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Kubinec led wire-to-wire in PC race

The vote totals are in from the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party’s Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock nomination where Westlock County Coun. Maureen Kubinec was chosen to take over for Ken Kowalski.

The vote totals are in from the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party’s Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock nomination where Westlock County Coun. Maureen Kubinec was chosen to take over for Ken Kowalski.

Kubinec was at the front runner from first count where she received 385 votes, or 31 per cent, to the fourth and final count of 561 votes, or 58 per cent.

The final count came down to Kubinec and Tim Schultz, MLA Doug Horner’s executive assistant. Schultz trailed Kubinec throughout, with 412 votes, or 42 per cent, in the final count.

There were 1,231 PC association members who cast their votes on nomination day, although 22 of those ballots were spoiled. Furthermore, not all voters chose second-, third- and fourth-choice candidates so the vote total on the final round was 973.

A total of three counts were done in the ballot-counting room, said Norm Kitz, returning officer.

In the preferential ballot system used by the PC Association, voters rank candidates they would like to see take the nomination — in this case, voters could rank candidates from one to five.

The first count simply allocates each valid ballot to a candidate. The candidate with the fewest number of votes will then drop off and has his or her votes redirected to the candidate with the highest preference according to the rankings on the ballot. If no further candidates were ranked, the ballot will be removed. This continues until one candidate receives 50 per cent plus one vote.

Kubinec led the first count with 385 votes, followed by Schultz with 309, Town of Westlock Coun. David Truckey with 246, Morinville mayor Lloyd Bertschi with 177 and Westlock County Coun. Bert Seatter with 92.

Following that vote Seatter was removed from the race and his votes were reallocated to the remaining candidates. The majority of those votes, 33, went to Kubinec.

In the second count, Bertschi was removed with 185 votes being reallocated. Truckey was removed in the next count and his votes were used to determine the winner.

Kubinec received the majority of these, beating out Schultz by 149 votes in the final count.

“Maureen deserves to win. She ran a better campaign,” said Schultz said the night of the nomination, adding he would offer his support in the coming spring election.

All candidates said they would support Kubinec in the spring election and each said they were pleased with voter turnout.

Each candidate also received a higher number of votes from the municipality in which they reside. Schultz, however, received a significant portion of his first-choice votes — 123 of 309 — from the Westlock area.

Bertschi said both he and Schultz were at a disadvantage in the race, as they had to work three times as hard to get a vote.

“With three of them running, myself, I had to outsell three to one virtually in Morinville and we came up a little short of our goal in membership sales,” he said.

The majority of the ballots, 734, were cast at Westlock’s polling station at Memorial Hall. This was higher than Barrhead and Morinville combined, which each had 262 and 235 respectively.

There were two sets of results obtained by the Westlock News from the Jan. 28 vote, both of which show the same initial vote count and final outcome.

Typically, the breakdown of votes isn’t released in a PC nomination vote, said Tom Olsen, communications representative with the PC Association of Alberta. The first set of numbers obtained Jan. 30 was found to have discrepancies and when the Westlock News brought this to Kitz’s attention, a corrected copy was presented the next day.

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