'Remain' vote takes early lead on a referendum night filled with confusion and late poll closures

A collective whoop rose from the crowd at Forever Canadian headquarters at 11:04 p.m. Monday night, as the first batch of referendum results came in from Elections Alberta.

Those early numbers gave the stay-in-Canada side a decisive lead over the separation side.

The stay votes led 770,610 to 236,450. That gave the stay vote 76 per cent of the early vote share.

Each of the 10 questions had only two options: But Alberta’s referendum day was filled with late poll closures, challenges and results that were slow to come.

As of 10:30 p.m. Monday night, the answers to question 10 — if Alberta should remain in Canada or begin on the road to separation — had yet to trickle in from Elections Alberta.

Answers to the other nine questions are expected in the days to come.

But, Monday night political quarterbacks were focused on the stay vs. leave debate.

A small gathering of 50 supporters gathered at the Polish Hall for the Forever Canadian post-vote party. Thomas Lukaszuk, the champion of the stay vote, said Elections Alberta was not to blame for the delays that plagued referendum day.

“I have to tell you, with the limited resources that were given to Elections Alberta, they have done well,” said Lukaszuk.

“They appeared in front of government asking for an additional budget to carry out this momentous task, but they got zero. And then they needed 60,000 workers; they got half of that.

“And then, in the middle of all this, Premier threw in a by-election in Calgary-Shaw. The fact that they’re managing to do this is on the verge of a miracle itself. So will there be errors, possibly. But they will be human errors. They will not be nefarious in any way. I am actually quite astonished that Elections Alberta is managing to pull this off, considering all the headwinds that they were facing.”

Meanwhile, at Parlour Kitchen and Bar in downtown Edmonton, the separatists gathered, They said no matter the result, the fight for an independent Alberta is not over. And they’re out for Premier Danielle Smith’s job.

“We’re Albertans. We roll up our sleeves and we go back to work, right?” said Alberta Prosperity Project lawyer Jeffrey Rath. “You know, if if it’s as low as 20 per cent, which I don’t think it will be, it demonstrates that we have a lot more work and a lot more education to do.”

Rath said his base feels bait-and-switched by the premier, who on Oct. 7 said she had voted for option one — for Alberta to remain Canadian. She said that the province’s relationship with the federal government had radically improved since Mark Carney became prime minister

“Starting tomorrow, I mean, all of us, you know, the hundreds of thousands of us that support Alberta independence are going to start working tomorrow to replace Danielle Smith as leader of the UCP,” said Rath.

“I mean she’s basically stabbed all of us in the back. We are her base, right?”

Liberal cabinet minister Eleanor Olszewski was at the Forever Canadian event and said that the referendum could mark a new beginning between Alberta and Ottawa.

“We are working really hard to reset that relationship,” said Oiszewski.

“I have to add to that, though, we know that today is not the finish line. Things aren’t over once the votes are counted in the next couple of hours or days, however long it takes. From my perspective, our government will continue to work with Alberta in partnership, in collaboration, on major projects, on housing, on defence, and in many other ways.”

Seen at the Forever Canadian party: Mayor Andrew Knack, former city councillor Michael Walters, Coun. Ashley Salvador, plus NDP Deputy Leader Rakhi Pancholi and MLA Janis Irwin.

Meanwhile, on the south side of Edmonton, Alberta NDP MLA for Glenora Sarah Hoffman spent the day doing last minute door-knocking campaigning against the first nine questions and against separation.

“We’ve got enough fights going on right now when it comes to tariffs and our relationship with the United States,” Hoffman said.

“We should be united. We should be working together to support one another and that’s definitely what I heard on the doorsteps all summer, this fall and again today.”

Polling stations across the province were supposed to all close at 8 p.m. Monday night. But, Elections Alberta announced Mondau afternoon that more than 100 polling stations across the province would have their hours extended.

Westminster School’s polls were closed late Monday morning, and its hours were extended to 10 p.m.

Viji Nataraj and her husband, Andrew, tried three times Monday to vote at Westminster junior high school in Glenora.

They arrived at 10:30 a.m. and they said they saw an altercation in the foyer of the school and heard the announcement that voting was shut down. They came back at 11:30 am to find that the polling station was still closed.

They were finally able to vote at about 4:30 p.m.

“What happened was that there was a bunch of people milling around,” said Viji.

“They told us no one‘s allowed to vote because some sort of kerfuffle happen there.”

Brian Webb arrived a few minutes after 9 a.m. to fill out his ballots. He didn’t leave the school till almost 1 p.m.

He said the polls were closed to voters when he arrived. The voters waiting in the foyer were told that there weren’t enough ballot boxes. He said ballots from multiple polls were being placed in shared boxes. He said the contents of the boxes were eventually dumped out and then reorganized.

He said the crowd waiting to vote grew to about 50.

“We had a great sense of community,” he said.

The final poll, at Blood Tribe First Nation, closed at 10:10 p.m. because it ran out of ballots earlier in the day.

Jay Telegdi, campaign manager for Treaty 8 Sovereign Nations oversaw a hotline that he said was overrun with complaints from Indigenous voters.

“I’m talking 150 plus calls, and the problems range from everything from polling stations opening up late, polling stations closing early, running out of ballots, refusing ID, sending people to the wrong polling location. I even just heard from a mother who was kicked out of a polling station because her kids were too loud.”

— With files from Cindy Tran and Liam Newbigging