[New] A Bit Of Election Trouble In Vermilion

Craig Baird Columnist

The 1926 Alberta provincial election saw the United Farmers of Alberta prove that their sudden surge to victory in 1921 was no fluke.

While the election was a quiet affair by all accounts, in Vermilion, there was a bit of a problem. Actually, it was quite a big problem.

It was found after the election that every ballot cast in the election in Vermilion was an illegal one. Under the regulations, all ballots had to have the name of a printer on the back of the portion of the ballot placed in the box.

For some reason, this was accidently omitted from the ballots and it was not found until after the election was over.

In that election, Richard Reid had won the riding. Reid later went on to serve as the premier of Alberta from 1934 to 1935. He was the shortest serving premier in Alberta’s history. He came to power after Premier John Brownlee resigned due to a sex scandal, and he fell from power when William “Bible Bill” Aberhart and the Social Credit Party wiped the United Farmers of Alberta off the electoral map in the 1935 election.

Going back to that 1926 election though, Reid had won the election with 1,981 votes to the 592 won by the Conservative candidate W.J. McNab and the 492 won by the Liberal candidate Arthur Ebbett.

Due to the large amount of votes that Reid did win, it was decided that nothing would be done about the issue.

So, the ballots may not have been legal, but no one disputed that Reid would have won the election and the electorate in Vermilion decided it was best to just leave things as they were.

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