Though B.C. switched to voting and counting machines in the 2024 provincial election, Elections Canada is opting to stick with the classic pencil and paper ballots and hand counting to remain efficient and secure this coming federal election.
In B.C.'s election in October, Elections B.C. used electronic vote "tabulators" to count paper ballots, and print out results on tape, after the machines were tested in 2022 and 2023 in by-elections.
James Hale, a B.C.-based Elections Canada media relations advisor, said the past three chief elections officers in Canada 鈥� Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Marc Mayrand and St茅phane Perrault 鈥� have studied different voting approaches and methodologies, and the current pencil-and-paper method 鈥� combined with hand-counted ballots 鈥� has consistently proven to be "highly" efficient, effective and secure.
"Security of the vote is probably the primary rationale or primary thing that you look at. In terms of efficiency, it is highly efficient [how] the vote is counted and relayed extraordinarily quickly on voting night," he said. "That's been the opinion of not only the three chief electoral officers that have studied it, but also Parliament itself [where] committees have studied it."
Though voting machines may be preferable in a provincial election, he said, when counting millions of voters across the second largest country in the world, voting machines could be less reliable than physical ballots and hand counting in terms of cybersecurity and electrical failures, as machines are connected through a province-wide LAN network.
"It is something that the chief electoral officer continues to look at. Not even necessarily that system, but improvements overall," said Hale.
Over Easter long weekend, polls saw a record 7.3 million advanced voters, but Hale says the Elections Canada team is confident they will be able to move through high volumes of voters come election day. In terms of projecting just how many people will vote and how they will vote, one can only speculate.
"Don't read too much of the tea leaves. There are so many moving parts to an election. As for example, if you want to go online and look at the numbers of special ballots cast this election, it's way higher than it's been in the past. What does that mean? I don't know. We'll only know when the votes are in," he said.
Candidates will wrap up their campaigns over the next few days as Canadians go to vote on April 28.
