List of Alberta provincial electoral districts

The original 25 districts were drawn up by Liberal Member of Parliament Frank Oliver prior to the first general election of 1905.

With Alberta in a population boom in the 1950s and Calgary and Edmonton growing, STV may have been seen as too complicated, with vote counting taking days before final results could be announced.

But the Social Credit government's rationale for the change away from STV and IRV was that a large number of votes were being declared spoiled.

The government felt threatened by the growing number of opposition MLAs being elected (although it was still taking more than 60 percent of the seats in the Legislature).

[2] Cognizant of this the Alberta Legislature tasked a Special Committee chaired by Taber-Warner MLA Bob Bogle to evaluate the re-distribution of electoral districts in the province.

The Report of the Select Special Committee on Electoral Boundaries was submitted to the Legislature in November 1990[3] and was referred to the Court of Appeal of Alberta.

While the Court of Appeals reference found the boundaries consistent with the Charter,[4] the report was scrapped and amendments to the Electoral Divisions Act were introduced in early 1991 to effectively "Charter-proof" the new districts.

[5] The same Select Committee was tasked with creating the new report which was presented to the Legislature in November 1992,[6] and once again referred to the Court of Appeal of Alberta to rule on the constitutional validity of the boundaries.

The Court of Appeal of Alberta withheld Charter condemnation, but found numerous issues with the process and requirements put forward for the re-distribution.

In particular the members of the Select Committee were unable to provide sufficient rationale to the court for a number of the boundaries and district sizes recommended in the report.

[5] The court explicitly voiced the opinion that a proper electoral boundary review was necessary within the term of the present government (which expired in 1997).

The 2009/2010 Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission was established on 31 July 2009, and was chaired by Justice J. M. Walter and members included Keith Archer, Peter Dobbie, Brian Evans and Allyson Jeffs.

[10] A minority position in the Commission found the division of Alberta into three geographic areas (Calgary, Edmonton, other) problematic as it effectively ignored fast growing mid-sized cities which were fragmented into hybrid rural-urban constituencies.

[14] A minority opinion was presented by commission members appointed by the opposition, arguing that Alberta's rate of growth was a threat to "a critical part of our history, culture, and primary economic voice" which is at risk of being lost through continued redistribution.