Approximately 2 million people voted in the Alberta independence referendum.
Posted by Power & Politics, Checked
- Sources
- 5 support1 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 85%
Power & PoliticsOct 21, 2026
The official Elections Alberta results and CBC's report show about 2.08 million valid votes and about 2.2 million total ballots on the separation question (Question 10), which matches 'approximately 2 million people voted.' The 22.1 million figure counts ballots across all 10 questions, not voters, as AFP's fact-check explains, so it does not contradict the claim.
A guest makes this claim. Listeners heard it, so it counts against the post, and on the guest's own record.
What was said
… There'll have to be some questions that we would have about that, but this is a pretty clear mandate: 75%. It seems it seems to me it'd be a bit foolhardy for anyone to try to put this forward again, having heard so clearly what Albertans want to do. 2 million people voted. I know 500,000 people did not get the result that they wanted, but I i think that you that this is this is sort of a demonstration of a of a process that I hope people believe works. …
Power & Politics · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. Elections Alberta's official results for Question 10 show 1,556,316 votes for remaining and 520,233 for the separation option, or 2,076,549 valid votes, with 2,216,505 total votes including invalid or blank ballots.[2][3]
Supports. CBC reports that more than 2.2 million ballots were cast for the separation question, with 70.4 per cent turnout, and the Canadian Press reports turnout of 70.4 per cent in the official count.[4][5]
Supports. AP's unofficial count, with more than 1.9 million votes counted from 90% of voting areas, was consistent with a total near 2 million.[1]
Context. AFP's fact-check explains that the 22.1 million total is the sum of ballots across 10 separate questions, since each elector received 10 ballots, so it does not measure the number of voters.[4][6]
Sources
6 sources: 1 fact-checker, 5 not rated
- 1Canada's oil-rich Alberta rejects a move toward independence in ...apnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 2Referendum Official Resultselections.ab.ca · not rated · cited for: supports
- 32026 Alberta independence referendum - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org · not rated · cited for: supports
- 4Official results of Alberta referendum releasedcbc.ca · not rated · cited for: supports, context
- 5Final numbers in: Alberta separation referendum turnout ...thecanadianpressnews.ca · not rated · cited for: supports
- 6Alberta referendum vote total tallies 10 separate ballots, not ...factcheck.afp.com · not rated · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
Related claims
- Over 500,000 Albertans voted for the independence path.True
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