Over 800 special ballots were left uncounted in an Elections Canada office in Metro Vancouver, raising questions about how the independent agency handles ballots.
On Wednesday, Elections Canada informed all registered political parties that 822 national special ballots had mistakenly been left in the office of the returning officer of Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam.
The collection of special ballots contained votes cast for 74 electoral districts across the country, primarily in the riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, which accounted for 530 of the votes.
Dozens of ballots were cast for races in surrounding British Columbia ridings including 33 ballots in New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, 26 in Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, 22 in Burnaby Central, and 12 ballots in both Burnaby North—Seymour and Vancouver Centre.
While a significant number of voters were disenfranchised by this mistake, there were not enough ballots cast in any given riding to affect the election outcomes. In Port Moody—Coquitlam, the Liberal candidate Zoe Royer won by a margin of 1,948 while the Liberal candidate in New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville won by 1,973 votes.
Elections Canada said that the ballots kept in the returning officer’s office should have been returned to the Elections Canada headquarters by 6 p.m. ET on election day in order to legally count the ballots.
The independent agency says that human error and a failure to comply with their policies caused the mishap. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault has ordered a complete review into the matter and the controls in place to ensure failures similar to this do not happen in future elections.
“My commitment to candidates, political parties and Canadians is that when issues related to the delivery of an election arise, we take all necessary steps to resolve them,” said Perrault.
True North reached out for further comment, though no response was given.
The 45th general election has been marked by several missteps by the agency.
After initially calling the riding of Milton East—Halton Hills South for the Conservatives, Elections Canada changed the winner to the Liberal’s Kristina Tesser Derksen after completing their validation process.
Elections Canada told True North that the head office had entered incorrect information from polling stations, leading to the Conservatives’ Parm Gill initially being declared the winner. One entry on the Statement of the Vote indicated 495 votes for Derksen, but the number 195 was initially entered in the system.