Wednesday November 6, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 9:15 am | Updated 9:22 am]
Political reporting and analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
There was human error in the handling of Elections BC results during the 2024 BC Proivincial election and Elections BC vows to look into it.
There was a discrepancy of 14 votes in one riding and complete oversight of a full ballot box with 861 ballots in another riding.
Elections BC CEO Anton Boegman addressed media on Tuesday November 5 with these findings and a pledge to find out what went wrong.
Premier David Eby then called for an independent all-party committee to track the investigation and perhaps report out with observations or recommendations.
Boegman’s defence for the errors included the sheer number of election workers (17,000) and asserting that the contents of the box are not enough to affect the outcome of the election in Prince-George Mackenzie or any other electoral district.
Potential opportunities for error:
There are potential opportunities for error in the Elections BC process that have been evident for years. That includes the office-by-office standards for storage and handling of ballot boxes at District Electoral Offices.
As well, the long days by temporary workers comes with challenges. There is fatigue, the stress of disruption from regular work/life balance, and insufficient training as to security and confidentiality.
It’s surprising that these conditions have been allowed to continue over the course of several elections.
Full transcript:
Here is the complete transcript of the Elections BC CEO:
Update on Judicial Recounts and Final Count Corrections
Remarks by Anton Boegman, CEO, Elections BC – November 5, 2024
- Today I will be providing an update on:
- Election BC’s request for a judicial recount in the Prince George-Mackenzie electoral district, and
- the CEO Order that I issued yesterday to correct omissions in results reported at final count.
- Following the conclusion of final count on October 28, we began our preparations for the judicial recounts in the Kelowna Centre and Surrey-Guildford electoral districts. We identified the locations of all the ballots and election materials that need to be shipped to those districts for the recounts.
- In B.C. provincial elections, voters can vote anywhere in the province, which means ballots cast for Kelowna Centre and Surrey-Guildford could be in any other district.
- It was at this point we discovered a discrepancy of 14 votes in the results for Surrey-Guildford. We found this through an audit of voter strike-off data with the number of votes counted and reported.
- As a result, we initiated a province-wide review, which took place from October 29 to November 3, to identify if there were any other discrepancies. We determined that election officials in five electoral districts did not report out-of-district results that had been counted and recorded on 11 results tapes. In total, these out-of-district results affected 69 electoral districts.
- I have issued an Order of the Chief Electoral Officer to correct the out-of-district results for the affected districts. The Order was necessary because final count has been completed.
- None of these reporting errors and corrections affect the outcome of any electoral district. The unreported votes would not have affected whether there was a judicial recount in any districts.
- During the province-wide review, we also determined that a single ballot box from Prince George-Mackenzie had not been counted or reported at initial count.
- This box contained approximately 861 ballots, the majority of which were cast for Prince George-Mackenzie. Only seven of these ballots were for other districts.
- While the contents of the box are not enough to affect the outcome of the election in Prince-George Mackenzie or any other electoral district, the district electoral officer in that district has applied for a partial judicial recount to count these ballots such that they can be included in the final results for the election.
- Yesterday afternoon this application was granted by the Court. The judicial recount in Prince-George Mackenzie must take place by November 12.
- All parties and candidates affected by these reporting errors have been notified and informed of the measures being taken to address them.
- These mistakes were a result of human error. 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.
- Elections BC has an absolute mandate to ensure all ballots are accurately counted and reported in our elections. The identification and correction of these errors, resulting from election official mistakes, demonstrates the checks and balances our system has to make sure that election results are accurate.
- Going forward, the writs of election for 90 of 93 electoral districts will be returned today. The remaining three districts that are conducting judicial recounts will return their writs following the conclusion of those recounts.
- Once the three judicial recounts are complete, we will update official results from those contests on our website and issue the report certifying the results of the election.
- Elections BC has begun and will continue to investigate fully all aspects that contributed to these errors. Through this we will identify key lessons learned, including any process changes or training improvements, such that these errors can be prevented in the future. This issue will be fully documented in my report to the legislature following this election.
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