The 1926 Alberta general election was held on June 28, 1926, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The United Farmers of Alberta government that had first been elected in 1921 was re-elected, taking a majority of the seats in the Alberta Legislature. Herbert Greenfield had resigned as United Farmers leader and premier, and John E. Brownlee led the UFA to this second election victory, increasing the UFA's number of seats.
The writs of election were issued on May 10, 1926, allowing an election period of 40 days.
1926 was Alberta's first general election where Single transferable voting (STV) was used in the three largest cities and Instant-runoff voting was used everywhere else.
Calgary, Edmonton and Medicine Hat continued to be multi member districts. Edmonton elected five members; Calgary elected five members; Medicine Hat elected two. Previously they had elected members by Plurality block voting. Now they elected members using STV-PR, which at the time was called the Hare Proportional representation system. The seats in each city were filled by candidates who received quota or plurality of the votes whether through first-choice votes or a combination of first-choice votes and votes transferred from less-popular candidates and from successful candidates elected with surplus votes. Each voter cast just one vote so no one group could take all the seats in a city.
Outside the large cities, districts were single member districts and MLAs were elected under the Alternative Voting system. Rural voters, like their city counterparts, cast preferential ballots and had the ability to rank the candidates. The seat was filled by the candidate who received a majority of the votes whether through first-choice votes or a combination of first-choice votes and votes transferred from less-popular candidates. This was the first election in Canada (and in North America) where all the members were elected through something other than X voting.
This dual system of voting would last until 1956. Medicine Hat after 1926 changed to a single-member constituency, whose MLA was elected through Alternative Voting.
Under STV in Edmonton, the UFA captured one seat in Edmonton where it had taken no seats in 1921 under the Liberal government's Block Voting system. The Labour party also for the first time elected an MLA in Edmonton. As well, Edmonton voters elected a Liberal and two Conservatives. This mixed crop of representatives was much better balanced than the single-party sweeps that Edmonton had previously elected through other electoral systems.
The UFA also took a great share of the rural seats, taking 42 of the province's 49 rural seats. It took four rural seats that had been captured by Liberal candidates in 1921 (Beaver River, Leduc, Sedgewick and Whitford), and one that had been won by an Independent in 1921 (Claresholm). The UFA also won the district of Empress, formerly known as Redcliffe, which had been won by the UFA in 1921. No UFA candidate ran for re-election to its seat in Medicine Hat. It gained a seat in the newly created next-door Cypress district. It also lost its St. Albert seat.
The UFA derived no benefit from Alternative Voting - it would have won all but one of the seats it won under Alternative Voting if the contest had been conducted using First-past-the-post voting. And it lost one seat that it would have won if the contest had been held using First-past-the-post voting, (in Bow Valley).
Conservatives, being a less popular party, had been badly treated under FPTP and Block Voting in 1921 but now did better. It won two seats each in Edmonton and Calgary, where Block Voting had been replaced by STV.
At the time of the election call, six seats were sitting vacant. They had been vacated by MLAs who had run in the 1925 federal election. MLA C.W. Cross was elected in the federal election. William McCartney Davidson, Calgary Independent MLA, was another one of those who had left.