Alberta proposes changes to election rules, including banning electronic tabulators

Alberta is changing the rules around provincial elections, banning electronic vote tabulators and making it easier to recall an MLA. Nicole Weisberg reports.

Alberta is proposing a number of changes to its election rules.

Bill 54, introduced in the legislature on Tuesday afternoon, includes changes to several pieces of legislation, including banning electronic tabulators, putting a 12-hour deadline on release unofficial results and getting rid of the ability to vouch for someone else, without identification, at a polling station.

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“These proposed changes are intended to give Albertans confidence that our democratic processes are fair, consistent and transparent for all,” said Mickey Amery, Alberta’s justice minister and solicitor general.

The provincial government is also making it easier to recall MLAs by lowering the threshold for the number of signatures needed for a recall petition.

“We saw with some of the recall initiatives at the municipal level, the bar was impossible to achieve so we wanted to try to create something a little more reasonable,” Premier Danielle Smith said.

The bill also includes new finance rules that allow corporations and unions to fund political parties, candidates and third-party election advertising.