As Alberta careens toward a chaotic and divisive vote on separation seemingly drafted to discourage the United Conservative Party’s dominant separatist faction from trying to force Premier Danielle Smith out as party leader, her cabinet on Thursday approved a temporary policy the Opposition NDP says is intended to help separatists.
The cabinet order – Order-in-Council 314/2026 – says copies of the list of electors now given to political parties will include only the number of voters in each municipality and voting area. No names, addresses, phone numbers or the like.
The problem with this from the perspective of the NDP Opposition and presumably that of every other political party is that the new list will make it impossible for scrutineers to check if the right person is voting.
Ergo, said NDP House Leader Christina Gray in a news release yesterday afternoon, “once again, the UCP changes the rules in an unprecedented way, at the last minute, to help their separatist friends.”
“We are worried the UCP is opening the door for voter fraud,” she explained. “Parties like ours scrutineering the vote won’t have enough information to know who those voters are. We won’t even know if there were 24 voters claiming the same address.”
“We won’t be able to tell if the same name is voting dozens of times,” she added during a conversation with reporters yesterday.
According to a statement the office of Justice Minister Mickey Amery gave to The Canadian Press yesterday, but which was not published on the government’s website where citizens can read the explanation for themselves, the point of this sudden policy change is because “Albertans must have confidence that their personal information is being protected.”
“We take the privacy and security of Albertans’ information very seriously, and protecting that information remains our top priority,” the statement said.
The irony in this being introduced only 32 days before the referendum is that the government didn’t seem to be taking voters’ privacy all that seriously last spring, when a copy of the entire voters list given to the separatist Republican Party of Alberta found its way onto the Internet.
While a judge ordered it removed from the Internet, the information remains in the wind, effectively doxxing 2.9 million adult Albertans, including almost everyone in Alberta reading this post. The RPA claims it did nothing wrong. Until Thursday, the government has had very little to say about what is thought to have been the largest data breach in Canadian history.
So blocking scrutineers from using the list now to do their job, which is essential to citizen confidence in democracy, presumably protects no one’s personal information but may, as the NDP argues, makes fraud easier.
Mr. Amery and his office had nothing to say about the NDP’s concern, or why the cabinet order says the policy the government claims is necessary now will expire at the end of the year.
As for Elections Alberta, which appears to be in a state of near collapse, it will still be working from the old list of electors, the one with all their private information.
Meanwhile, Elections Alberta admitted in a news release yesterday that it is still roughly 35,000 human beings short of the number of electoral officers it needs to conduct voting on Oct. 19!
Thirty days from now, the government will not only present Albertans with the divisive separation referendum it never campaigned on but with nine additional confusing and dishonest referendum questions designed to drum up support for MAGA-influenced immigration policies and constitutional changes.
Ballots will all have to be counted by hand because the UCP apparently didn’t understand the difference between voting machines, featured in many MAGA conspiracy claims about Donald Trump’s lack of success in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and the vote tabulators used in Alberta.
I’ve scrutineered on many occasions and will be scrutineering on October 19. But I can’t imagine what my role will be if I am not actually watching names being removed from the list of those still to vote. This looks like an effort by the UCP and the separatists to pad the pro-separation vote. It’s fraud just like the Smith-run scam to castrate Elections Alberta and turn their top dogs into clowns imitating 3rd graders pretending to learn what statistics are.
@Alvin
I will be recording clerk noting those names.
Normal procedure, no one is “removed” from the list, they are marked as having received a ballot, and their sequence number from the voting record is recorded sseparately. Removals only happen when someone has deceased, moved, or requests removal.
Scrutineers are certainly allowed to watch a person prove their eligibility, but I can see how having the actual list would make it easier.
Another case of the UCP not thinking things through?
Can the referendum be stopped by a court order – if someone can get the paperwork in place right away?
Par for the course for Amery and the deeply corrupt UCP. Independent observers should be mandatory for these referendum question votes, as well as security at polling stations because of the increased possibility of violence. UGH.
I’m beginning to think there might be a contest going on to see who is the dumbest political party, Smith and her gang or trump and his racists.
They could count the ballots by hand. Remember when that is how it was done, no machines. One box of ballots had to be counted three times to come to the correct number for each candidate.
Yes it does sound easier for fraud to take place but what is a little fraud when you want to win a vote you may well loose.
It looks like Calgary-Shaw has shaken Dani’s faith in democratically conducted elections. I’d suggest she needs to call a provincial election, but it’s not clear she’s capable of mounting one.
It was obvious that Danielle Smith and the UCP were never going to play by the rules for their upcoming referendum. The UCP haven’t played by the rules from the onset, so their continued meddling in the Democratic process was preordained and predetermined.
The referendum outcome MUST be so important to them that they are willing to reveal their cards now on “screwing with the scrutineers” instead of waiting to use this trick for next year’s provincial election.
We need the feds to intervene and we need them NOW !
All Albertans need to stand up and show our outrage NOW in a BIG WAY or it will be too late!
Democracy is dying in Alberta!
I’ve said for some time that we need the United Nations to intervene in Alberta’s referendum with vote supervision. I wasn’t joking.
This referendum has been corrupted to the point that it’s hard to know if we’re living in Alberta or the game of Tropico. What next? Why stop now? Surely our premier will pump out some more orders in council at the last minute, leaving no doubt that democracy has been replaced by full-on fascism.
I almost miss her mean girl days as a school trustee, when she picked notes out of garbage cans and tattled on her female colleagues. So much more charming.
This will also hobble GOTV — Get Out The Vote — efforts by campaign volunteers on both sides.
Canvassers for the NDP, the only political party unabashedly on the Remain side, won’t be able to monitor voter turnout on voting day, and “pull the vote” by contacting supporters who haven’t yet voted — a crucial part of the electoral “ground game” that is such a prominent feature of our democracy.
Third-Party Advertisers like Stephen Carter’s “Alberta’s Voice”, and the “Forever Canadian” campaign led by Thomas Lukaszuk, don’t have access to the voters list. Political parties like the NDP, UCP, et. al., do — or did. That’s a significant advantage for GOTV. Now it’s gone.
How does Daniellezebub and her UCP show that they’re separatists, while also denying they’re separatists? This is how.
I despair for this province, led by bullying incompetents.
The UCP aren’t even trying to hide putting their thumb on the scale anymore. Just blatant third world style corruption.
When will voters finally reach their limit and make the UCP pay?
It looks like Smith and the confederacy of dunces commonly know as her cabinet are channeling the former mayor of Chicago, Big Bill Thompson, who apparently coined the phrase. “Vote early and vote often”. I cannot believe Elections Alberta are hanging around giving this charade legitimacy.
Our Justice Minister Qassim Mohammed Makki Amery used the notwithstanding clause several times to pass laws many felt were discriminatory. Now he is further destabilizing Canada by bringing into disrepute our voting system on the eve of a referendum to benefit a rump of white Christian nationalists. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
Progs preferred fascist opposition to having to face economic democracy, and this is what you get. Outright criminal fascism. Remember, NATO was content to have a fully fascist Greece as a member, but it was crucial to blow up Yugoslavia to free the Ustase and Bosnian Nazis from communism. And Diebold voting machines were used to steal an election, but it was a Republican theft. The owner of Diebold literally promised to deliver Ohio the year before the 2004 theft.
Elections Alberta is planning for 2 shifts counting ballots, and more are possible. I am working as a record clerk, and have volunteered for 3rd shift if required.
Smith 38% approval rating, according to CTV the other morning. Smith moving ahead with the AI project by Edmonton, doesn’t care that Albertans don’t want AI. Smith, changing the voters list, to her advantage. Separatists, say, it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, they will continue fighting to separate. If this keeps up, it’ll be CIVIL WAR breaks out in Alberta.
Today I saw a new separatist sign. It’s kinda un-nerving, I can’t really describe it, I think you need to see in person. I saw one in Okotoks and the other on HI way 7 going to Black Diamond.
As I’ve said many times before, I look forward to the day that Amery is disbarred.
One only has to look at Bill 14 and ask why he has given himself (and prior Justice ministers) immunity. Former ND Justice minister Kathleen Ganley wont need to avail of that odd provision, but some of the CON varieties must have reason to be included.
Mickey’s actions are not in keeping with good legal practises, imo.
Political deceit piles upon political deceit; where, a supposed end, a referendum, merely enables and adds momentum to a decades long project of grievance politics, i.e.,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/analysis-danielle-smith-separation-vote-strategic-thinking-9.7209635
The Alberta referendum set up [a project accomplished by means of deceit and trickery] is a strategic move designed by a group of individuals that have been promoting the idea of Alberta separation as a plan; which, has been carefully incubated and nurtured for decades. They are also the same individuals that have tutored and continue to advise the current premier.
They all share common political interests and goals, they associate with one another, and they all frequent the same social environments. High level power and influence is being exercised discreetly and the key fundamentals are primarily being manipulated and controlled backstage, behind the curtain.
Therefore, the referendum on separation is acting by design as a type of stimulus for Alberta separatists by adding more momentum to the idea of separation. It also reinforces the desired separatist outcome by legitimizing and normalizing a separatist agenda in broader public discourse; where, only one outcome will ever be acceptable to Alberta separatists.
See for example,
“‘Never giving up’: Alberta separatist leaders say referendum vote won’t end their fight”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-referendum-separatist-leaders-9.7349718
And where the messaging from a preeminent separatist sympathizer, manipulator, and political gaslighter [“A political gaslighter is a leader or group that deliberately manipulates information to make the public doubt their own perceptions, creating confusion and consolidating power.”] extraordinaire is typically both consistent and constant:
https://manningp.substack.com/p/the-carney-threat-to-national-unity
“If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”
David Frum
More remarkable that Danielle Smith’s slavish emulation of MAGA is the fact that everything the tRumperine Orange One touches turns to—uh—well, let’s just say he has the King Merde-ass touch. Albertans are already feeling the Canadian equivalent, courtesy their separatist premier, and yet she’s teeing up residents for two-tier healthcare—about the farthest thing from a popular psephological cookie possible. By what calculus is it possible to mollify the electorate by appeasing to a small but dangerous minority it generally disapproves of? Whatever it is, the odds of it being genuine UCP policy are as low as Smith’s lockstep, box-ticking closeness with the tRumpublican tactical agenda and overweening completeness she strives for as if to spite the global socio-economic disaster that is the MAGA movement.
tRump threatens to make Canada a 51st state; Smith threatens Canada that Alberta will be that 51st state. The Donald blames immigrants for illegal voting; Smith implies the same with new drivers’ licence rules and constitutional demands. tRump vilifies alt-gender people; so does Smith’s poop-cookie UCP. tRump blatantly interferes with the voting system in order to cheat; et cetera.
If Smith hasn’t decided to distance herself from Maple MAGA yet—and saying she’s voting to stay in Canada means little when otherwise she does everything she can to advance separatism—one wonders what she’ll do if tRump is reduced to a lame duck with an impeachment target on every one of his tail feathers, as appears very likely in just a little over six weeks. What about those stupid referenda questions, especially the big one, the “should-we-do-a-real-separation-referendum?” question. Will it be a “perfect” result? Will Danielle be “completely exonerated”? Or will she strut like an Oranguskunk painted into the corner of Tangerine Trail and Peach Place?
If we may rely on the strength of inference from everything we’ve seen of tRumpublican MAGA, Maple MAGA, and the Smith&Parker Gang so far, the culprits will probably brag of their self-proclaimed successes and blame the True NonBelievers for indictments at each step, all thirteen of them, while insisting the priest and hooded man at the lever are a hoax. As observed before, Danielle Smith was instrumental in the destruction of two parties of the right in Alberta and, if we may go by any contrition she’s ever shown, has dubious qualm about making it a trifecta.
And it’s not just about scrutineering. Parties use the voters’ list to get out the vote, a crucial exercise with First Past The Post voluntary voting. Working with an outdated list greatly hampers this effort.
You know what would be a good security measure? Throw the crooks that stole the list in jail, and fine them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Given the horse is already way out the gate here, this seems very preformative now by the UCP. Also, as indicated this is going to make it harder for everyone to track, get out their voters and scrutinize for irregularities. Although maybe the latter is their true intention, given their past screw ups they are expecting more problems and just want to try hide them as much as possible.
Also given the shortage of staff and the complexity of the referendums with all those questions (although of course not one about coal mining in the Rockies, because the UCP prefers to dwell on immigrants instead), referendum night could end up being a gong show like some past US elections. However, perhaps that is what MAGA Marlaina is comfortable with as she travels to Mar a Lago and other places in the US regularly.
Unfortunately I cannot see any way of guaranteeing people won’t vote multiple times with the names and addresses now deleted. What a bunch of shysters.