Computer glitch blamed for false writ drop: Speaker
Last Updated: Thursday, November 8, 2007 | 2:43 PM MT
The Canadian Press
Speaker Ken Kowalski says it was a glitch, not a hacker, that caused the legislative assembly website to display a brief message Wednesday that suggested an Alberta election had been called.
The website www.assembly.ab.ca temporarily displayed a short sentence saying that information about elected members was no longer available because an election writ had been dropped.
Kowalski said a possible programming error caused the website to switch to a default page that's stored in an archive to be displayed when elections are called.
The Speaker conceded he's embarrassed by the mistake, but said no one will be disciplined over the error.
Ron Glen, senior adviser to Premier Ed Stelmach, said late Wednesday that there's no plan for a fall election, "unless the premier changes his mind."
Stelmach must call an election by the fall of 2009, but he has repeatedly said he plans to send Albertans to the polls sometime in 2008.
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