The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation entered the election with only one seat in the legislature belonging to party leader Elmer Roper who had won a 1942 by-election.

Not supported by the Liberals, who left the coalition, the anti-SC joint effort lost much of its previous share of the popular vote.

The stage for the general election was set when Social Credit won a critical by-election in Red Deer in December 1943.

There were two thousand Japanese who had previously been evacuated from British Columbia to Alberta under war time provisions who were qualified to vote under the eligibility rules.

[6] The Social Credit governmenthad been re-elected with a thin majority government in 1940 after failing to fulfill many of its promises of monetary reform whose popularity had allowed it to sweep to power in the 1935 election.

Manning steered the party away from its previous policies that included Social Credit monetary theory and media control.

The Independents, led into the election by James Walker, had been organized as a coalition of Conservatives, Liberals and United Farmers who grouped together to defeat the Social Credit government in 1937.

The first time this agreement was put to work was in the December 1943 Red Deer by-election where James MacPherson, LPP leader, endorsed CCF candidate E.P.

The Labor Progressive Party, led by James MacPherson, aimed to run candidates in the major cities and in mining communities.

Johanson was originally selected as a fusion candidate for the Labor Progressive Party and Cooperative Commonwealth Federation to contest the Rocky Mountain House electoral district.

Shortly before the general election was called, the Rocky Mountain House CCF constituency association broke away and voted not to support Johanson and to nominate its own candidate instead.

These planks covered primarily local issues to appeal to coal miners working and living at Nordegg, Alberta.

[14] Farmer-Labor Platform On election night Manning's Social Credit party won a landslide victory with 52 percent of the vote.

Opposition MLAs were contained in Calgary and Edmonton, where STV ensured proportional results, and Social Credit swept the rural districts.

Most of their voters swung to Social Credit as a strategic vote to prevent the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation from electing members.

The 1944 election was fought mostly as a two-party contest between the conservative Ernest Manning government and the leftist CCF, running relatively high due to wartime anti-fascist sentiment.

Elmer Roper, CCF leader, had won a seat in Edmonton almost two years earlier in a by-election and was running for re-election.

The results of the December 1943 by-election in Red Deer had led Social Credit government to speed up plans for the general election.

Farmer-Labor candidate and leader Victor Johanson was nominated at a joint Cooperative Commonwealth Federation/Labor Progressive convention on February 17, 1944.

Shortly before the election the CCF riding association broke off and nominated candidate George Morrison to run under their banner.

[18][19] The Warner electoral district was hotly contested by Independent leader James Walker and Provincial Treasurer Solon Low.

Low had been defeated by Walker in the 1940 general election and won a by-election held in the Vegreville electoral district on June 20, 1940.

On election night, Low won a stunning first count victory, taking a majority of the votes first off and defeating Walker.

[21]) Ten districts went beyond first-preference counts in order to determine winning candidates: In Edmonton and Calgary, a high proportion of the votes that were not exhausted were used to elect a member.

Three members of the armed forces commissioned in World War II were elected to represent Alberta service men and women fighting or stationed overseas.

Elmer Roper harshly criticized the Social Credit government for having no plans to make voting options available for persons serving overseas.

Chief Returning Officer Robert Addison estimated that almost 3,300 Alberta soldiers eligible were unable to vote because of being in transit to various fronts.

Voters for this election were eligible to cast a ballot if they were residents of Alberta for one full calendar year prior to enlisting in the military.

James Thompson was Chief Returning Office in charge of overseeing the vote in the Mediterranean and the Franco-Belgian Fighting Fronts.

James Harper Prowse was the biggest surprise in the Army race as he had only 34 votes before surging to win with 1,050 after the final totals were released.