The door-to-door enumeration blitz to register voters for the next provincial election has been temporarily scaled back, Elections Alberta said Monday.
This follows a decision Sunday afternoon, to recall between one and two thousand enumerators whose simultaneous information collection overwhelmed a new system being launched by Elections Alberta.
Although extensive testing of a new tablet-run live data-entry system had been previously performed, Elections Alberta spokesperson Pamela Renwick said the servers weren’t able to handle the volume.
Delays on the doorstep
“We were hearing reports it was taking five minutes to save data after it was received from an elector,” said Renwick.
“We thought that was not a reasonable amount of time to have someone wait for it to allow them to confirm the final record.”
Until servers are upgraded, Renwick says only 1,000 of the 6,000 registered enumerators will be allowed to work at the same time.
Some enumerators are working today, and Renwick says it’s hoped that more can go door-to-door again starting Thursday, once servers are upgraded.
Elections Alberta is updating the voter registration list for the next provincial election.
Once registered, voters on the list will not have to go through that process on election day.
“That makes it a lot quicker process,” said Renwick.
Voters who don’t pre-register will still be able to cast a ballot, said Renwick.
On election day, an eligible voter must swear a declaration, and provide personal identification to participate.
Voters can also pre-register themselves through the Elections Alberta website or call centre.
Elections Alberta hopes to reach more than two million households before the end of September.
Premier Rachel Notley has said she intends to call the election in the spring of 2019.