CALGARY—There will be up to a 10-day gap between election day and the official results in this year’s provincial election, according to Elections Alberta.

This gap isn’t unusual, but in this year’s hotly contested election it could mean a clear winner isn’t known until April 26.

This week, Elections Alberta saw the highest voter turnout to advanced polls in the province’s history, with about 696,000 people casting their ballots between Tuesday and Saturday, according to unofficial Elections Alberta counts. Election day is Tuesday April 16.

During advanced polls this year, Albertans were able to vote for candidates in their home riding from any station across the province. But Elections Alberta won’t begin counting the ballots cast outside of voters’ home electoral districts until mid-day April 17, the day after the election. Out of the total number of advanced ballots cast, 223,000 were from voting stations outside of voters’ home districts.

“If there’s any close races, obviously across the province everybody’s going to be waiting for us to get these results out and counted,” said Drew Westwater, Elections Alberta’s Deputy Chief Electoral Officer.

“We’ve told everybody in advance they’re not going to be there election night, we’ll count them starting at noon the next day and we’ll get them done as quickly as we can.”

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Westwater said the length of time needed to count ballots cast outside of home electoral districts will depend on how many voters use this option. Which means the record high turnout to advanced polls will result in a longer wait for official election results.

In the meantime, Albertans will have to wait to hear the results for any close electoral races across the province. Westwater said this would be similar to the 2017 provincial election in British Columbia, where it wasn’t clear who would officially form government until absentee ballots were counted weeks after the election.

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“If that situation occurs here and you haven’t got a clear winner — a majority government from one of the parties until we’ve counted these — we’ll have to wait and see until these are counted and reported to determine who can form government or form a minority,” Westwater said.

A list of polling places ahead of Tuesday’s election can be found on Elections Alberta’s website

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