Court rejects NDP voter list challenge in Alberta

A court has dismissed an NDP application seeking to block the Alberta government's suspension of voter list distribution, Premier Danielle Smith said Thursday, after the province moved to freeze the list following an unauthorized disclosure by the Republican Party of Alberta.

"Yesterday, the court ruled against them," Smith said in a post on X on Oct. 9. "Shockingly, the Alberta NDP went to court to stop us and keep things as they were. 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."

The dispute stems from the Republican Party of Alberta's copy of the provincial List of Electors being used without authorization by a company called Centurion Project Ltd. Elections Alberta said in a news release dated April 30, 2026, that credible information pointing to the unauthorized use was obtained on April 27. The Chief Electoral Officer wrote to individuals associated with the Centurion Project the following day, ordering them to cease and desist.

On April 29, Elections Alberta representatives attended a Centurion Project meeting in Edmonton, supported by members of the Edmonton Police Service, to ensure the cease and desist letter was received. The next morning, Elections Alberta obtained an emergency injunction from the Court of King's Bench in Edmonton, prohibiting any further access to or use of the list.

The injunction ordered the Centurion Project and the Republican Party of Alberta to identify, within four days, every person or entity they had provided a copy of the list to, every person or entity permitted to access the information, and to hand over all related contact information to the Chief Electoral Officer.

Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure said the breach drew an immediate public response. "We are hearing from hundreds of Albertans concerned about the impacts of the unauthorized use of the List of Electors by the Centurion Group Ltd.," McClure said in a news release dated May 1, 2026. "People are unhappy, scared, and anxious about the situation. We have heard countless stories about the risks people face having their information made public, including stories from domestic violence survivors, law enforcement, marginalized communities, and more."

McClure said Elections Alberta's 2.9 million-strong voter list could not, under existing legislation, be protected from unauthorized distribution once it had been provided to an authorized recipient such as a registered political party. The Government of Alberta is the only body that can change that legislation, Elections Alberta said.

The written reasons from the court ruling have not been published publicly. The court decision and any NDP response are expected to be clarified in coming days; Elections Alberta can be contacted through elections.ab.ca.