After a night of delays, the vote count accelerated, resulting in Danielle Smith being named leader of the UCP and the new premier of Alberta.
Smith won the sixth and final ballot of the night, beating his closest challenger Travis Toews, a former cabinet minister under incumbent UCP leader and premier Jason Kenney.
She obtained 53.77% of the vote against 46.23% for Toews.
Brian Jean, Rebecca Schulz, Todd Loewen, Rajan Sawhney and Leela Aheer have all been eliminated in previous rounds.
Loewen, after being knocked out of the race, said he felt he gave some Albertans a voice in this campaign.
“There were a lot of Albertans who felt they hadn’t been heard over the past three years,” he told CTV News on Thursday.
“I had a lot of support across the province, of course not as much as I hoped and not as much as I needed. But we had a good, tough campaign and we had a positive campaign.”
He says he’s still proud of his campaign and it’s good to see so many Albertans buying party memberships.
“I will congratulate (Danielle) with joy.”
The UCP event and leadership results were originally scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m. MT, but were delayed.
More than 250 volunteers were called in to help count the ballots which consisted of approximately 82,000 mail-in ballots.
Officials say people also voted in person at the BMO Center in Calgary, saying traffic was “steady but manageable.”