Elections Alberta explains why the referendum took so long to count
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referendum → explain → ?
More than 20 million ballots were counted, Michelle Gurney tells CBC
It's been just over a week since Alberta voted in an historic referendum.
The results saw Albertans support the proposals in questions 1 to 5, which focused on immigration and access to services for non-permanent residents, and reject question 6 to 9, which dealt with constitutional issues.
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which → count → issues
Question 10, the big ticket separation referendum question, saw around 75 per cent of Albertans vote to remain in Canada.
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cent → see → Canada
Elections Alberta said more than 20 million ballots were counted in the days following the vote.
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ballots → say → vote
The agency says that's more than any electoral event in Canadian history, including federal elections.
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that → say → elections
Michelle Gurney is a spokesperson with Elections Alberta, and she joined Tara McCarthy Tuesday on Edmonton AM to talk about the count.
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she → join → count
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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interview → edit → length
How successful was Elections Alberta in handling this referendum and the the vote counting process?
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Alberta → handle → referendum
We were able to report that we completed the unofficial count on Sunday.
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we → report → Sunday
The numbers were actually completed at around 9:14 p.m. on Saturday night.
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numbers → complete → night
The good news is, in all of the voting places that followed the correct procedures, we were finished the counts in those locations within 48 hours.
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we → follow → hours
The special ballots took a little longer and that was really due to that very high volume.
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that → take → volume
And we finished those, I'd say almost 24 hours after the deadline, around 10:40 p.m Thursday, Oct. 22.
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I → finish → p.m
So, feeling good now as we move into this next phase, which is the really important stage of going from the unofficial to the official results.
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which → feel → results
Now, as you say, the initial 48-hour deadline to report unofficial results wasn't met.
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deadline → say → results
You mentioned procedural errors and that happened at some polling stations.
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that → mention → stations
What do you mean by that?
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you → mean → that
Yes, and I'll try to simplify this as much as I can: The legislation requires that we report the ballots by voting area as opposed to voting place.
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we → try → area
So, if you voted in person, you likely recall going into the voting area, the voting station, and you could see a number of different sets of 10 ballot boxes.
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you → vote → boxes
And so we must report based on each set of ballot boxes and those are assigned by voting area.
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those → report → area
We had a few voting places — around seven — that they actually combined their ballot boxes.
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they → have → boxes
So, as opposed to using the 10 for each area, they use 10 for their whole voting place.
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they → oppose → place
What that meant is when they took those ballots out of those secure boxes, then there was a lot of work to do to sort the ballots by signature of the election officers who were assigned to each of the voting areas.
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who → mean → areas
So that caused a significant delay and a big logistical job in making those corrections there, and in two places, it simply wasn't possible to then separate the ballots because of the high volume.
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it → cause → volume
From left to right, Elections Alberta spokesperson Michelle Gurney, deputy chief electoral officer Dallas Stoesz, and director of elections operations Jennifer Maskoske answer reporters' questions at Elections Alberta's west Edmonton warehouse on Sept. 3, 2026.
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Gurney → answer → Sept.
How did that even happen?
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that → happen → ?
People not understanding the procedure?
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People → understand → procedure
It's hard to know because I haven't spoken directly with anybody in those areas.
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I → know → areas
I can tell you that, in more than 80 areas, electoral divisions, we didn't have any issues.
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we → tell → issues
We do train the teams to be able to do this work in this way and to very specifically follow the legislation.
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We → train → legislation
It's hard to know why some folks combine those ballot boxes.
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folks → know → boxes
I think people are just looking for efficiency.
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people → think → efficiency
But again, I can't speak for them, but because we have to report by voting area, by voting place, that's what we consider a procedural error.
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we → speak → what
We know that Elections Alberta didn't reach the number of people it wanted for a workforce for this referendum.
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it → know → referendum
How did that impact the vote counting process and even the process beforehand?
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that → impact → process
We were talking about how big the federal election is and that we counted more ballots in Alberta than you do at the federal election, and they have around 211,000 workers for that event.
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they → talk → event
We were striving for 60,000, which is similar to what they they just had in Quebec.
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they → strive → Quebec
So, 47,000, you know, this is Alberta.
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this → know → ?
We know how efficient we are here … we were aiming to get the work done within the legislative timeline, which is what we're always trying to do.
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we → know → what
And you know, I think these procedural errors are really what caused us to miss the deadline in a few areas.
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us → know → areas
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
