Alberta seeks out-of-province help for massive referendum ballot count

Elections Alberta needs at least 60,000 workers to manually process millions of ballots within 48 hours

Author: Melanie Bennet

Elections Alberta is turning to election agencies outside the province for experienced personnel as it prepares to manually count millions of ballots from Alberta’s Oct. 19 referendum within just 48 hours.

The outside assistance comes as the agency undertakes what it has described as one of the largest referendum recruitment efforts in Canadian history, requiring at least 60,000 workers. Only about 13,000 were hired for Alberta’s 2023 provincial election.

According to the Globe and Mail, Elections Alberta had received approximately 24,000 applications as of early August, leaving the agency well short of its target. Chief electoral officer Gordon McClure has previously said as many as 90,000 workers could ultimately be required.

The agency is also seeking experienced personnel from election authorities elsewhere in Canada to provide additional expertise, particularly during the continuous ballot count following voting day.

It remains unclear which provinces or territories have been approached, how many outside personnel will participate, or what duties they will perform during the count.

The scale of the operation is driven in part by the referendum’s format.

Albertans will answer 10 separate questions, each printed on its own ballot. Elections Alberta is preparing 45 million ballots. If turnout matches the 2023 provincial election, when approximately 1.7 million votes were cast, workers could have at least 17 million completed ballots to tally.

Every ballot must be counted by hand following the Alberta government’s 2024 prohibition on electronic tabulators.

The people hired to do that work do not necessarily have to be Canadian citizens.

Elections Alberta allows Alberta residents who are eligible to work in Canada to serve in most election officer positions, subject to age and other requirements. Some positions are open to applicants as young as 16.

That includes Counting Officers, whose responsibilities include interpreting ballots individually and determining whether they should be counted.

While Counting Officers are tasked with interpreting ballots, Elections Alberta’s referendum procedures give the Voting Officer final authority over how a ballot is treated during the count. Scrutineers may also attend the official count.

The citizenship rule is not new to this referendum. Alberta changed its Election Act in 2018 following legislation passed by the former NDP government. Previously, a broader range of election officers were required to be electors. The changes left that requirement in place for Returning Officers and Election Clerks while allowing people who are not electors to hold other election positions.

The referendum nevertheless puts those rules to work on an unprecedented scale.

Elections Alberta must recruit tens of thousands of workers, conduct a province-wide manual count and produce unofficial results within 48 hours.

Alberta law does not specify what happens if Elections Alberta fails to meet that deadline, according to the province’s Justice Ministry.

Elections Alberta has said fewer workers could delay the results but that the agency will complete the task with the applicants it receives.

With two months remaining before voting day, fundamental details about the outside assistance, including who is coming to Alberta and whether those personnel will actually handle or interpret ballots, remain unanswered.

Elections Alberta did not respond to a request for comment.