1929 Edmonton municipal election

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The 1929 municipal election was held December 9, 1929 to elect a mayor and five aldermen to sit on Edmonton City Council and four trustees to sit on the public school board, while four trustees were acclaimed to the separate school board). In the election's only plebiscite, voters didn't endorse the extension of the half day Wednesday shopping holiday by the required two-thirds majority.

Contents

There were ten aldermen on city council, but five of the positions were already filled: James Collisson, Alfred Farmilo, James Findlay, Charles Gibbs, and Frederick Keillor (SS) were all elected to two-year terms in 1928 and were still in office.

There were seven trustees on the public school board, but four of the positions were already filled: Samuel Barnes, Thyrza Bishop, and Frederick Casselman had all been elected to two-year terms in 1928 and were still in office. The same was true on the separate board, where Robert Adrien Crowe (SS), J O Pilon, and W B Trainor were continuing.

Electoral system

The mayor was elected through First-past-the-post voting. First past the post does not require that the successful candidate takes a majority of the votes, as the Instant-runoff voting system previously used had, but in this election the successful candidate did in fact receive a majority of the votes cast.

The aldermanic race, where five seats were being filled, was conducted using Plurality block voting and each voter could cast up to five votes. The successful candidates received a total of approximately 39,000 votes of the 76,000 voters cast by the 41,000 voters. The vote tally received by the successful candidates might have been cast by less than 8,000 of the 41,000 voters who cast a ballot in this election. [1]

Voter turnout

There were 18,549 ballots cast out of 40,993 eligible voters, for a voter turnout of 45.2%.

A total of about 76,000 votes were cast in the aldermanic race due to the use of Plurality block voting.

Results

Mayor

PartyCandidateVotes%
Civic Government Association James McCrie Douglas 9,75453.06%
Labour James East 6,89837.52%
Independent Gerald Pelton1,6028.71%
Independent William Gunn1300.71%

Aldermen

PartyCandidateVotesElected
Civic Government Association Ralph Bellamy8,542Green check.svgY
Civic Government Association Arthur Gainer7,979Green check.svgY
Civic Government Association Herbert Baker 7,681Green check.svgY
Labour Dan Knott 7,419Green check.svgY
Labour Rice Sheppard 7,032SSGreen check.svgY
Civic Government Association Thomas Shaftoe Thompson6,643
Labour Edward James Thompson5,612
Labour George Latham5,482
Independent Hugh MacDonald5,287
Labour James Herlihy4,834SS
Independent Joseph Clarke 4,139
Independent Joseph Adair 3,670
Communist Jan Lakeman 1,283
CommunistHerbert John Pallot590
Independent Wilfred Rose418

Public school trustees

PartyCandidateVotesElected
Civic Government Association Albert Ottewell9,779SSGreen check.svgY
Civic Government Association Arthur Cushing 8,742Green check.svgY
Labour Frank Crang8,321SSGreen check.svgY
Civic Government Association Shurburne Tupper Bigelow7,900Green check.svgY
Civic Government Association Robert Muir7,860
Labour Thomas John Johnston7,124
Labour Sophie N. Bell6,788
Labour Sidney Bowcott4,744

Separate (Catholic) school trustees

Charles Gariepy , Thomas Magee, A J Ryan and J Tansey (SS) were acclaimed to the separate school board.

Wednesday Holiday Plebiscite

In favour of having Wednesday half-holiday extended to cover all the year except the month of December?

References

  1. Rek, Municipal Elections in Edmonton