Advance voting in Alberta’s 10-question referendum begins Tuesday, Oct. 13, ahead of referendum day on Oct. 19.
Elections Alberta says advance voting will run for five days from Oct. 13 to 17. Voting locations will generally be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., though some may keep shorter hours.
Eligible voters—Alberta residents who are Canadian citizens aged 18 or over—can cast their ballots at any advance voting location within their respective electoral division. On referendum day, they must vote at their assigned location based on their physical address.
Voters can find voting locations using Elections Alberta’s online Where to Vote tool or by checking the Where to Vote card mailed to them.
Of the 10 questions in the referendum, nine cover immigration and constitutional matters and the last asks whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or begin the required legal process to hold a binding provincial referendum on separation.
Elections Alberta on Oct. 1 announced it had finished processing just over 658,000 special ballot applications received by the Sept. 25 deadline. More than 652,000 applications were approved, with mail-in ballots sent to electors, while over 5,700 were rejected for reasons including voter ineligibility, duplicate requests, and invalid addressing or other information.
The number of special ballot applications for this year’s referendum was more than 10 times the roughly 60,000 received for the 2023 provincial election.
Elections Alberta in early September moved the original Oct. 9 application deadline earlier, to Sept. 25, saying the change would give voters more time to receive, complete, and return their ballots by mail.
The agency attributed the large number of special ballot applications to removal of the requirement to give a reason for applying, the option to “vote anywhere” being no longer being available, and the increase in the number of questions. “Electors want to take more time to read and consider their votes before marking their ballots,” Elections Alberta said.
The previous referendum, held in 2021, had just two questions, with one on equalization payments and the other on daylight saving time.
