It's an uphill battle to make the province reverse its ban on vote-counting machines in local elections, the mayor of St. Albert knows only too well.

Even if mayors and councils Alberta-wide reason that adopting manual hand counting will prolong the process and consume vast amounts of municipal resources, two factors stand in the way of Mayor Cathy Heron's push.

One: the UCP government already passed legislation this spring to prohibit the tabulators.

The "Two" that bolsters One: UCP members deman…