EDMONTON — Elections Alberta defended itself on Monday over the verification process for Stay Free Alberta's independence petition, refuting allegations that officials required petition signatories to recall the exact date they signed in order to verify their signatures. Alberta independence advocates got a victory on Friday when Elections Alberta announced that they had counted, validated, and approved, with 95% confidence, 222,597 signatures on the Stay Free Alberta petition to trigger a referendum on Alberta independence, 177,732 more than required. Nationalists celebrated the victory, but some complained that the number was significantly lower than it should have been and claimed the count was diminished because Elections Alberta conducted a strict verification process, including asking individuals to recall the exact date they signed the petition. "No," wrote Elections Alberta in an X post on Monday. "Electors were asked if they signed the petition between January 3 and May 2, 2026 for the SFA petition." Elections Alberta said the most common reason for signature rejection during the verification phase was elector information not matching what was on the petition sheet, or individuals being unwilling to verify their information. Stay Free Alberta organizer Mitch Sylvestre told reporters the group collected over 301,000 names; however, Elections Alberta said its initial count tallied 286,593 names, of which 279,337 were valid. .The elections office faced similar backlash from supporters of Corb Lund's Water not Coal petition in July, after initially counting 196,088 signatures but reducing the total to 172,088 following verification, leaving the petition 5,644 signatures short of the success threshold. Elections Alberta's verification of Thomas Lukaszuk's Forever Canadian federalist petition in December has also faced criticism, though not from supporters, as nationalists claim the office did not sufficiently analyze the signatures. The conflict over Stay Free Alberta's petition verification is the latest round in what has been a months-long adversarial relationship with Elections Alberta by Alberta independence supporters, as nationalists often claim the office is holding them to a different standard than their federalist counterparts. .On July 21, prominent Alberta independence advocate Keith Wilson sent a resounding message during an interview with Rebel News, calling on Elections Alberta to be impartial. "If Albertans cannot trust the integrity of the electoral process, it's a serious threat to democracy," said Wilson regarding Elections Alberta's lack of action against Forever Canadian. "And I hope the Chief Electoral Officer either changes course and enforces the law evenly, or he recognizes he's not up for the job and he steps down.”Elections Alberta continues to say it is not picking sides in the independence debate. "Elections Alberta is the non-partisan and independent office of the Alberta Legislature," reads a statement from Elections Alberta to the Western Standard on July 15. "We remain neutral on the outcome of any process; our focus and concern is the fair and non-partisan conduct of the process itself."
