Elections Alberta misses deadline to count referendum votes. What happens next?

Elections Alberta has missed its 48-hour deadline to count votes for the referendum, with legislation dictating a clear time frame for them to complete the task. So where does this leave the organization? We have 48 hours from the time voting ends to complete the count. According to rules set in place by the government, the agency has 48 hours to count the votes in referendums with more than seven questions. And while counting should be concluded by then, full official results have to be announced 10 days after the referendum closes. Teams of counters have been working around the clock, tallying close to 20 million ballots by hand. For reference, 19.8 million votes were cast in the 2025 federal election. So this referendum will likely become the biggest electoral event in Canadian history. It's really interesting that folks are asking us what's going wrong. You know, from our point of view, this is going exactly as expected. Elections Alberta had a target of 60,000 workers to administer the referendum. They say they got to roughly 47,000. A spokesperson for the agency says the regulations are silent on whether consequences will follow for failing to count the vote in time. I don't think that many people thought that they would make that deadline. One political scientist says the fact they came as close as they did speaks volumes to their efforts. The notion that there would be consequences, I think, it's hard to think of what those consequences are and who should pay them. Elections Alberta say they're planning to continue counting ballots until the job is done. adding there's no projected finish at this time. Tristan Mothershed, CBC News, Edmonton.