With just under three months before the province heads to the polls for a multi-ballot referendum, Elections Alberta has fielded 25,000 applications for workers to keep voting day running smoothly.
That’s well shy of the 60,000 the agency said it would need for “maximum efficiency.”
A typical provincial election requires an average of 13,000 workers across roles like ballot clerk, election officer, voting officer and returning officer.
Chief electoral officer Gordon McClure previously called the upcoming Oct. 19 referendum a “colossal undertaking” because each of the 10 questions on immigration, the constitution and separation required its own ballot.
Elections operations director Jennifer Maskoske says the increase will be used to manage an advance vote, election day itself, the count afterwards and special ballot processes across the province’s 87 electoral divisions.
“It’s essentially as though we were recruiting for a federal election in the province of Alberta,” she told CTV News Edmonton.
University of Alberta political scientist Feo Snagovski says the October vote could be the largest test of Alberta’s hand-counting policy yet.
Unofficial ballot counts must be reported within 12-48 hours depending on the number of questions on a ballot, according to referendum guidelines.
“When you have suge a huge number of ballots being counted, there’s going to be a higher chance of human error. You have 10 kinds of ballots that will have to be separated. A machine would be able to sort them faster than a person,” he told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday.
Even in the face of hiccups, however, he suspects hand counts will continue in future provincial and municipal elections.
The agency maintains its confidence in the ability to get the job done. It currently has social media campaigns out and returning officers going into nearby communities for in-person recruitment.
“We’ve reached out to many organizations across the province. We’ve reached out to all the municipalities. We’ve reached out to post-secondary schools,” Maskoske said.
She said it “would be awesome” to see more Albertans from northern communities — Fort McMurray, Lac la Biche, Grande Prairie and beyond — to apply for positions.
Each role comes with its own wage for the day. Voting officers and counters, for example, would make around $250.
With Oct. 19 fast approaching, Maskoske says the agency is confident Albertans will rise to the task.
“We’ll continue with our recruitment right up until our electoral event begins,” she added.
Returning offices are combing through applications and will begin making calls to selected applicants in the coming weeks.
More information about the roles and application process is available online.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Noah Rishaug
