The vote in the race to succeed Alberta's Progressive Conservative Leader Ralph Klein as the oil-rich province's premier is headed for a second round.

Jim Dinning, the presumed front-runner before the vote, finished first, but nowhere near the 50 per cent-plus-one mark needed for a first ballot victory.

Dinning, the province's one-time provincial treasurer who has been out of elected politics for a decade, had 29,470 votes with all of the province's 83 constituencies reporting. That represented about 30 per cent of the 97,690 ballots cast.

The second-place candidate is rookie backbencher Ted Morton, standard-bearer for the hard right of the party, with 25,648 votes (26 per cent). Ed Stelmach, a farmer and former cabinet minister, had 14,967 votes (15 per cent).

Here are the bottom five candidates, who will not be on the second-round ballot on Dec. 2:

• Lyle Oberg: 11,638
• Dave Hancock: 7,595
• Mark Norris, 6,789
• Victor Doerksen: 873
• Gary McPherson: 744

The battle for position in next Saturday's vote didn't take long to start.

"In seven days, our party and our province have a clear choice to make -- a choice between tackling tomorrow's challenges or fighting yesterday's battles," Dinning told his supporters. "A choice between a leader with a proven track record, a leader that can bring people together ... or choosing a leader who's determined to fight the battles of the past, and build firewalls and not bridges to the rest of Canada."

Morton, 57 -- who helped Prime Minister Stephen Harper write the famous 2001 "firewall letter" on safeguarding Alberta against federal intrusions -- scoffed at that.

"You don't have to be a genius to see that a lot of Conservatives have become disillusioned with the Conservative government in the last few years," he said.

"And I'm afraid Jim made the mistake of hiring on a bunch of advisers that are very much associated with the status quo. People aren't happy with the status quo. They want some change."

As to the firewall comment, Morton said: "I'd say that's a losing strategy for Mr. Dinning. Look at the results tonight. Building firewalls is just a very colourful metaphor for rebalancing federalism.

"It's something that Prime Minister Harper has talked about. It's something that's popular in Quebec, it's popular in other provinces and it's popular in Alberta.''

Some of Morton's platform planks include protecting the province against any resource revenue raids by Ottawa plus creating a provincial police force and pension plan. The latter two ideas were first proposed in the firewall letter.

He plans to fight "judicial activism" and plans to tie government spending to revenue levels.

Over the course of the campaign, Morton criticized Dinning as a puppet of big business and called him a dilettante for his long break from elected office.

Stelmach, a 55-year-old farmer and former intergovernmental affairs minister, pronounced himself happy with his position.

"It's working against all odds, and I'm looking forward to next week," he said. "If you're running a marathon, you don't give up halfway through. We'll just work hard at talking to people, the way we have been the whole time."

Voting took place with temperatures in the minus-20-degrees-Celsius range in Alberta. Organizers expressed confidence about getting people to the polls, but some privately admitted the frigid temperatures could hurt the turnout, particularly in rural areas.

Turnout in Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer -- Alberta's three biggest cities -- was reported as strong.

Klein is retiring after 14 years as a popular and colourful political leader in which he won four consecutive majority governments. However, he only got an approval rating of 55 per cent from his party in a leadership review vote in late March.

Eight candidates hadput their hats in the ring to replace Klein (another candidate dropped out). While Klein didn't throw his support behind any one candidate, Dinning and Ted Morton were widely seen as the front-runners in the race.

Prominent Alberta radio personality Dave Rutherford told CTV Newsnet that a poll earlier this week put Morton in second place. "That's going to be an issue for this party -- a serious issue," he said.

Unlike Morton, Dinning is a centrist in the Ralph Klein mould, Rutherford said.

Dinning has run on fiscal responsibility and preserving the public health care system.

The process

The party's leadership election follows a one-member-one-vote process adopted in 1991, and provides a two-stage ballot process.

A leader is elected when one candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote.

If a clear majority doesn't emerge for one candidate from the first ballot, a second ballot the following Saturday will provide a runoff of the top three contenders from the first ballot. If no one wins a clear majority, a winner will be declared by preferential ranking.

Voting is open to all party members for both ballots. Any Progressive Conservative member in good standing can vote and there will be polling stations in each constituency. Anyone over the age of 16 can buy a membership card for five dollars and vote, as long as they provide two pieces of identification with a photo and something that confirms their home address, such as a utility bill.

"People have been out there selling memberships like mad," Rutherford said.

CTV Edmonton reported that some people bought memberships just before voting.

Polls opened at 9 a.m. MT for the first ballot on Saturday, and closed at 7 p.m. Candidates gathered to await results at the Roundup Centre in Calgary. On Dec. 2, candidates will await results at the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton.

When a new leader and premier is elected, Rutherford said some key issues will be managing the huge surpluses being generated by Alberta's energy wealth and attracting and keeping workers, given the labour shortages being experienced in the red-hot economy.

With a report from CTV's Sarah Galashan and files from The Canadian Press