Alberta temporarily strips voter details from political party lists ahead of October referendum

Alberta's government announced Friday it will temporarily restrict what information political parties can access about voters during the October 19 referendum, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from opposition benches.

Under the new rules, parties and candidates will receive only a count of registered voters by municipality and voting area — not the names, addresses, phone numbers, and unique voter identifiers they previously got for campaigns and fundraising. The change takes effect immediately and expires at year's end.

The move follows a significant data breach earlier this year. In spring, a group called the Centurion Project published a database containing personal information on nearly three million Albertans — a copy that investigators traced to the Republican Party of Alberta, which received it lawfully under previous rules. A judge ordered the database offline in April after Elections Alberta went to court. The government says thousands of people may have viewed it.

Justice Minister Mickey Amery's office said in a statement: "Albertans must have confidence that their personal information is being protected. We take the privacy and security of Albertans' information very seriously, and protecting that information remains our top priority."

But NDP house leader Christina Gray warned the change opens a dangerous door. Scrutineers — people stationed at voting locations to oversee ballot counts and ensure fairness — rely on detailed voter lists to catch irregularities. "This unprecedented last-minute change is actually going to take away our ability to understand who has voted where," Gray told reporters Friday. "We won't know if 30 people at a single house address suddenly appear in certain areas. We won't be able to tell if the same name is voting dozens of times. We need to be able to have transparency."

The government plans to introduce broader legislation this fall aimed at protecting voter privacy and upholding election integrity, but has provided no details on what those changes would entail or why the temporary measure is needed only through December.