The Alberta New Democratic Party asked a Court of King’s Bench judge Tuesday to overturn temporary limits on political parties’ access to detailed voter lists, saying the changes undermine provincial law and were imposed without legislation. The Alberta government argued the restrictions are within its authority, protect Albertans’ personal information and will not affect the upcoming separation referendum.

The hearing took place Tuesday afternoon in Edmonton. The NDP is seeking an order compelling Elections Alberta to provide registered political parties with detailed copies of the list, including a new copy the party says it requested before the rules changed. The party says it has not received an updated list since 2025, even though between 75,000 and 100,000 newcomers have joined since then.

An order-in-council published Sept. 17 limits what Elections Alberta can provide to registered parties and MLAs to the number of voters in each municipality and voting area within a riding. The temporary rules remove first and last names, street addresses, postal codes, telephone numbers and unique voter identification numbers, information parties had generally been able to access for scrutineering and voter outreach. The restrictions are set to expire Dec. 31.

NDP lawyer Sandeep Dhir argued that the order prevents parties from identifying and communicating with voters and undercuts the rights of citizens to take part in the democratic process. “The effect of the (order in council) is to deny political parties the ability to identify and communicate with them, critically, remembering that the rights that we are talking about is a citizen’s right,” he said. “Those voters have lost the right to be informed, to meaningfully participate in the democratic process.”

Dhir said the list supplied under the new rules was effectively useless. “The list that Elections Alberta was directed to provide by the government of Alberta may as well be called a list of bananas,” he said. In a separate account of his submissions, he said it had nothing resembling the voter list described in the legislation. He also argued that the Election Act allows party-appointed scrutineers to cross-reference names on ballots against the official list, provided they do not impede election workers.

The NDP says the rules threaten the integrity of the Oct. 19 referendum and prevent scrutineers from properly examining the count, including checking whether someone casts multiple ballots. Last month, NDP house leader Christina Gray said parties would not have enough information to identify voters or determine whether multiple people were claiming the same address. “Parties like ours scrutineering the vote won’t have enough information to know who those voters are. We won’t even know if there were 24 voters claiming the same address,” she said.

Alberta Justice lawyer Mandy England said political parties have other ways to communicate with electors and that detailed lists are not essential to scrutineering. In some cases, she said, scrutineers are not eligible to receive the lists. Elections Alberta is responsible for consulting detailed voter lists during the count, she told the court. “Consulting such a list on a continual basis would distract the scrutineers from their actual job, which is to watch what’s happening in front of you and ensure it’s being done correctly,” England said.

England also disputed the NDP’s claim that cabinet exceeded its authority. She said the Election Act does not set minimum or maximum requirements for voter list contents and gives the government broad power to make regulations about them. “Nothing about a maximum or minimum of certain kinds of contents, just broad language saying the (government) may make regulations respecting their content.” She characterized the challenge as a policy disagreement, saying the court was not being asked to assess whether the government could have chosen other options.

The referendum is 13 days away and includes 10 questions. Nine concern immigration and the Constitution; the final question asks whether voters want Alberta to remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on separation. The NDP-backed “Save Canada” campaign is urging Albertans to vote against separation. The party said last month the voter list change opened the door to fraud.

The dispute follows a privacy breach this spring, when the separatist Centurion Project published a database traced to a copy of the voter list lawfully provided to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta. The leak remains under investigation, Elections Alberta has said thousands of people may have viewed the list, and the Republican Party has denied wrongdoing. Alberta information and privacy commissioner Diane McLeod called the leak “the worst breach in Canadian history” and said her office was flooded with calls and emails from Albertans worried about their safety.

Before Tuesday’s hearing, Gray said that if the government was concerned about protecting personal information, it would have acted sooner and in a way that punished those responsible for the breach. She said the new rules amounted to closing “the barn doors after the horses have already left.” Last month, Justice Minister Mickey Amery cited calls from Alberta’s chief electoral officer for legal changes before the voter list was shared again with political parties. His office said the temporary limits are intended to safeguard personal information. “Protecting that information remains our top priority,” Amery said, adding the government plans to introduce legislation later this fall to “uphold the integrity of our elections.”

Elections Alberta lawyer Joey Redman said the agency took no position on whether the government exceeded its authority in making the changes. Justice John Gill reserved judgment, recognizing the urgency of the matter and saying he would decide “as soon as possible,” without setting a date. The Canadian Press report on the hearing was first published Oct. 6, 2026, by Jack Farrell.

Based on reporting by CTV News Edmonton and Edmonton Journal.