Elections Manitoba asked to assist with referendum

WINNIPEG — Manitoba’s non-partisan elections management agency could help its Alberta counterpart with that province’s October referendum — an event one political expert expects to be a “shemozzle.”

Elections Alberta has asked Elections Manitoba to send staff to assist with the vote, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Manitoba confirmed Wednesday.

The Oct. 19 referendum will ask Albertans 10 questions, including whether that province should remain part of Canada.

Each of the referendum questions will be on separate numbered and colour-coded ballots, which will be counted by hand. With an estimated 2,966,192 voters in the province — registered as of May 2025 — there could be as many as 30 million ballots to count.

“There’s every reason to believe that election referendum day is going to be a shemozzle,” University of Calgary political science Prof. Lisa Young said Wednesday.

Young said Elections Alberta was in a pickle for two reasons.

“First of all, rather than there being one ballot, in this instance, you’re going to walk in and have a choice of getting all 10 ballots or maybe not all 10. You can say, ‘Oh no, I only want the separation question’ or ‘I’ll take all 10,’” Young said.

Voters will choose which referendum questions to vote on and then return the colour-coded ballots to the correct colour-coded box.

“The second thing that people need to understand is that the province of Alberta has expressly forbidden the use of vote tabulators,” she said, due to “paranoia” in certain political circles about voting machines.

“Once we’ve actually got all of these votes into the right colour-coded boxes, somebody’s going to have to sit and hand-count them.”

Elections Alberta spokesperson Maia Hanrahan said it’s common practice for electoral management bodies (EMB) to support each other during elections.

“Similar invitations and programs happen across the country for major electoral events,” she said in an email.

In this case, it’s all skilled hands on deck.

“A select number of senior, experienced EMB staff with highly specialized expertise are invited to support the core Elections Alberta team to add expert resources in key functional areas during this critical election event,” Hanrahan said.

She said extra would help cover the small team of permanent Elections Alberta staff during the 60-hour election day and count period.

“We are privileged to be receiving support from several of our EMB partners across the country,” she said.

It’s not the first time Elections Manitoba has received requests for help.

“In the past, we have routinely collaborated with election management bodies across Canada to share ideas and offer support where possible,” said Tessa Vanderhart with the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Manitoba.

“We are still considering our capacity to respond to this specific request.”

» Winnipeg Free Press