it won’t happen again.

“Getting ballots to the voting stations in a timely fashion from one location in Calgary during rush hour does not work,” she said. “So we had to change that.”

Audit committee members offered relatively few questions or criticisms in response to the election report.

Outside council chambers, audit chair Evan Woolley said some of the good work done to improve turnout ahead of the last election was spoiled somewhat by the problems on voting day.