The Sprawl is counting down the days to Calgary's municipal election with a new comics series by Sam Hester!

Every day in October, up until Election Day on October 20, we'll be publishing a new panel. Follow along to learn about Calgary's election history and why YOUR VOTE COUNTS! Think of it as a local election Advent calendar—with a new surprise each day.

Follow Sprawl editor Jeremy Klaszus on Instagram to see new panels as soon as they drop!

Find where you vote:

electionscalgary.ca
planmyvote.ca

Dale Hodges served alongside more than 50 different aldermen over his three-decade council career!

Calgary had proportional representation (a.k.a. the single transferable vote) for many decades thanks to Jack Miller, city clerk from 1912 to 1955. “He devised the machinery by which Calgary annually placed into office a council that truly represented all shades of public opinion,” wrote Albertan columnist Tom Moore after Miller’s death in 1967.

“Under the PR system there was always a strong and constructive opposition to the dominant group in city council—the minorities in the city getting representation in accordance with their numbers. The system made it impossible for a group with 51 per cent of the voting strength to put a 100 per cent power block into office as is possible with a straight majority system.”

Miller himself told the Calgary Herald in 1955 that “PR is a fair system and much more representative.” But complaints about the system’s cumbersomeness piled up and in 1974, city council scrapped PR and switched to the “straight X system” that we have today.

“It has taken many years, but Calgary is finally going to join the world of sane voting procedures,” cheered the Herald, lauding city council for embracing the X ballot: “It’s simple. It’s neat. It’s clean.”

There’s a way to vote for Calgarians who can’t physically make it to the polls. See more details at Elections Calgary.

Calgary’s mayor and councillors used to face voters more frequently than they do today.

Jack Miller introduced proportional representation into Calgary municipal elections (yes, we had this!). One of his other nicknames was "Mr. Proportional Representation." In 1949, The Albertan reported that Miller "probably knows more about proportional representation than anyone in Canada." Stay tuned for more Sprawl comics this week to see how it worked!

Calgary’s “new” city hall turns 40 this year! For decades it doubled as a massive wall between downtown and East Village, cutting off the neighbourhood. Historian Harry Sanders is doing a presentation on the building's history on October 18—more details here.

Virnetta Anderson put social issues on city council’s agenda and was an early advocate of the CTrain. “The benefits gained from LRT will be worth the cost,” she said in 1977, her last year of office (the CTrain opened in 1981).

Calgary’s upcoming election isn’t *only* about choosing a mayor and city councillors! Make sure to consider school board trustees too (check out The Sprawl’s candidate tracker for guidance on who’s who).

After serving on Calgary city council, George Ho Lem went on to become the first Alberta MLA of Chinese descent!

Annie Gale was part of the Vacant Lots Garden Club, which empowered Calgarians to plant gardens on underused civic land. She also helped establish a municipal public market in 1914 so Calgarians could buy local produce!

Advance polls were open from October 6 to October 11.

Sandstone for Calgary’s historic hall came from a quarry at what is now the north edge of the city. Today it’s the neighbourhood of Panorama Hills!

What’s old is new again...

Calgary’s first town council meeting, in 1884, was in a saloon. Council soon upgraded to a very rudimentary town hall—“a very cheerless, cold and inconvenient place” to meet, councillors lamented.

No votes for you! Calgary had a very limited local democracy in its early days…

Sam Hester is a Calgary cartoonist and graphic recorder who writes The Sprawl's Curious Calgary series. Check out her Substack, The Drawing Book, for more of her autobiographical comics and stories!