After months of campaigning, dozens of endorsements, several forums and thousands of party memberships sold, the Progressive Conservative leadership race will come down to voting this weekend.
The party will have voting stations open across the province this weekend for the first ballot in the race that will, at the very least, thin the campaign from six contenders to three.
St. Albert constituency association president Randy Duguay said the polls for that riding will be open at 9 a.m. at Servus Credit Union Place and will close at 7 p.m.
Duguay said the poll will be located in one of the facility’s sports fields, and they are expecting plenty of voters.
Residents who live in the Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert riding — the home riding of candidate Doug Horner — will be able to vote at either the Pioneer Centre in Spruce Grove or the Salvation Army offices on Liberton Drive.
Morinville Tories will be able to cast their ballot at the Community Cultural Centre.
Provincial party president Bill Smith said the polling dates are a big undertaking for the party.
“We are scheduled to have 171 open across the province,” he said. “It is massive. It is a huge undertaking and it is predominantly done by volunteers.”
The leadership contenders won’t have to turn over all of the members they have brought into the party until voting day and Smith said that makes it hard to predict how many people will show up at the polls.
“I would hate to hazard a guess. The campaigns will hold on to their memberships until the last minute, so I won’t have any idea and a lot of memberships are going to be sold at the door.”
The candidates have to obtain 50 per cent of the vote on this ballot or a second one will be held on Oct. 1. On that ballot, party members will be asked to pick preferentially and those preferences will be added until a clear winner emerges.
Smith said he believes a second ballot is likely.
“My guess would be, because the six of them have done so well individually, it is going to be difficult for any one of the six to take more than 50 per cent of the vote this weekend, just statistically.”
Smith said he has been pleased with the campaign so far and with the way the leadership contenders have conducted themselves.
“I think, so far so good; things have gone off quite well,” he said. “The candidates have acted extremely honourably and extremely well and it has been a very good battle to date.”
In addition to Horner, the six candidates in the race include former cabinet ministers Alison Redford and Ted Morton, as well as MLA Doug Griffiths.
Rick Orman is also a former cabinet minister, but last served in the 1990s under then-premier Don Getty. Gary Mar is also a former cabinet minister who worked under former premier Ralph Klein and was most recently the province’s envoy in Washington, D.C.
