A campaign sign for independent candidate Bonnie Critchley next to signs for Pierre Poilievre and Darcy Spady in the riding of Battle River-Crowfoot in Camrose, Alta., on Tuesday.AMBER BRACKEN/The Canadian Press
Voters in next month’s Alberta by-election, in which Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is looking to win back a seat in Parliament, will use write-in ballots after a record number of candidates put their names forward in the race, according to Elections Canada.
The ballots won’t have the names of the more than 200 people running in the contest, Elections Canada said Monday. Instead, voters will be given a single page where they can write in the name of their chosen candidate.
“This will replace the typical list-style ballot, on which electors mark a blank circle next to the name of the candidate of their choice,” Elections Canada said.
The lengthy list of candidates is mostly because a group of activists known as the Longest Ballot Committee is trying to draw attention to the issue of electoral reform by running a large number of candidates.
The group also targeted the Ontario riding of Carleton, which Mr. Poilievre lost in the April federal election against 90 other candidates. The Alberta by-election, which is being held in the riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, was called after local Conservative MP Damien Kurek resigned specifically so that Mr. Poilievre could run. (Mr. Kurek won with 82 per cent in April.)
As long as the voter’s intention is clear on the ballot, it will be considered valid even if the name is misspelled. A voter can also write down their preferred party, but cannot write only the party if they want their vote to be counted.
Elections Canada also said a list of candidates will still be available at every voting table so that electors can find the name of their chosen candidate. All regular accessibility tools will still be available, but some — such as the Braille list of candidates and the adapted Braille voting template — will be only be available on Aug. 18, the date of the by-election.
Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault did not respond to a request for comment Monday, but he has been outspoken about long ballots, which he says create confusion for voters and challenges in counting and processing results.
Mr. Perrault has called for the federal government to bring in penalties for individuals who are responsible for stacking ballots with independent candidates.
Monday’s move by Elections Canada is “extremely significant,” said Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University.
“It’s not nothing to say that we’re not going to mark an X next to the name, you’re going to write the name in,” she said in an interview. “That’s a pretty significant change to how people are used to casting ballots.”
She said it will be interesting to see how the process plays out, including if it is ever used again, how people react to it, and whether or not there will be a court challenge.
“It’s a pretty significant decision for the election administrator to take unilaterally,” she said.
The nomination deadline for candidates in Battle River-Crowfoot was Monday.
Mr. Poilievre, who is widely expected to win the race, will be attending a candidates’ debate on Tuesday organized by the Camrose & District Chamber of Commerce, according to Conservative Party spokesperson Sarah Fischer.
She later said the party will not be commenting on Elections Canada’s changes to the ballot.
The Longest Ballot Committee argues that politicians are in a conflict of interest in making election laws, so decisions on those laws should be made by an independent, non-partisan body such as a citizens’ assembly.
There were 91 candidates on the ballot both in the Carleton riding that Mr. Poilievre lost in April, and in the 2024 by-election in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, Que., the vast majority of whom were signed up by the committee.
“Sounds like [Elections Canada] found a very reasonable solution,” said Longest Ballot Committee organizer Tomas Szuchewycz in a text message after the announcement. The sentence was followed by a thumbs-up emoji.
Mr. Szuchewycz said he was unavailable for an interview. On Sunday, committee organizers put out a statement praising the more than 200 confirmed candidates.
“Ever since we started the [Longest Ballot Committee] years ago we have been calling for politicians to step aside and recuse themselves from deciding election rules. The reason is simple: when it comes to election law, politicians just have too much skin in the game to be calling the shots.”
Though the committee has targeted Mr. Poilievre twice, it has also protested in ridings where the Liberals are historically strong, such as the 2024 by-election in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
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Prof. Turnbull said that Elections Canada’s changes undermine the efforts of the Longest Ballot Committee. Its tactics — flooding a ballot with candidates who are not serious about winning— undermine its message about electoral reform, she said.
Mr. Poilievre has called the protest a “scam.” Last week, he wrote to Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon calling for changes to election laws to prevent these long ballots in the future.
Currently, candidates need 100 signatures in most ridings to be on the ballot. Mr. Poilievre wants to see that increased to 0.5 per cent of any riding’s population, and he has suggested changing the rules so that a person can sign the nomination papers of only one candidate per election. As well, he said official agents should be restricted to representing only a single candidate at any given time.
Mr. MacKinnon’s office said in a statement that it shares the concerns and is examining the issue.
Longest Ballot Committee organizers said in the Sunday statement that the proposal to increase the number of required signatures would have a profound and negative impact on Canadian democracy, and only reinforces its position. It added it will continue to use long ballots as long as it is legally permitted to do so to draw attention to its cause.