Court denies Alberta NDP injunction request to stop order temporarily restricting access to electoral list information

EDMONTON — The Alberta Court of King’s Bench on Thursday upheld the UCP government’s order temporarily restricting access to information on Alberta’s list of electors, after the Alberta NDP challenged its legality.The UCP government issued an order in council on Sept. 17, creating a temporary regulation under the Election Act. The regulation limits the information in copies of the list of electors provided to eligible recipients by excluding individual voters’ names, street addresses, postal codes, telephone numbers and unique identifiers.The government said it introduced the temporary measure after the allegedly Republican Party of Alberta provided a copy of the list to The Centurion Project, which then published a database allowing users to access the information. Elections Alberta described the project’s use of the list as unauthorized. The Alberta NDP asked the court to declare the regulation invalid and order Elections Alberta to provide the 2026 province-wide list. It argued that the restrictions undermine the list’s purpose, prevent it from meaningfully contacting voters and limit scrutineers’ ability to perform their role during the Oct. 19 referendum.“To me, it looks like service to their separatist friends, potentially opening the door to fraud, and I'm deeply concerned, and that's why the Alberta NDP is going to fight for democracy,” Alberta NDP House Leader Christina Gray told reporters before Tuesday’s court hearing..Justice J.J. Gill dismissed the application on Thursday, ruling that the regulation falls within the government’s authority under the Election Act. The decision also found that scrutineers do not need detailed voter information, that the restrictions are temporary, and that political parties can contact voters through other means.“The NDP claims to care about protecting Albertans’ privacy, yet last week it went to court to challenge measures designed to protect their personal voter information,” Justice Minister Mickey Amery said in a statement issued Friday. “Yesterday, the court rejected the NDP’s arguments and confirmed our authority to act.”The April disclosure of the elector list prompted privacy concerns across Alberta. Public officials, community leaders and political parties, including the Alberta NDP, called on the UCP government to take action.“The NDP's court application has been exposed for what it always was: a partisan attempt to score political points at the expense of protecting Albertans' personal information," Amery said. Their position was hypocritical from the start. They cannot claim to stand for privacy one day and then fight voter privacy protections in court the next.”.Gray questioned the order’s timing on Tuesday, asking why the UCP government waited until September to act when the legislature was sitting in April.“Instead, what the government appears to be doing is trying to obscure and hide information that is necessary to scrutinize the election and to make sure that voter integrity and election integrity is maintained,” Gray said.Smith spun the situation on Wednesday, saying the Alberta NDP had asked the government to take action and that it had done so. She doubled down on Friday following the decision.“Shockingly, the Alberta NDP went to court to stop us and keep things as they were,” wrote Smith in an X post. “Yesterday, the court ruled against them.”“This was a shameful display by the NDP. Protecting voter information should be a non-partisan issue and I’m glad that their application was rejected by the courts.”

Court denies Alberta NDP injunction request to stop order temporarily restricting access to electoral list information

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