Proposed election law changes would ease referendum process for citizens

By Medicine Hat News on April 30, 2025.

@MedicineHatNews

Changes to Alberta election laws proposed Tuesday would lower the requirements for citizens seeking provincial ballot questions – including those on Constitutional matters – or removing MLAs and elected officials under recall procedures.

“Recall legislation and citizen initiatives give more Albertans more ways to be directly involved in democracy and have their say on issues that matter to them,” Premier Danielle Smith said in a press availability on Tuesday.

Bill 54, if adopted, would alter a number of requirements and practices in provincial and municipal elections.

Currently signature requirements for a citizens-initiated referendum are judged against the total number of electors in a constituency, but going forward that could be set at the number of electors who took part in the previous election, as well as extend the signing period from 90 to 120 days.

Critics have said the levels are too steep since they were introduced several years ago, but the issue is now backdropped by several prominent calls for a separation referendum in the province.

Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery didn’t directly answer questions about a potential link.

“The idea is to move quickly,” said Amery. “Albertans have important issues that they’d like to be heard, and having the opportunity to have those referendums shape quickly is important to us.”

Currently, a citizen’s initiative requires 10 per cent of all eligible voters to sign a petition within 90 days and prove support levels in two thirds of Alberta’s 87 provincial ridings. The level is 20 per cent on constitutional issues.

If adopted, the new level would 10 per cent of number of voters that too part int he last election.

The difference lowers the hurdle from 300,000 or 600,000, to 176,000, considering turnout in the 2023 provincial election, on both types of questions.

In terms of MLA recall, the standard of 40 per cent of all voters would be lowered to 60 per cent of voters in the previous election.

In Brooks-Medicine Hat, for example, that reduces the number of signatures needed from 13,838 to 12,026.

In Cypress-Medicine Hat, the changes would lower the figure from 15,214 to 13,170.

There are no changes proposed to recall rules for municipal officials.

In municipal elections, next set for Oct. 20, cities would be barred from using electronic vote counters, and be required to provide unofficial results within 12 hours of polls closing, or about 8 a.m. the following day.

Cities have objected to the new rules stating very few problems have been registered in decades of using vote tabulators, and hand counting would add substantial time and cost to the process.

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