Elections Alberta pushes back against misleading online claims ahead of referendum

Elections Alberta pushes back against misleading online claims ahead of referendum MATTHEW SCACE CALGARY PUBLISHED 24 MINUTES AGO Open this photo in gallery: Roughly 639,000 voters had requested mail-in ballots as of Sept. 24 – more than a fifth of Alberta’s electorate. JAMES MACLENNAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Elections Alberta is attempting to crack down on misleading information online that is swirling around the province’s coming referendum, emphasizing election integrity as hundreds of thousands of Albertans for the first time are expected to cast mail-in ballots. The province’s elections agency has become increasingly active on social media in recent weeks, putting out regular notices and responding to posts – a large number of which have cast doubt on the vote. “Albertans should expect misinformation and disinformation campaigns to increase leading up to the referendum,” Elections Alberta wrote in an August news release. In the past week alone, the agency has called out certain social media posts as “the latest disinformation attempt” and accused accounts of deliberately misleading electors. It has disabused speculation of voter fraud and taken great lengths to explain its safeguards around mail-in voting. The effort is just one component of the daunting task before Elections Alberta as it works toward pulling off the Oct. 19 referendum, which it says is one of the biggest electoral events in Canadian history. Alberta independence ballot count expected to run deep into morning after vote Elections Alberta has ordered 45 million ballots for the 10 separate referendum questions, more than twice the number of ballots cast in the 2025 federal election, and it’s still trying to reach its target of hiring at least 60,000 election workers. Roughly 639,000 voters had requested mail-in ballots as of Friday – more than a fifth of Alberta’s electorate. It is the first time that Albertans have unrestricted access to mail-in ballots for a provincial vote. Voters were previously required to prove that they couldn’t cast their ballot in person. Massive interest in Alberta’s newly expanded mail-in voting process has added to the heavy lift for the electoral agency. On Monday, Elections Alberta responded to a surge of online claims that ineligible electors living outside Alberta could be approved to receive a mail-in ballot. Eva Chipiuk, a prominent independence advocate and lawyer, was among the voices asking the agency to…