Elections BC says “human error” was responsible for several discrepancies in the provincial election vote count, but that none of them were large enough to change the outcome in any riding.
Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman gave the update Tuesday, citing the importance of transparency.
“Elections BC has an absolute mandate to ensure all ballots are accurately counted and reported in our elections,” he said.
“The identification and correction of these errors resulting from the election official mistakes demonstrate the checks and balances our system has to make sure election results are accurate.”
The errors were discovered following a province-wide review of ballots Elections BC conducted after it discovered 14 votes weren’t recorded in Surrey-Guildford during preparations for a judicial recount in the district.
That larger review discovered that officials in five districts did not fully report out-of-district results affecting 69 other ridings.
“None of these reporting errors and corrections affect the outcome in any electoral district,” Boegman said. “The unreported votes would not have affected whether there was a judicial recount in any district.”
In Surrey-Guildford, which is facing a judicial recount, the audit narrowed the NDP’s lead to 21 votes. In Kelowna Centre, which is also facing a judicial recount, it extended the Conservative lead to 40 votes.
The review also led to the discovery of an entire ballot box in Prince George-Mackenzie, a riding handily won by the Conservatives, that was not counted. Boegman said the ballot box was sealed and was in secure custody the entire time.
However, Elections BC has applied for and been granted a partial judicial recount in the riding to ensure the final count is corrected.
“These mistakes were a result of human error — our results rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials, from communities across the province,” Boegman said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days, and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province. These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes.”
Among the key “challenges,” Boegman said, was the handling of out-of-district votes. British Columbians have long been able to vote at any polling place in the province, but in previous elections, those votes have been sealed in envelopes and mailed to their home district where they were counted two weeks later during the legal final count.
Technological and legislative changes were meant to speed that process up, but this was the first election those changes were fully deployed, Boegman said.
“We have processes in place where the results from the tabulator tapes were to be validated against the results that had been entered,” he said.
“In 88 districts these processes were followed, in five districts they were not.”
Boegman said the non-partisan elections agency is conducting a full review of the errors which will be included in its final report to the legislature on the election.
That review will identify lessons learned along with needed changes to procedure and training, he said.
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad has said that review is not enough and has called for an independent third-party review into the election.
Premier David Eby said Tuesday that he will propose an all-party committee to examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, to hear from experts and to recommend improvements for future votes.
“British Columbians need to be assured that strong safeguards are in place to catch these issues and ensure every vote is counted. I remain confident in the outcome of the election,” Eby said in a statement.
“At the same time, it’s clear we need to review the processes, technologies and systems used to tally votes accurately and support public confidence.”
Boegman said if MLAs vote to commission an independent review, Elections BC would fully participate. But he said he has faith in the system’s existing checks and balances which allowed it to identify the errors in the first place.
“I have confidence in the work that has taken place from our election officials, I have confidence that we have found any anomalies that are there and that we are going to enable these votes to be counted,” he said.
“And of course there will be three judicial recounts.”
All three judicial recounts are scheduled to be complete by Nov. 12.