What Albertans Are Voting On as Advance Referendum Voting Begins

Albertans begin advance voting on Tuesday, October 13, ahead of a provincial referendum on October 19 with 10 questions covering immigration, constitutional change and whether Alberta should start a legal process that could lead to a future vote on leaving Canada.

How and when to vote
Advance voting runs Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., at more than 300 stations, and voters must cast their ballot in their electoral division. On October 19, just over 1,400 polling stations will be open. Voters need one piece of government-issued photo identification showing their name and current address, or two pieces of identification showing their full name, one of which shows a current address. Elections Alberta lists 50 acceptable forms of identification on its website, and it accepts expired identification if the name is correct. Ballots come in different colours; voters may mark some, all, or none of them, and each ballot goes into its own box. Officials expect record turnout of 80 to 85 percent of Alberta’s nearly three million electors, according to Canadian Press reporting carried by CP24.

The 10 questions
Five questions address immigration and voting: more provincial control over immigration, restricting eligibility for provincially funded programs, a 12-month wait before temporary residents receive provincially funded social supports, fees for temporary residents’ health care and education, and proof of citizenship to vote in provincial elections. Four more ask whether Alberta should work toward constitutional change so provinces appoint judges to provincial courts, abolish the Senate, allow provinces to opt out of federally funded programs, and make provincial laws prevail over federal laws in provincial or shared areas. These summaries come from a plain-language guide to the ballot; the official wording is on the Elections Alberta website and should be consulted before voting.

Question 10 is not a vote to separate
The 10th question has drawn the most attention, and it offers two options, not yes or no. Option 1 is that “Alberta should remain a province of Canada.” Option 2 is that the government would “commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution” toward a “binding provincial referendum” on separation. Choosing Option 2 would start a process that could lead to a later vote. It would not take Alberta out of Canada, and voters would decide the separation question later. NordoVista could not confirm from the sources reviewed what legal effect the October 19 result would have on its own, and the plain language guide says only that no answer changes a law by itself. The constitutional questions are also not amendments: a yes would require Alberta to negotiate with other provinces, and changes such as abolishing the Senate would require agreement from Parliament and all 10 provinces.

Where public opinion stands
An Ipsos poll for Global News, taken September 18 to 22 among 600 Alberta residents online, found 70 percent planned to choose Option 1 and 20 percent Option 2, with a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.9 points. Gregory Jack, Ipsos senior vice president, said motivation could matter more than usual: “the ‘no’ side, the side that wants to stay, is not as motivated.” Ipsos also found that 76 percent of Albertans knew the referendum has multiple questions, and 62 percent planned to vote on all 10.

Mail in ballots and counting
Elections Alberta sent more than 652,000 mail-in ballot packages to eligible voters. On October 6, Elections Alberta said more than 3,000 had been returned with errors that made them invalid, including missing declaration forms or identification problems, and that there was still time to submit corrected information by email. By law, officials must count votes by hand within 48 hours. They will count Question 10 first, with early results after 8 p.m. on October 19 and the final count for that question in the early hours of the next morning. Results for the other nine questions are expected by Wednesday.

What to watch
The headline number will be the split on Question 10, but the margin and turnout matter as much, along with how many mail-in ballots are rejected. NordoVista will report the official count from Elections Alberta and separate it from campaign claims and unofficial projections.