EDMONTON — Elections Alberta declared Stay Free Alberta's independence referendum petition successful on Friday after counting the petition's signatures and confirming that they exceeded the threshold required to trigger a referendum. Friday's announcement comes after Elections Alberta combed through the petition's signatures and determined that, within a 95% confidence interval, Mitch Sylvestre's group obtained 222,597 signatures. Stay Free Alberta's petition called for a constitutional referendum asking Albertans, "Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”The petition is now on hold, per a court ruling, as the Court of King's Bench conducts a judicial review to determine whether to reverse a court decision to quash the petition. .The Citizen Initiative Act requires that a petition have 177,732 verified signatures to be declared successful, which is equal to 10% of the number of votes cast in Alberta's 2023 election. Elections Alberta said they tallied 286,593 signatures during their initial count. Officials then conducted verification measures outlined in the CIA, including reviewing every signature to ensure they have the proper information, checking for duplicate names, and contacting a random sample of signatories to verify the information listed on the petition. Additional verification measures were added to the process in May following Alberta's electoral list data breach, after officials said that a copy of the list issued to the Republican Party of Alberta was allegedly used by a pro-Alberta independence group to illegally build their database. Elections Alberta said that none of the false names placed on the RPA's electoral list for security reasons were found on the Stay Free Alberta petition, and that 279,337 signatures survived the verification process, resulting in a final tally of 222,597 signatures at a 95% confidence level. .The next step in the citizen initiative process typically requires Elections Alberta to report the results to the justice minister, which would eventually lead to a constitutional referendum on the petition's question; however, Stay Free Alberta's petition is on hold, pending a judicial review. Justice Shaina Leonard shut down the Stay Free Alberta petition in May following a judicial review application from a collection of First Nations.Leonard quashed the chief electoral officer's decision to issue Sylvestre a petition after ruling that, among other things, the Government of Alberta failed to fulfill its duty to consult First Nations before making decisions or taking actions that could potentially infringe on Treaty rights. Sylvestre has since appealed the quashing, but the petition remained shut down until June 29 when an appeals court issued a partial stay to allow Elections Alberta to count the number of verified signatures on the petition and report the results. The petition will be paused after Friday's announcement and will remain on hold until a full judicial review of Leonard's decision can be completed. Elections Alberta said the next steps for the petition will hinge on the Court's decision.
