Elections Alberta is looking for some good hands to help count heads in advance of the next election.
Returning officers in both local ridings — St. Albert and Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert — are looking for workers to serve as enumerators for the areas.
Enumerators go door-to-door to make sure information about potential voters is accurate, which helps the province compile a voting list that can be used in the next campaign.
Catherine Hackett, returning officer for Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert, said both local ridings have had trouble attracting people to do the work.
“We have tried all kinds of different ways of trying to attract people to work for us to do enumeration,” she said. “We are not sure why we are having such problems. Other areas have long since filled their quotas.”
Hackett said the rural area in her riding around the Villeneuve and Calahoo area is especially short of workers and there is also a shortage in St. Albert.
The enumeration process begins on Aug. 26 and is set to run until Sept. 19. Enumerators are given a list of homes to visit and are paid a base of $120 plus $1 per name collected. There is also pay for training sessions, proofreading their final list, and mileage for people working in the rural areas.
Hackett said enumerators usually go to homes in the evening when residents are most likely to be there. She said it is up to enumerators themselves to decide how they want to approach the search, but over the course of the month, it is not a huge time investment.
“Normally it would take about 30 hours to make sure we have all the information,” she said. “It is up to them. It is their own schedule.”
Anyone interested in the positions in either riding can get in touch with Hackett at 587-986-1421 or the St. Albert office at 587-986-1422.
