Alberta votes Monday, October 19. Advance polls run Tuesday, October 13 to Saturday, October 17. The mail-in application deadline passed on September 25.
Dates and hours
Advance voting: Tuesday, October 13 to Saturday, October 17. You can vote at any advance location in your electoral division. Advance voting locations are open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Election Day: Monday, October 19, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. You have to vote at your assigned voting place. Not any location, yours.
If you will be travelling, or you are not sure where your assigned place is, vote in the advance period instead.
The mail-in deadline has passed
Applications for special ballots closed Friday, September 25. If you did not apply by then you cannot request a mail ballot now.
If you did apply, your completed package has to reach Elections Alberta by 5 p.m. on Friday, October 16. That is the date it must arrive, not the date you put it in the post.
Who can vote
You need to be a Canadian citizen, at least 18 on Election Day, and ordinarily resident in Alberta.
What to bring
You can meet the identification requirement two main ways.
One piece of government-issued photo ID showing your full legal name, your current physical address and your photograph. An Alberta driver’s licence or Alberta identification card can meet this requirement on its own if it shows your current physical address.
Or two documents that both show your full name, at least one of which shows your current physical address. Elections Alberta accepts more than 50 forms of identification, including utility bills, lease agreements and student identification.
People in certain circumstances, including residents of supportive living or long-term care facilities, people receiving shelter or community support services, students living in campus housing and some renters, may be able to use an authorized attestation form.
Your Where to Vote card is not a substitute for the required identification. Bring accepted ID with you.
Passports do not work on their own
A Canadian passport is not accepted as standalone identification to vote in Alberta because it does not provide an accepted current physical address. It can, however, be used as one of two pieces of identification if the other document proves your current physical address.
Question 5 on this same ballot asks whether Alberta should introduce a law requiring proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or citizenship card, to vote in a provincial election. That proposed requirement is separate from the identification rules in force for this referendum.
Finding your voting place
Elections Alberta’s lookup tool is at map.elections.ab.ca.
Where to Vote cards began going out in late September. If yours arrived, your assigned Election Day location is printed on it. You can also call Elections Alberta at 1-877-422-VOTE (1-877-422-8683).
What is on the ballot
There are ten referendum questions. Questions 1 through 5 cover immigration, access to provincially funded programs and proposed proof-of-citizenship voting rules. Questions 6 through 9 ask whether Alberta should pursue changes to the Constitution of Canada. Question 10 asks voters to choose between Alberta remaining a province of Canada and the provincial government beginning the constitutional process required to hold a future binding referendum on separation.
Questions 1 through 5 and Question 10 are explicitly non-binding under the orders that placed them on the ballot. Questions 6 through 9 are constitutional referendum questions and are governed by the binding provisions of Alberta’s Referendum Act.
The official wording of all ten questions is available from Elections Alberta. AB Post’s full question-by-question explainer will be linked here once published.
Sources
- Elections Alberta — 2026 Provincial Referendum: dates, hours, eligibility and special ballot deadlines.
- Elections Alberta — ID Required to Vote: identification requirements and accepted documents.
- Elections Alberta — Referendum Questions: official wording and binding status of referendum questions.
Elections Alberta publishes the official voting rules. If anything here conflicts with information from Elections Alberta, follow Elections Alberta’s instructions and let us know so we can correct the article.
