Elections Alberta confirms receipt of petition documents, clarifies possible scrutiny

The injunction halts the verification process until a full judicial review is completed, according to Elections Alberta.

Once that court process is complete, Elections Alberta will have 21 days to verify the petition, using the method as prescribed in the Citizen Initiative Act to achieve a 95 per cent confidence level.

Furthermore, on May 1, the Chief Electoral Officer directed that the Citizen Initiative petition verification process be amended, due to the aforementioned breach.

Per Election Alberta: Verification will now include determining if any of the seeded names from the Republican Party of Alberta’s List of Electors are contained in any incoming petition. If any of the seeded names are included, further scrutiny will result, they say.

This updated process will apply to the “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence” petition, it’s clarified.

“Elections Alberta cannot alter a petition that has been delivered to us,” they say. “What we can and will do is conduct a very thorough petition verification process. The process is outlined on our website.”

Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure says every signature and every canvasser witness statement will be checked prior to being validated.

In any petition verification process, if people selected by statistically valid random sample to be contacted choose to not verify their information for any reason, that is recorded as not verified, and applied against the signature count.

Should information during the verification process reveal anomalies, Elections Alberta says further steps will be taken to ensure a 95 per cent confidence level that the signatures on the petition are valid and verified.

Meanwhile, Sylvestre claimed today that his Stay Free Alberta movement obtained about 302,000 signatures.

Notably, the Forever Canadian petition has claimed it obtained 404,000 signatures.

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi demanded urgent leadership, transparency, and action on Monday, saying the data breach has created risks for Albertans who depend on privacy.

That includes survivors of abuse, domestic violence, judges, and police officers.

“Which begs the question – where is the Premier? Her silence is unacceptable, and a single social media post won’t cut it,” said Nenshi.

“Albertans deserve answers about what information was compromised, who is at risk, and how the government is acting right now to protect people’s privacy. They also deserve to know what the Premier knew and when.”

We are aware of the situation involving a potential data breach of electors’ personal information.

Protecting the personal information of Albertans is of the utmost importance, and those responsible should be held accountable under the law.

We understand both Elections Alberta…

— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) May 1, 2026

by Josh Hall

Elections Alberta confirms receipt of petition documents, clarifies possible scrutiny

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