‘Colossal undertaking’: Elections Alberta recruiting 60K people to work fall referendum

‘Colossal undertaking’: Elections Alberta recruiting 60K people to work fall referendum

Agency says it’s the largest electoral recruitment campaign in Alberta history

Elections Alberta needs at least 60,000 workers for fall referendum

Elections Alberta is seeking tens of thousands of people to staff the upcoming referendum, in what it calls the largest electoral worker recruitment campaign in the province’s history.

The agency said it’s seeking to hire a minimum of 60,000 workers to facilitate the Oct. 19 referendum.

The high number of workers is needed in order to complete the unofficial ballot count within the 48-hour deadline, Elections Alberta said in a news release on Monday.

“This referendum will be a colossal undertaking and requires Albertans to work together to deliver the upcoming referendum,” said Gordon McClure, Alberta’s chief electoral officer.

“Working with us in the coming months provides a great opportunity for students, teams, community groups and Albertans from all walks of life to get involved in the democratic process.”

Elections Alberta will print 45 million ballots for the 10-question October referendum. In comparison, during the 2023 provincial general election, 1.8 million ballots were cast.

One of the ballots will feature a question on whether voters in Alberta should remain a province of Canada, or whether the government should start the legal process to hold a binding referendum on separation.

Jennifer Maskoske, director of election operations for Elections Alberta, said there will be 10 individual ballots on colour-coded paper and 10 individual ballot boxes.

“So it helps us at the end of the night to sort all of those ballots that we then have to hand-count,” she said.

Elections Alberta said this will be one of the largest referendum recruitment efforts ever undertaken in Canada.

For context, the 1995 Quebec referendum required 57,000 electoral workers to assist the 4.8 million voters and manage polling stations.

Elections Alberta hasn’t said yet how much it will cost to hire workers. During the 2023 Alberta provincial general election, it hired 13,095 election workers, bringing the total cost of the election to about $37 million.

Lorne Gibson, a former election commissioner and chief electoral officer in Alberta, said finding sufficient staff is probably the most challenging aspect of an election.

“It's very difficult,” Gibson said Monday. “It's difficult to find enough people for a general election and we would only be looking for approximately 20,000 people in a general election.”

“This whole thing would be a lot less of a challenge, and, of course, more economical, if a referendum was held in conjunction with the general election, which can happen.”

Under new provincial legislation introduced last year, votes must be hand-counted instead of using electronic vote tabulators — a change that also requires more staff and takes more time, Gibson added.

Alberta residents 16 and older who are eligible to work in Canada can apply, but some positions will require applicants to be 18 or older. Interested Albertans can apply online.

The agency will start notifying successful applicants in mid-July.

These positions include site supervisors, information officers, voting officers, ballot box clerks, registration officers, record clerks, count supervisors, coordinators and officers.

Positions will also include election officers who staff the voting places and counting officers who are responsible for vote-counting once voting places close.

Staff will work in the electoral division based on their residential address. Applicants may also be asked to work in electoral divisions adjacent to where they live.

All positions are paid, including a mix of online and in-person training scheduled in early October.

Elections Alberta said it’s encouraging people in rural Albertans to apply to help support referendum administration and vote counting across the province.

It's not clear what happens if they don't fill the quota. Maskoske says they're appealing to Albertans to apply and see the democratic process firsthand.

“We're going to look to Albertans, we're going to look to them to participate. They're critically important roles,”

The agency is encouraging Albertans to get excited about being part of the largest vote in the province’s history.

All election officers will need to sign an oath requiring them to uphold the non-partisan mandate during the referendum.

Advance voting runs from Oct. 13 to 17 and referendum day is Oct. 19.

Natasha Riebe landed at CBC News in Edmonton after radio, TV and print journalism gigs in Halifax, Seoul, Yellowknife and on Vancouver Island. Please send tips in confidence to natasha.riebe@cbc.ca.