MONCTON – Election officer training has begun at the Moncton Centre returning office.
Training began Friday afternoon and continued Saturday morning with a focus on the new vote tabulation machines.
Roger LeBlanc, the provincial trainer for Elections NB, said this was the fourth time he has led election training, having worked on the last provincial election and two municipal elections.
“My approach has always been a hands-on, visual training approach,” he said. “We keep things as simple as possible to put the poll workers that are training for various positions at ease.”
To use the new system, voters are given a cardboard slip called a secrecy sleeve, which they put over their ballots while still behind the voting screen. They then feed the ballots face-down into the machine. The machine grabs the ballot and the vote is counted digitally on a screen.
This will be the first time, electronic voting machines are used for provincial elections in Canada. The system has been used before in New Brunswick during municipal elections, as well as some provincial by-elections. It has also been used in municipal elections in other provinces.
The new system is expected to speed up the results on election night because a chip keeps track of the results, and they can be fed with the touch of a button once the polls are closed.
This is likely to reduce the chance of human error, according to O’Neil Arseneau, Returning Officer for Moncton Centre.
“When you don’t have people counting at the end, opening boxes and counting,” he said. “By using the tabulation machine, the margin of error is practically nil.”
The machine was designed to reduce voting errors by not immediately accepting ballots that are blank or have more than one candidate selected.
Instead, it emits a short beep, which alerts the tabulation machine officer that there is a problem. The screen will display a message that says either ‘blank ballot’ or ‘overvote,’ depending on the situation.
At that point, the officers give the voter a card to read — pink for a blank ballot and yellow for an overvote — which explains why the machine has not immediately accepted the ballot and they are asked if they meant to submit the ballot as is, or if they made a mistake and want to re-cast their ballot.
This has led to some complaints that the machines are eroding the right to secretly spoil a ballot.
During the training, the discretion is stressed, with the officers instructed to give the card first, and then only explain the problem out loud if it is clear the voter doesn’t understand what is written.
Each machine is also given a 10-foot buffer zone, with only one voter allowed to enter the area at a time.
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