Elections Alberta gets extra $6.7M to handle onslaught of recall petitions

Elections Alberta is getting $6.7 million in extra funding to handle the sudden outburst of recall petitions against legislature members.

A legislature committee unanimously granted the funding at a meeting on Friday.

Chief electoral officer Gordon McClure requested the extra money because his office is managing 21 active recall campaigns.

McClure told the committee last week verifying each petition would cost just over $300,000 and that $1.5 million is needed for shipping and postage of petition documents.

The approved money is about half of what Elections Alberta asked for a five weeks ago.

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McClure requested an additional $13.5 million in budget funding, as verifying these petitions and other potential referendum initiatives requires additional staff and resources, and was instead granted  $1.45 million by the UCP majority-held committee.

At the time, he told the committee his current budget hadn’t accounted for recall petitions being approved and that seeing each application from start to finish would cost roughly $1 million per application.

1:49 Province denies Elections Alberta’s request for $13.5 million

United Conservative Party MLA and committee member Chelsae Petrovic said Friday she’s glad Elections Alberta was able to go back and crunch some numbers.

All but one of the recall campaigns are against members of Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP caucus, including the premier herself.

— More to come…