Day 2 Of Election Counting Sees No New Results In Mayoral Race

A line up nearly to the main doors of the Medicine Hat Lodge Monday around 5 pm following a busy day at the polls. (File photo)

If there were any votes counted for Medicine Hat’s mayoral race since 1:55 Tuesday morning, municipal election officials aren’t saying Tuesday evening.

Nor will they, apparently, until at least Wednesday morning.

There has been no official word from the city as for the reason for the delay.

The last update from the city posted on its Facebook page at 4:25 pm Tuesday stated, “counting is still underway. Results will be updated at least once an hour during regular business hours as new reports become available, until counting is complete.”

That was followed by a note at 5 pm on its election results page stating no further numbers would be posted until 9 am Wednesday.

There has been no indication as to how many voters turned out on Monday nor how many of residents’ ballots have yet to be counted and for which race, mayoral, council and school boards.

Monday saw nearly all the city’s polling 10 stations dealing with long lines from early afternoon right up until polls closing at 8 pm.

The latest results for the mayoral race still show incumbent Linnsie Clark will a 749 vote lead over Drew Barnes. Kris Samraj has 3,532 while Andy McGrogan received 2,350 votes so far.

There were a couple of updates on the council race.

Yusuf Mohammed remains the top vote getting so far followed by Ted Clugston, Stuart Young and Chris Hellman.

However, there is no information from the city on how many votes are left to count.

Cheryl Phaff and Bill Cocks are in the middle of the pack for the eight council seats.

But the race so far is extremely tight for the remaining two positions.

A little more than 230 votes separate Robert Dumanowski and Dan Reynish - currently holding those positions - and Kirsten Spek, Brian Varga, Adam Koch, Alison Van Dyke and Brock Hale.

During Tuesday’s OwlNews.ca live broadcast, candidates Clark and Mohammed indicated they’ve not been informed of the total number of ballots cast for their respective mayoral and council races.