Referendum results won’t come easy

Posted on September 17, 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Patrick Wachter
Southern Alberta Newspapers

Officials from Elections Alberta outlined operational details for the upcoming provincial referendum during a technical briefing on Sept. 3, detailing a hand-count process that will extend at least into the early morning following the vote.

Deputy chief electoral officer Dallas Stos confirmed that a budget for the event will be released later in the fall.

“We will be submitting a budget for the referendum to standing committee later in the fall following the referendum,” Stos said. “There are still a lot of moving parts, there are logistics, surprises that come up all the time, so we are not prepared at this point to provide an estimate.”

The logistics of counting 10 individual referendum questions across the province will delay immediate results on voting night. Director of elections operations Jennifer Maskosky noted that while results will trickle in throughout the evening of Oct. 19, full results for Question 10 are not expected right away. “We would think that there’s going to be some EDs that we will start to see some results trickling in throughout that evening of October 19,” Maskosky said.

Media relations lead Michelle Gurney emphasized that initial results for Question 10 will likely arrive overnight.

“We’re not anticipating that we’ll see the complete results for those until early in the morning on the 20th,” Gurney said. “And so that could be between, and this is our best guess right now based on everything going really well, that it could be between 1 and 4 a.m. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

Officials confirmed that the question on separation, Question 10, will be counted first, with the others to follow in order from 1-9. With a two-day hard deadline to count ballots for all 10 questions, it will be all hands on deck to avoid flirting with counts missed on later questions.

“There are no breaks,” Stos said. “It is straight through. We do not have the option to go home and sleep and come back the next day and start. We have 48 hours from the time voting ends to complete the count.”

It was made clear Sept. 3 that all questions, including No. 10, are strictly because the provincial government chose them, not because of citizen-led initiatives like Forever Canadian.

“This is a government-initiated set of questions,” Stos said. “It is not, neither of the statements or the results, direct result of a successful citizen initiative petition.”

Regarding technical data feeds for outlets on election night, Stos confirmed, “You can expect if you’ve covered an election, a provincial general election here in the past, same sorts of, exactly the same sort of reporting capabilities that we’ve had in the past.”

Addressing logistics for counters working overnight, Maskosky stated, “Those election workers that are going to be working those counting shifts, obviously we’re meeting employment standards, so yes, they would be working, if it’s a 12-hour shift, they would be paid the hours that they are to be paid through, if it’s overtime requirements, we’re meeting that.”

Demand for mail-in voting has increased heading into the referendum. “Special ballots have been incredibly popular for folks,” Stos said. “290,000 was the number I checked this morning before we started.”

Due to this high volume, Elections Alberta moved the deadline to apply for a special ballot from Oct. 9 to Sept. 25.

“With this sort of volume, it takes a lot to move that through the systems,” Stos explained. “We want electors to be able, if this is the voting option that they have selected, we want them to be able to receive and be able to return those completed special ballot packages on time.”

For electors concerned about the declaration language on special ballots regarding an inability to vote in person, Stos clarified, “In terms of the declarations, there’s a bit of a holdover in the legislative act that still refers to unable to vote. But the reasons to request a special ballot were fully removed.”

Stos added, “If electors want, they can strike that out on their declaration, they can leave the rest of the declaration, sign it and send it back. We will accept those.”

Voters will also have the option to decline individual ballots at the polling station.

“The elector absolutely has every right to decline one, four, five, 10, they don’t have to take any of them,” Maskosky explained. “If they choose to decline a ballot, there is a declined ballot envelope, and that’s where those ballots would be placed.”

Stos also addressed the overall historical scope of the event.

“This is absolutely an historic event,” Stos said. “Not only has Alberta never done anything like this, nowhere in Canada has done anything like this before. Yes, we’ve had referendums, yes, there’s been millions of ballots, but not concentrated like this or have a 10-question event.”