Alberta general election, 1944

The Alberta general election of 1944 was the tenth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. The Assembly was dissolved on July 8, 1944 and the vote for was held on August 8 1944 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

Overview

The election was the first contested by leader Ernest C. Manning. He became leader after the death of Social Credit Party founder and premier William Aberhart in 1943. Manning steered the party down a more moderate path, largely dispensing with the party's social credit policies of monetary reform that it had been unable to implement.

Manning led Social Credit to a third term in government with a resounding victory in the 1944 election, winning over 50% of the popular vote on the first count of ballots. The Conservative party and former United Farmers continued their strategy of running joint candidates as independents. They were not supported by the Liberals who left the coalition and lost a significant share of the popular vote.

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation entered the election with only one seat in the legislature belonging to party leader Elmer Roper who had won a 1942 by-election. Despite winning almost a quarter of the popular vote the party won only two seats in the general election.

Servicemen and veterans from World War II voted in the first phase of the election on August 4, 1944. There was also a second vote held to elect three Canadian Armed Forces representatives from Albertans who were in active service overseas, or those who missed the first vote.

Results

Turnout for this election was generally low; the election came during the closing months of World War II when Germany was on its heels and starting to collapse. In addition to the heavy fighting there were also large numbers of troops in transit during the voting period. Chief Returning Officer Robert Addison estimated that almost 3,300 Alberta soldiers eligible were unable to vote because of being in transit to various fronts. The returns themselves were counted in four places, voting conducted in Alberta was counted and released in Edmonton first, while voting conducted overseas was counted in London and sent to Edmonton by telegraph. The highest turnout came by Army soldiers fighting in Italy and the lowest turnout was in the Mediterranean with only five service-men voting. No statistics were released on how many service men and woman were eligible to vote in total.

Voters for this election were eligible to cast a ballot if they were residents of Alberta for one full calendar year prior to enlisting in the military. The only other eligibility requirement was that they missed casting a ballot in their home electoral district during the first phase of the election.

The Government of Alberta commissioned four Chief Electoral Officers to help run the election. The election proved to be a logistical challenge as no similar election had ever been conducted on a world wide scale. Robert Addison was in charge of overseeing the election in Edmonton and coordination operations around the world. James Thompson was Chief Returning Office in charge of overseeing the vote in the Mediterranean and the Franco-Belgian Fighting Fronts. A.P. Van Buren was in charge of Canada, United States and Alaska, Newfoundland, Bermuda, Nassau and Jamaica. L.P. Danis was the Chief Returning Officer for France, Belgium and Holland. The jobs of the Chief Electoral Officers included finding out where Albertans were stationed, setting up polling stations, overseeing collection of ballots. In some cases polling stations were setup directly in the trenches causing delays to the election as election staff came under hostile fire.cite news|publisher=Calgary Herald|date=January 5, 1945|pages=2|title=Service vote begins January 8, 1945 and ended January 20, 1945]

References

External links

* [http://www.elections.ab.ca Elections Alberta]