Elections Alberta says “specific and exceptional challenges” at some voting stations caused the delay in reporting unofficial totals for last week’s referendum. The count was completed Saturday night, three days after the 48-hour deadline, with workers hand-counting more than 2.5 million individual ballots. Elections Alberta explained that – despite training and instructions – elections officers at “several” voting places combined ballots from multiple voting areas, contrary to changes made in 2025 that require each area be reported separately. With some voting places serving as many as 11 different areas, Elections Alberta said it took time for Returning Officers’ teams to separate the ballots at polls where they had been combined. “This is a very time-consuming process. The legislated requirement to hand-count all votes means this process is entirely manual,” Elections Alberta said. “In some locations, it is impossible to separate the votes by voting areas, and therefore, counts for all voting areas are combined in a single voting area to report results for that voting place. “It is important to note that regardless of whether results are reported by voting area or voting place, all ballots are accounted for, and all votes are included in the results.” Elections Alberta said all voting places that followed the correct procedure were able to report their unofficial results within the 48-hour timeframe. Lisa Young, professor of political science at the University of Calgary, said she wasn’t surprised the count took longer than expected or required. “The task of administering this referendum would have been much easier for Elections Alberta if they had been able to use vote tabulators,” Young said. “They would have been able to have a single page for the ballot, and results would have been available as soon as the polls closed. But they were required to use paper ballots.” On her Saturday radio show Premier Danielle Smith said the province will be reviewing how Elections Alberta handled the referendum, saying “let’s not presume that the issue was tabulators.” With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Angela Amato and CTV News Calgary’s Stephen Hunt
