B.C.'s Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman speaks about the new technology being used in this year's provincial election during a demonstration about the use of an electronic tabulator at the Elections BC office in Victoria, on Sept. 25.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
Premier David Eby and Elections BC are promising comprehensive reviews into how non-partisan officials missed counting hundreds of votes across a number of ridings in the very tight provincial election last month.
Mr. Eby said Tuesday he would strike an all-party committee to examine how the election was conducted. Elections BC and outside experts would be consulted to ensure the province can improve the accuracy and integrity of its system and buttress public confidence, he said.
“British Columbians need to be assured that strong safeguards are in place to catch these issues and ensure every vote is counted accurately,” Mr. Eby said.
“I remain confident in the outcome of the election. 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.”
Elections BC announced Monday that it had discovered a ballot box containing 861 votes was not counted in Prince George-Mackenzie. The riding’s Conservative candidate, Kiel Giddens, is ahead of his closest rival by more than 5,000 votes so the uncounted votes will not change the outcome.
Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman said Tuesday mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
That finding prompted a provincewide audit that uncovered other uncounted ballots, including the box in Prince George.
In Surrey-Guildford, the closest race in the election, the review reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 votes to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close. Two other judicial recounts will also take place this week.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Mr. Eby a one-seat majority. The NDP won 47 seats to the Conservatives’ 44 and the Greens’ two.
Mr. Boegman said a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
“These mistakes were a result of human error,” Mr. Boegman said at a news conference.
“Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province… 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.”
Mr. Boegman said his agency is already investigating to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change. He said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature.
On Monday, BC Conservative Leader John Rustad called for an independent review of the election results.
“This is an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections” Mr. Rustad posted on social media. “At a time when confidence in election integrity is more fragile than ever before, British Columbians deserve assurance that every vote counts and that these errors are corrected.”
Various BC Conservative candidates and party officials have publicly supported Elections BC for its impartial and professional conduct counting and recounting the various ballots over the last two and a half weeks. However, some supporters of the party are worried about reports of elections officials taking sealed ballot boxes home with them, raising the spectre of vote tampering.
Mr. Boegman said in select circumstances senior officials did store ballot boxes at home overnight, mostly in remote districts, as they are allowed to do under provincial laws. But, he said, these boxes are sealed and inspected by scrutineers from various political parties to ensure the votes remain secret and are counted properly by the agency.
Plus, Mr. Boegman added, any senior official handling these special boxes is bound by an oath to maintain the chain of custody of these ballots and ensure the votes are cast in the correct way.
“I am not aware of any time of an election official who has not upheld their oath to the highest standards – that has never been an issue in British Columbia elections,” he said.
With a report from The Canadian Press