Elections Alberta is warning Chestermere residents and voters across the province to watch the web address carefully after discovering an impostor site designed to resemble the agency’s official online presence.
The agency issued the warning Thursday, July 9, after identifying a website using an address nearly identical to its legitimate domain. The imitation removes only a single period from the real Elections Alberta address, creating the kind of small difference that can be easily missed at a glance.
Elections Alberta says the site generates lists containing invented names, addresses, telephone numbers and supposed elector identification numbers.
None of that information is genuine.
The agency emphasized that the records are completely fabricated and were not taken from Alberta’s official List of Electors. There is also no indication that the website gained access to Elections Alberta’s databases or computer systems.
Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure said he believes the site is an attempt to imitate Elections Alberta and undermine confidence in the office and Alberta’s electoral system.
The timing is important.
The fake site appeared after public concern over the unauthorized use or distribution of information from the List of Electors earlier this year. Elections Alberta reported April 30 that the earlier incident did not result from a breach of its own databases. The agency said it appeared to involve information provided to a registered political party that was legally entitled to receive the list, but which was later used or distributed improperly by a third party.
In May, McClure said hundreds of Albertans had contacted his office with concerns about the possible exposure of personal information. Elections Alberta said those concerns were particularly serious for people facing heightened privacy or personal safety risks, including survivors of domestic violence and members of law enforcement.
The new website appears to play on those existing fears by presenting fabricated information in a format meant to look official.
That does not make it harmless.
False information does not need to be drawn from a real database to cause damage. A convincing imitation can confuse the public, encourage rumours and make it more difficult for people to know which information they can trust.
McClure said the activity does not fall under the recently created deepfake provisions in Alberta’s Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act. Elections Alberta therefore does not have the legislative authority to investigate or take enforcement action against the site directly.
The agency has contacted the appropriate law-enforcement and cybersecurity authorities and is attempting to have the site removed.
Elections Alberta is an independent, non-partisan office of the Legislative Assembly. It administers Alberta provincial elections, byelections, recall processes and citizen initiatives. It does not oversee federal elections or municipal elections.
For residents, the immediate advice is simple: slow down before trusting or sharing election-related material found online.
The official Elections Alberta website uses the government-style address containing a period between “elections” and “ab.” Residents should avoid entering information into a site reached through an unexpected message or social-media post and should verify election information through the agency’s established channels.
Anyone uncertain whether a message, website or document genuinely came from Elections Alberta can contact the agency directly at 780-427-7191 or info@elections.ab.ca.
The distinction between the two web addresses is tiny. The potential effect is not.
At a time when public confidence in elections is being tested from several directions, a missing dot can become one more tool for spreading confusion.