British Columbia’s chief elections officer cites “extremely challenging weather conditions” and a new voting system that took into account human error, leaving hundreds of ballots uncounted in the provincial election — although none were large enough to change the results.
Anton Boegman says Elections BC is investigating the errors to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative changes to ensure “mistakes can be prevented in the future.”
Boegman says the issues will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first to be held using electronic tabulation.
The errors prompted BC Conservative Leader John Rustad to call for an independent review.
Premier David Eby said Tuesday that his party “will propose an all-party committee to investigate the systems used and the steps taken by Elections BC, listen to experts and recommend improvements for future elections.”
Eby said he remains confident in the outcome of the election.
“At the same time, it is clear that we must review the processes, technologies and systems used to accurately count votes and support public confidence,” he said in a statement.
Elections BC announced Monday that it had discovered that a ballot box containing 861 votes was not counted in the recent provincial election, as well as other errors – including 14 votes that were not reported in a crucial election narrowly won by the BC NDP.
According to Elections BC, the omission of the ballot box had no influence on the results in the Prince George-Mackenzie constituency where the ballot box was found.
Box not retabulated
At a news conference Tuesday, Boegman said that despite some speculation, the uncounted ballot box had not disappeared and was sealed and in the safe custody of the county election official. He said the box was in a pre-polling station.
“After the first day of advance voting, all ballots from that station were removed from the ballot box and placed safely in a sealed ballot box at the county office,” he said, noting that this was the entire process. BC after each day of prior voting.
Boegman says the vote was conducted by about 17,000 workers, fewer than half what would have been needed under the old paper-based system. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press)
On the second day, officials at the station determined that a ballot that had gone into the ballot box with a tabulator had not been tabulated, Boegman said.
He said Elections BC then issued an order requiring all tabulated ballots to be recalculated on Oct. 17 to ensure correct results could be reported on election night.
But he said only ballots from the second day of advance voting were being redeterminated.
“They should also have sent the ballot papers that were in the sealed ballot box at the district office, but they did not do so. That was a mistake by that team in that district,” said Boegman.
Elections BC said the unreported 14 votes in Surrey-Guildford were discovered last week during preparations for a judicial recount in the battle, where Garry Begg’s 27-vote victory propelled the NDP to a one-seat majority government.
Judicial recounts
Boegman said he is confident election officials have found all the “anomalies” from the election count.
He said the vote was conducted by about 17,000 workers, fewer than half than would have been needed under the old paper-based system, many of whom worked long hours on a day when an atmospheric river flooded southwestern B.C.
He said election results will be announced on Tuesday in 90 of the province’s 93 elections, while judicial recounts will take place in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna Center on November 7 and 8, and in Prince George-Mackenzie before November 12 .