Albertans are heading to advance polling stations this week, casting ballots in a referendum that asks whether the province should break away from Confederation. Early voting for the Oct. 19 referendum opens Tuesday, with the volume of mail-in ballot requests pointing to the possibility of higher-than-usual participation.
Elections Alberta confirmed this week that scenario planning had concluded and its teams were prepared to handle any complications that might arise — a readiness declaration that followed months of the agency's own warnings about the considerable administrative demands the October 19 vote would place on provincial electoral operations, given that Premier Danielle Smith's referendum question centres on Alberta's relationship with the rest of Canada.
The electoral agency has indicated that roughly 45 million ballots will need to go to print and a workforce of no fewer than 60,000 people will be needed to manage distribution and conduct the hand count, a combination of demands that puts a final tally before the early hours of Oct. 20 out of reach. By Friday morning, roughly 44,000 workers had been brought on board, with recruitment set to carry on through to voting day itself, Hanrahan noted, adding that the response from Albertans had been welcome and that the organisation was thankful for it.
Voter participation in the province could reach around 85 per cent, Elections Alberta has indicated, a level that would set a new record if achieved. About 658,000 applications for mail-in ballots arrived in the province — a number equal to around one in five of the approximately three million people on the electoral roll — pointing to the breadth of engagement among voters. By Friday's cutoff for returning mail-in ballots, the agency had logged slightly more than 300,000 completed submissions, Hanrahan noted.
Roughly 300 voters who were among the earliest to receive their mailed packages discovered that several of the 10 questions had been left out of their ballots, a printing error that Elections Alberta attributed to its service provider and addressed by dispatching replacement ballots through the mail.
During the opening weeks of the absentee ballot window, some voters raised objections to a form that asked them to confirm an inability to cast their ballot in person as a condition of voting by mail. Penalties for improper use of the procedure were laid out in the document. According to Elections Alberta, the form no longer reflected current rules, as provincial policy had been updated to remove the requirement that mail-in voters provide a reason for their choice. Voters were directed to strike through that portion of the form and carry on with the remaining steps of the declaration process.
Of the roughly 3,000 postal ballots returned to the agency, a portion arrived either without the required identity documentation or with declaration forms that had not been completed properly. Each affected voter was to receive direct outreach from the organisation, with the aim of resolving their registration issue so their ballots would be eligible for counting.
Speaking to reporters, Premier Smith characterised Elections Alberta's capacity to help voters correct errors as an indicator of sound management of the referendum process. The Opposition NDP has put forward allegations that electoral system funding fell short under Smith's watch. On Wednesday, she noted that the voting process might leave certain matters requiring attention, and went on to say that Elections Alberta would likely produce its own review of how the process unfolded and whether any adjustments to procedures were warranted.
Five days of in-person advance voting for the referendum get under way on Tuesday. Polling in the province will be served by 310 advance stations, each tied to a specific electoral division that residents of that area are required to use. Approximately 1,400 polling stations are set to be open across the province when voters cast their ballots on referendum day. The agency, Hanrahan noted, is pointing voters who have concerns about wait times on Oct. 19 toward advance polling locations as an alternative.
Voters heading to the polls are being advised by Elections Alberta to look over the referendum questions in advance. Among the five areas Smith has raised is whether temporary workers and residents ought to face fees when drawing on social services — health care and education among them — alongside the broader question of immigration reform. Four constitutional questions form part of the mandate Smith is seeking, with the aim of pressing her case among provincial leaders elsewhere in the country. The tenth item on the list asks whether Albertans favour staying within Confederation or pursuing a formal, binding referendum on separation from it.
Projections from Elections Alberta put the time a prepared voter spends at the ballot box at roughly two minutes, even when that person arrives with a clear decision already made. Hanrahan noted that voters unfamiliar with the ballot questions might need up to four minutes to complete them, while those for whom English is a second language, those with lower literacy levels, or slower readers could require close to six minutes — figures she described as approximations drawn from modelling, adding that individual voting pace varies and no time limit exists on how long a person may take to mark their ballot.
Hanrahan urged voters to treat poll workers — people drawn from the same communities as those casting ballots — with courtesy, noting that election staff would be available throughout the day to address any questions that arise.
