An Alberta judge has rejected a court challenge to new rules requiring provincial political parties to receive only bare-bones voter information.
The Opposition NDP challenged the rules in court after Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government implemented them last month.
However, Court of King’s Bench Justice John Gill said in a written decision that Smith’s government has the right to do it and noted this is a stopgap solution until the government tables legislation this fall, as it has said it plans to do.
“This is a temporary measure,” Gill wrote in his judgment, issued Thursday.
Concerns over referendum integrity
He also disagreed with NDP’s assertion that the new rules could undermine the integrity of the Oct. 19 provincial referendum on whether Alberta should look at leaving Canada, or harm the party’s ability to communicate with voters.
Gill, in his judgment, said nothing was stopping the NDP from using billboards or social media to communicate with voters, or from using the detailed version of the voter list it received last year.
The NDP had also argued in court that the government overstepped its authority by making the changes through regulation rather than bringing in legislation. Gill said the government was acting within its authority, particularly in “preventing unauthorized use and disclosure of personal information of electors.”
The NDP was also worried that, without a complete voter list, their scrutineers could not properly oversee the referendum ballot count, but Gill said voter lists aren’t by law supposed to be used by scrutineers, anyway.
The government’s new policy instructs Elections Alberta to only provide political parties with the number of registered voters in each voting area and municipality.
Before, registered political parties could get far more information on each registered voter — first and last names, addresses, phone numbers and unique voter identification numbers.
The government has said the new policy responds to a major privacy breach over five months ago involving a separatist group. The breach remains under investigation by Elections Alberta, RCMP and the provincial privacy watchdog.
Privacy protections spark political dispute
On Friday, Smith criticized the NDP for going to court. She wrote on social media that protecting voter information after a major privacy breach should be a non-partisan issue.
“This was a shameful display by the NDP,” Smith wrote.
Heth Wilson, the NDP’s executive director, said the party won’t appeal the decision.
However, she said the government is “harming the ability of all parties to scrutinize the referendum and get people out to vote to save Canada.”
Wilson also said she takes issue with Smith trying to frame the NDP as eager to risk Albertans’ private information, given that Smith’s government took months to act after the breach and, to date, nobody involved has faced penalties.
“This (regulation) was only made after they lost the Calgary-Shaw byelection, and it’s only being done to help Danielle Smith’s separatist friends.”
Gill also denied the NDP’s request for a court order requiring Elections Alberta to provide the party with an updated copy of the detailed voter list despite the new regulation.
The party had requested an updated copy in August, and argued that Elections Alberta had time to provide it before the new rules took effect but inexplicably didn’t.
Gill said the timing of the request was meaningless and that Elections Alberta must follow the disclosure rules at the time it distributes copies of the list.
The NDP said it requested an updated list because as many as 100,000 new voters have moved to the province since it last received a copy in June 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2026.