Compared with previous provincial elections, voters won’t have to wait long after polls close on Oct. 19 to get at least a preliminary idea of which party will form the next provincial government.
Reporting of results will begin about 15 minutes after polls close, thanks to electronic tabulators being used for the first time in a B.C. provincial election, Wesley MacInnis of Elections B.C. said,
Networked laptops will be used to look up voters and note that they’ve voted, replacing phone-book-thick paper lists and, it’s hoped, reduce the time voters spend in lineups.
Voters will mark paper ballots, then insert the ballots into electronic tabulators for counting. Elections B.C. keeps all the paper ballots for audits and recounts.
As well, random tabulators are selected for quality assurance tests, making sure a hand count matches the electronic count. All recounts of closely contested races will be by hand.
Q: How fast will results be known to voters?
A: Elections B.C. anticipates results will begin to be reported 15 minutes or so after polls close at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19. The goal, MacInnis said, is to have about half the ballots counted and reported within a half-hour of polls closing.
Q: How do the tabulators work?
A: Before polls open, a printout that MacInnis said looks like a grocery receipt will show zero votes. After the polls close, another printout from tabulators will be made and the results phoned to the district electoral office, since the tabulators aren’t able to connect to the internet. When the district electoral office gets the phone call, staff enter the results into a reporting system. The results are then published on Election B.C.’s website, elections.bc.ca.
Q: Will random manual hand counts for quality assurance be completed before results are made public?
A: A manual hand count of a randomly selected tabulator in each district will happen after preliminary results are reported on election night, MacInnis said, and before the official results of the election are released following the final count.
Q: Will scrutineers from each party observe hand counts?
A: Yes.
Q: Is there a backup plan if machines malfunction?
A: It’s unlikely a tabulator will have a mechanical issue, MacInnis said. But should there be one, voters would deposit their ballot into an auxiliary compartment on the tabulator, allowing voting to continue while the tabulator is serviced or replaced. In the improbable event that a tabulator fails to produce results on Oct. 19, election officials would count paper ballots by hand.
Q: The machines are leased, will B.C. buy its own tabulators?
A: Once the election’s over, Elections B.C. will publish a report addressing this question, MacInnis said. Elections B.C. does believe there is a business case to be made for buying tabulators, which could also be used in municipal elections.
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