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An Edmonton polling station in 2023. Elections Alberta faces the massive task of preparing for a 10-question referendum vote next month after the provincial government introduced a slew of changes to elections law.AMBER BRACKEN/Reuters
Elections Alberta says much of the country will likely be asleep when it finishes tabulating millions of expected ballots and announces the results of the province’s independence vote next month.
The agency on Thursday said it expects the results from the separation question – which asks voters whether they wish to remain in Canada or lay the legal groundwork for a second, binding secession referendum – to be reported on Oct. 20 between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. local time, several hours after polls close the previous evening.
Elections Alberta receives 225,000 requests for referendum mail-in ballots
Results from the other nine referendum questions won’t be publicly reported until the next day.
Elections Alberta on Thursday provided some details on how the 10-question referendum will play out.
The gargantuan task has stressed the electoral agency, which has been forced to respond to a tsunami of changes to provincial elections law in recent years under Premier Danielle Smith’s government.
“Not only has Alberta never done anything like this – nowhere in Canada has done anything like this before,” Dallas Stoesz, deputy chief electoral officer, told reporters at a news conference.
“Yes, we’ve had referendums. Yes, there’s been millions of ballots. But not concentrated like this, or across a 10-question event.”
While Ms. Smith’s question on secession has dominated the discussion in recent months, she is also hoping voters will endorse nine additional questions that propose dramatically curtailing the public services Alberta offers certain immigrants and starting conversations with other provinces about lobbying for changes to the Canadian Constitution.
Elections Alberta will first count and report the votes for the secession question and then move to counting ballots for the nine others, the agency said.
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Ballots will be reported live from each of Alberta’s 87 electoral divisions after polls close at 8 p.m. on referendum day, said Jennifer Maskoske, the agency’s director of elections operations.
It will be the first province-wide vote to be hand-counted since Ms. Smith banned the use of electronic tabulators for vote counting, arguing the machines have failed to produce faster results or increase confidence in elections.