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2d ago

Elections Alberta Manages Unusually Large Special‑Ballot Volume and Fixes Production Errors

The agency links the surge to rule changes, working to mail, replace and process hundreds of thousands of special ballots before October deadlines.

Corb Lund rode a horse to the stage set up at the Whitemud Equine Centre as part of a three-day horseback ride called Ride For Water Not Coal with ranchers, musicians, and supporters to gather signatures from the southern foothills to Edmonton on Monday, May 18, 2026.
Workers for the City of Edmonton were installing Canada's largest rooftop solar panel array at the Edmonton Expo Centre on August 18, 2022.
A lone counter-protestor, Dan Gallant, carries a flag in the foreground as residents of Jackson Heights and Kiniski Gardens protest a housing development being built at a surplus school site, 4125 44 St. NW, in Edmonton on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. Protesters are asking the City of Edmonton and Right at Home Housing Society to voluntarily pause further permanent construction steps at the site while the title, school-site history, consultation record and safety studies are fully reviewed.
A group of protesters, including former Edmonton-Manning MLA Peter Sandhu on the left, gather near the construction site of a new affordable housing development next to Julia Kiniski School in Mill Woods on Thursday, Sept. 17,, 2026. The protesters say they were not informed the scope of the project had changed from senior’s housing to affordable housing, but the proponent said the idea of putting a senior’s lodge on site was abandoned long before the current project came into being.

Overview

  • Elections Alberta says nearly 520,000 Albertans have requested special ballots, it has mailed more than 330,000 packages, approved over 24,000 returned ballots and identified 313 packages with production or addressing errors that were replaced.
  • The agency attributes the surge to removing the requirement to give a reason for special ballots and to the ballot’s many questions, and it set key deadlines with applications due Sept. 25, recommended mailing by Oct. 9 and a receipt cutoff of 5 p.m. on Oct. 16 ahead of voting day Oct. 19.
  • Elections Alberta has hired about 25,000 election officers from roughly 48,000 applicants and is still recruiting in several rural and northern electoral divisions including Peace River, Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie.
  • Two children who went missing from Beaverlodge in July were found safe on Sept. 17 in West Kelowna, two people have been charged with contravening a custody order, and RCMP said the multi‑jurisdictional probe across western Canada was resolved through interviews and on‑the‑ground work.
  • Edmonton Police released images seeking help to ID five masked suspects in a Feb. 19 trading‑card store break‑in that used a white Jeep Cherokee and a stolen Dodge Durango, and opinion pages show strong public pushback over recent UCP moves such as a $14 solar‑panel recycling fee and the 2025 photo‑radar restrictions.