CTV News Edmonton has reported:

Alberta’s election law and special ballot procedures prevent political parties from applying for mail-in ballots on behalf of voters, officials and a former chief electoral officer say. Their comments followed an online claim that the Alberta NDP used its access to voter information to request hundreds of thousands of ballots for the Oct. 19 referendum. Elections Alberta says its process includes checks intended to prevent the scenario described in the post.

The claim appeared on X on Oct. 4. The user alleged the NDP had used the provincial voter list to register for hundreds of thousands of mail-in referendum ballots and included an edited video of NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi discussing the party’s access to voter data.

“This is Naheed Nenshi bragging about having ‘access to data that others don’t.’ He’s referring, of course, to the voter list,” the user wrote. The post had received more than 38,000 views and was shared hundreds of times, including by Jeffrey Rath, a leading figure in Alberta’s separatist movement.

Rath’s repost called for ballots to be invalidated if there was evidence of wrongdoing. “I’m pretty sure the Act says ELECTORS may request a ballot. That doesn’t mean that a political party may request them,” he wrote, adding that the alleged actions could violate the law.

The clip came from a CTV News interview with Nenshi on May 10. The interview concerned controversy over unauthorized access to voters’ private information within the separatist movement, and Nenshi discussed the Alberta NDP’s program to encourage voter turnout ahead of the referendum.

“We’ve signed up thousands and thousands of Albertans to our program, which is called For Alberta, For Canada. Ironically, before this data breach, the reason we’re doing that is because political parties have access to data that others don’t, and we’re able to run the ground war really well,” Nenshi said. The interview did not address the province’s registration system for mail-in ballots, which are also called special ballots.

Alberta’s Election Act bars a person from applying for a special ballot on another person’s behalf, except when a voter needs assistance because of a disability or illness and gives consent. Elections Alberta spokesperson Maia Hanrahan said in an emailed statement that the online post illustrates misinformation about provincial election systems.

“The special ballot process is robust and has many checks and balances to easily prevent the scenario the post claims is possible,” Hanrahan said. One check is a notification to a voter if a special ballot is approved that they did not request. To submit a special ballot, voters must also provide a signed declaration and a copy of accepted identification.

Lorne Gibson, Alberta’s chief electoral officer from 2006 to 2009 and the province’s first elections commissioner from May 2018 to November 2019, said a political party or third-party organization could not submit ballot applications in bulk. “It would not be possible for the NDP, or any other party to apply for mail-in ballots in a bulk way like this. It’s just not permitted,” Gibson said.

He recalled a related issue during preparations for the 2008 general election. Gibson and his staff saw political party operatives collect dozens of applications for absentee ballots, submit them at a returning office and pick up the ballot kits. He said the practice prompted him to push for an amendment to the Elections Act requiring voters to provide identification before voting by special ballot.

Gibson said political parties had historically used voter lists to identify supporters, encourage them to vote and check whether they had voted. Recent changes to the lists’ contents have limited that capacity, although parties can still use information from voter lists provided in previous years during the current campaign.

On Sept. 18, the provincial government announced a temporary policy that is scheduled to expire at the end of 2026. Under it, voter lists will show only the number of voters in each voting area and municipality, rather than personal details such as names, addresses and phone numbers that had previously been included.

The new rules followed unauthorized access to voters’ private information by a separatist group. Election officials have said the group, called the 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.

The Alberta NDP filed a court challenge last month against the policy change. The party said it threatens the referendum’s integrity and the ability of scrutineers to analyze the vote-counting process.

Rath said in an interview that he reposted the claim because he believed it had merit and should be investigated. He said people had raised concerns about whether the NDP was using the voter list to request mail-in ballots. “I would say it’s a fact there needs to be a thorough investigation of these allegations,” he said.

An Alberta NDP spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the party has complied with all election rules throughout its referendum campaign. Albertans will vote on Oct. 19 on 10 referendum questions covering immigration and Canada’s Constitution. The central question asks whether Alberta should remain in Canada or begin the process of holding a binding referendum on separation.

The Canadian Press first published this report on Oct. 8, 2026.