Friday October 2, 2020 | VICTORIA, BC [Update 6 pm: Final list of candidates will be posted here]
by Mary P Brooke, editor | Island Social Trends
Just 11 days after the 42nd BC General Election was announced, almost 500,000 mail-in ballots have been requested by BC voters.
Elections BC said last week they’re expecting requests for up to 800,000 mail-in ballots, based on surveys they did in May and August.
Many British Columbians say they will opt for mail-in voting as a health and safety precaution — either by choice or because they are required to self-isolate in response to a COVID-19 exposure.
As of 11:59 on Thursday October 1, the vote request tally was at 494,000. That’s up from 484,000 just 24 hours earlier. NDP Leader John Horgan mentioned the “nearly 500,000” mail-in ballot figure in his media teleconference yesterday.
That’s almost half a million ballots which carry the risk of rejection. That’s due to no candidate names on the ballots in those early packages. Only ballots sent out after October 2 will have candidate names, says Elections BC.
Snail mail:
At a time when a lot of people use primarily electronic communications, postal mail is used much less for regular correspondence. In the last election organized by Elections BC, only 6,500 people in total had used mail-in ballots (about one percent of ballots cast).
Delay in election results:
Due to absentee and mail-in ballots first needing to be relocated to the home riding for each voter, there a lag time of 13 days until ballot counting can begin.
That ballot-counting process is in addition to ballots cast on general election day (October 24 for this election) and at the advance voting stations.
“Our commitment is to make sure the count is done as quickly as possible,” said Anton Boegman, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC, last week. “If there are 800,000 it will take longer. I don’t know how much longer, but it will take longer.”
Political impact of voting process:
Unlike most elections where results are known within hours of the polls closing on election night, this provincial election may not see final results until possibly three weeks past October 24 (mid-November).
This could leave BC without a confirmed government in place for quite some time, even more so if final results have a razor-thin margin and there are negotiations and adjustments such as what happened in May through July 2017. In that case, finally the Lieutenant Governor had to make a judgement call which resulted in NDP Leader John Horgan becoming premier with the support of three Green MLAs to form a minority government by way of a Confidence and Supply Agreement (CASA), even though the BC Liberals had won more ridings.
Getting your ballot package:
Voters who wish to cast a ballot by mail are asked to request their voting packages as early as possible, either online or by phone at 1-800-661-8683.
No candidate names in early ballot packages:
“For those voters that request the ballot early, they will be getting a write-in ballot,” said Boegman. In that sense, there could be a scenario in this election where not all ballots that voters complete will end up counting in the final tally. All the early mail-in ballots being requested ahead of October 2 will not have candidate names listed in the package and voters could make errors in that regard.
This leads to the concern that if people are writing-into ballots there could be entries made that are rejected (due to incorrect candidate name, name misspelled, or other markings that invalidate the ballot) although Boegman says there is “flexibility”.
For example, if a name is misspelled but the intention is clear, that ballot will be accepted, he told media today. The voter can also mark the name of the political party that they wish to vote for.
Elections BC has a section in their website about How to Vote by Mail.
Ballots after October 2 will include candidate names:
Candidate nominations close on Friday October 2, with the final list of candidates to be be posted online at elections.bc.ca as soon as possible after nominations close, says Elections BC.
After that point, all mail-in ballots that are sent out from Elections BC will have the names of candidates included for that voter’s electoral area (registration to receive the mail-in ballot of course includes the voter’s address, which serves to know their electoral area).
Relying on Canada Post, and friends:
Based on the assumption that Canada Post will ably fulfill the delivery of all ballots put into collection mail slots/boxes, people are assuming that their mailed ballot will be counted.
But things do happen to mailboxes… thefts and damage can happen which results in the delay or loss of mailed items. Or there are simple things… like someone who is in self-isolation due to COVID-19 relies on a friend or neighbour to mail their package and somehow that errand gets delayed or forgotten.
No guarantees, and other possibilities:
And there is no guarantee that voters have remotely completed their ballots properly, and — in the end — their assurance about voting-by-mail will have failed in terms of democratic process.
There is also the strong likelihood that the politically-active and party-affiliated persons who already know the name of their own candidate will be a large number of people using the mail-in ballot process. This could work in favour of any given party (they will be ‘assuring’ themselves a certain number of votes), or against (given the volume of expected mail-in ballots — especially from early voters — the results of the election could be delayed for almost three weeks).
All of this lends a lot more uncertainty as to electoral process and accuracy of outcomes than is being implied in current announcements to media and the public about how reliable the Fall 2020 election will be in terms of voting process, let alone the worries and challenges around health and safety during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
All election workers will be wearing masks, and voters are expected to as well. Voters will not have to remove masks as part of confirming their identity at voting stations; identification can be confirmed with a verbal declaration in this election due to the COVID-19 situation or showing other identification at a readable distance.