Oct 22, 2026 · 55 min · 10 segments
Alex Williams is joined by Leela Aheer, Denys Robinson, and Annie Wong to discuss the results of the Alberta Referendum.
Leela AheerGuestDenys RobinsonGuestAnnie WongGuestAlex WilliamsHostAnd it goes through each of the different ridings and how different people voted.
And you'll notice the one that most commonly has resulted in a yes vote and has the largest yes vote of the yeses was question five, which was the question about... having to present an ID that is specific to your citizenship when you go to vote.
This is kind of an interesting question and one that I think got the most yeses because a lot of people read that and said, well, yeah, like only citizens should be allowed to vote.
Denis, can you break down this question for us a little bit and maybe why this was included as like a no to the nine question? campaign thing when when ultimately it did uh end up winning by the by the most out of these questions
yeah so that's a good question i would say that a couple things first of all it's already the case that you have to be a canadian citizen to vote and it's the case that basically zero canadian citizens vote and when it happens it's usually the most common reason it happens is somebody who's not a canadian citizen is given a voter's card and they get confused And, you know, we're talking like single digit cases every election, sometimes fewer.
Well, you can't be fewer in single digit, but sometimes, you know, like one or two.
And it gets caught because what happens is they keep, if anybody who's involved in an election knows this already, everybody who's voted is checked off a list.
And if you vote and you don't have, you're either not on the registered list of registered voters, you have to say, oh yeah, I promise I'm a Canadian citizen, I'm eligible to vote.
But back when I was a student, I'd have to sign a form and you have to go through a procedure.
So it's a crime that is not really going to get committed very often because it's the only crime where you stand in front of a government official and say, yep, I'm Denis.
This isn't something people are like, boy, I just can't wait to get out there for.
So what I think happened is as our information kind of environment overlaps at the United States and the prevalence of concerns about voter fraud there, which I think aren't really fact-based, but are something that people talk about a lot, that migrated into the Alberta media ecosystem a little bit and people got concerned about it.
And it goes through each of the different ridings and how different people voted.
And you'll notice the one that most commonly has resulted in a yes vote and has the largest yes vote of the yeses was question five, which was the question about... having to present an ID that is specific to your citizenship when you go to vote.
This is kind of an interesting question and one that I think got the most yeses because a lot of people read that and said, well, yeah, like only citizens should be allowed to vote.
Denis, can you break down this question for us a little bit and maybe why this was included as like a no to the nine question? campaign thing when when ultimately it did uh end up winning by the by the most out of these questions
yeah so that's a good question i would say that a couple things first of all it's already the case that you have to be a canadian citizen to vote and it's the case that basically zero canadian citizens vote and when it happens it's usually the most common reason it happens is somebody who's not a canadian citizen is given a voter's card and they get confused And, you know, we're talking like single digit cases every election, sometimes fewer.
Well, you can't be fewer in single digit, but sometimes, you know, like one or two.
And it gets caught because what happens is they keep, if anybody who's involved in an election knows this already, everybody who's voted is checked off a list.
And if you vote and you don't have, you're either not on the registered list of registered voters, you have to say, oh yeah, I promise I'm a Canadian citizen, I'm eligible to vote.
But back when I was a student, I'd have to sign a form and you have to go through a procedure.
So it's a crime that is not really going to get committed very often because it's the only crime where you stand in front of a government official and say, yep, I'm Denis.
This isn't something people are like, boy, I just can't wait to get out there for.
So what I think happened is as our information kind of environment overlaps at the United States and the prevalence of concerns about voter fraud there, which I think aren't really fact-based, but are something that people talk about a lot, that migrated into the Alberta media ecosystem a little bit and people got concerned about it.
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