1923_Edmonton_municipal_election
The 1923 municipal election was held December 10, 1923 to elect a mayor and six aldermen to sit on Edmonton City Council and four trustees to sit on the public school board. Robert Crossland, Paul Jenvrin, Thomas Magee, and Joseph Henri Picard were acclaimed to two-year terms on the separate school board.
There were ten aldermen on city council, but four of the positions were already filled: Joseph Adair, James Collisson, Daniel Knott, and Rice Sheppard (SS) were all elected to two-year terms in 1922 and were still in office. Kenneth Alexander Blatchford had also been elected to a two-year term in 1922, but had resigned in order to run for mayor. Accordingly, William Rea was elected to a one-year term.
There were seven trustees on the public school board, but three of the positions were already filled: W H Alexander, L T Barclay, and E T Bishop had all been elected to two-year terms in 1922 and were still in office. The same was true on the separate board, where P M Dunne, J J Murray (SS), and Joseph Gariépy were continuing.
In line with the result of an electoral reform plebiscite conducted during the 1922 election, the 1923 election was the first to make use of the single transferable vote system to elect councillors. The system used a city-wide district as had been in use before. The difference was now that each voter would have just one vote and the voter would mark back-up preferences on a preferential ballot. The system ensured that both Independent (business) candidates and Labour candidates would be elected and that the most popular candidates in each slate would be elected. There was less counting of votes involved compared to previous years' elections because each voter could cast just one vote in the aldermanic contest, instead of six votes each as had been the case under Plurality block voting.
As another part of the electoral reform done at this time, the mayor would be elected through Instant-runoff voting.