Alberta drops elections boss

Alberta's chief electoral officer will soon join those in the province looking for a new job.

The provincial government announced Wednesday night that it won't be extending Lorne Gibson's appointment following a vote by an all-party committee of MLAs, the majority of them Progressive Conservatives.

"I think that the majority of the members decided that as far as they were concerned, Alberta had lost confidence in his approach to the way he handled the election and they wanted to start afresh," said committee chair Len Mitzel, a Conservative MLA.

As the head of Elections Alberta, Gibson recently called for changes to make it easier for Albertans to vote after a provincial election that saw the lowest voter turnout in the province's history.

Mitzel said there was a lot of frustration in his constituency of Cypress-Medicine Hatduring the election.

"One of the big issues certainly were voters' lists and the other issue was the polls. People not knowing where to poll, getting the wrong information as to where to vote then when they get there not being on a voters list and having to find some way to besworn in," he said. "And that was pretty indicative of almost every constituency."

Gibson told the Edmonton Journal that the decision was a surprise. His term, which began in June 2003,is up on March 3.

"It's a bit of a blow," he said. "There's a lot of changes that need to be made. That's what I thought my role was was to be suggesting improvements to the electoral system."

'We fire him for his fine efforts'

Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald and NDP MLA Rachel Notley, who were among the three non-Conservatives on the committee who voted to keep Gibson, told CBC News the problems in the last election should not be placed solely on Gibson's shoulders.

"This man was making every effort to improve the financial disclosures of each and every party, of each and every candidate, and also made solid recommendations so the fiasco from 2008 would not reoccur in the next election. And what do we do? We fire him for his fine efforts," said MacDonald.

Notley said she supported renewing Gibson's appointment.

"At the end of the day they made the decision to let this guy go. They acknowledged that the recommendations he made were sound. What they don't like is that he spoke publicly and he embarrassed the government," Notley said.

Problems during 2008 election

Gibson was at the helm of Elections Alberta during the 2008 provincial election.

As CBC first reported, more than half of the returning officers in that election, appointed by the government, had connections to the ruling Progressive Conservative party.

Elections Alberta had to deal with the fact that more than 250,000 voters showed up at polls to find they weren't on the electors list. The agency's website also crashed on voting day.

Finally, voter turnout for the March 3 election was 40.6 per cent the lowest in Alberta history.

In September, Gibson called for changes to make it easier for people to vote. He released a 595-page reportoutlining more than 180 recommendations for amendments to the Election Act and the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act.

Before joining Elections Alberta, Gibson was the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer with Elections Manitoba and had a 25-year career with the Manitoba government. A search committee will soon start the process of looking for Gibson's replacement.