Lorne Gibson

Biography Lorne R. Gibson Lorne Gibson is a professional election administrator. He served as Alberta’s 5th Chief Electoral Officer following a comprehensive national search and occupied this position from 2006 to 2009. In this role, he was an independent officer and reported directly to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. He successfully administered Alberta’s 27th provincial general election in March 2008. This undertaking involved the recruitment, training and deployment of over 16,000 election officials. Before that he was the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer with Elections Manitoba from 1998 to 2006 and supervised general elections in Manitoba in 1999 and 2003. Lorne Gibson is currently consulting in the fields of electoral management and research. He possesses a sound knowledge of elections law, voter registration systems, campaign finance, and election management information systems, as well as practical experience with election planning and preparedness, public awareness, education and information campaigns, election official training, registration of political entities, political contribution rules, financial compliance reviews, public disclosure, enforcement, and the legislative amendment process. Lorne Gibson is currently working for IFES assisting the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq plan for their next election. Recently he was selected by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to conduct an auditability assessment of Bolivia’s voter registration system. Mr. Gibson has also just completed a consulting engagement with Elections British Columbia on central oversight of local government elections and a contract with Elections Saskatchewan involving the plans and preparations for their provincial general election in 2011. He also just returned from Seychelles where he was a member of an expert team observing Presidential elections on behalf of the Commonwealth Secretariat. Prior to entering the election field, Mr. Gibson was employed with the Province of Manitoba. He worked within two large central service departments over a 17-year period in the areas of policy development, program evaluation, operational research, communications and corporate planning. Lorne Gibson left the Manitoba Government as a senior executive manager with strong skills in management planning, including strategic, business, financial and operational planning; resource prioritization, allocation, monitoring and control; and, program performance measurement. He is also a skilled researcher with extensive experience in survey design, research methodology, sampling, statistical analysis and investigative research. He is an effective communicator with well-developed interpersonal skills, extensive experience writing business and research reports, briefing notes, correspondence and speeches, and skilled in public speaking, lecturing, training and media and public relations. Mr. Gibson holds a B.A. degree with a double major in Psychology and Sociology and a M.A. degree in Sociology from the University of Manitoba. He then attended the University of Alberta for 3 years as a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. While attending graduate school and throughout his career, Lorne taught undergraduate courses over a 20-year period at 3 different universities. The courses include: Introductory Sociology, Research Methods and Statistics, Criminology, Crime and Deviant Behaviour and Violent Crime and Criminals. He is also the author or co-author of several refereed journal articles. Mr. Gibson has extensive experience on Boards and committees. He has served as a board member of the John Howard and Elizabeth Fry Society and as President of the John Howard Society of Manitoba. He is currently a Public Representative on the Discipline Committee with the Law Society of Manitoba. He is also serving as board member with the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba and is also a Trustee with the Victoria General Hospital where he is Chair of their Ethics Committee.

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