Some people have wondered what implications this week’s developments could have on the verification of citizen initiative petitions.
Elections Alberta currently contacts “a statistically valid random sample of electors” to ensure people actually signed the petition.
But in a news release issued by Elections Alberta late Friday afternoon, Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure said that process is changing.
Verification will include a search for names that are seeded in copies of the voter lists.
Each electoral list legitimately released by Elections Alberta includes a certain number of fictitious — or "seeded" — names. These unique entries on each electoral list allow investigators to trace each dataset back to their source in the event of a breach.
Elections Alberta said this updated practice will apply to all future petitions and to the current separation petition from Stay Free Alberta, as well as singer Corb Lund’s petition against coal mining in the Rocky Mountains.