Interactives: Referendum results highlight Alberta's rural-urban and partisan divides

Final unofficial results from Elections Alberta regarding last week’s referendum show a strong division of opinion between rural parts of the province and its two major cities, a division also reflected in political party support.

Preliminary counting of all ballots was completed late Saturday night ahead of official results being released on Thursday.

The province-wide figures show greater than 50 per cent support for questions 1 through 5 on immigration, but also majority opposition to questions 6 through 9.

Postmedia divided Alberta’s 87 ridings into four categories — those in major cities, those in suburbs of major cities, those home to mid-sized municipalities (and also a sizable rural presence), and rural ridings.

The results show a strong majority of rural ridings favoured all nine of the referendum questions, ranging from a high 72 per cent for Question 5 on proof of citizenship to vote to a low of 59 per cent for Question 8 on the province opting out of federal programs.

Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre and Drumheller-Stettler were either first or second in level of support for all nine questions.

A similar pattern emerges for ridings with mid-sized municipalities such as those in Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Grande Prairie as well as those that include multiple towns such as Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright.

Such areas also returned majority support for the nine questions at a slightly lower rate than rural ridings, with majorities ranging from 69 per cent on Question 5 to 55 per cent for Question 8.

The results from suburbs of major cities, such as Chestermere-Strathmore relative to Calgary or Sherwood Park relative to Edmonton, highlight the urban versus rural divide.

Such suburban ridings delivered majority support for all five immigration questions, but only for two of the four constitutional questions.

Support for immigration questions in suburban ridings ranged from a high of 64 per cent on Question 5 to a low of 43 per cent on both Question 2 regarding access to provincially-funded programs and Question 6 on introducing fees or premiums for non-permanent immigrants.

Suburban voters returned narrow majorities on Question 6 regarding the province appointing judges (50 per cent) and abolishing the Senate (52 per cent). They narrowly rejected Question 8 on opting out (46 per cent) and Question 9 on provincial laws taking precedence over federal ones in areas of shared jurisdiction (48 per cent).

Calgary and Edmonton voters rejected all nine of the questions, with a high of 49 per cent support for Question 5 on proof of citizenship to a low of 32 per cent on opting out.

Edmonton-Strathcona had the lowest proportion of ‘yes’ votes for any of the questions, averaging 23 per cent across all questions, including less than 20 per cent support for questions 6, 8, and 9.

If those results are analyzed by which party the riding elected as its MLA in the last election, they show a similar divide between those represented by the governing United Conservative Party (UCP), and the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP).

Ridings with a UCP MLA delivered majority support on all nine questions, including supermajorities of 60 per cent or more for the first five immigration questions. Support for questions 6 through 9 delivered much slimmer majorities of between 52 per cent (Question 8) to 57 per cent (Question 7).

Areas with a New Democrat MLA voted against all nine questions with opposition most pronounced on the four constitutional questions. Such voters neared majority support for Question 5 on citizenship (47 per cent) but were less convinced for the other four questions, returning between 41 and 44 per cent support.

The NDP have 35 seats in Calgary and Edmonton, one each in mid-sized and rural ridings as well as two in suburban ridings. The UCP have 11 urban MLAs, all in Calgary, plus 14 in mid-sized municipal ridings, eight in suburbs, and 14 more in rural ridings.