Local Team Error Caused Ballot Box to Go Missing, BC Electoral Officer Confirms
B.C.’s chief electoral officer Anton Boegman stated that a ballot box containing 861 uncounted votes from the recent provincial election was overlooked by a local team.
The missing ballot box was used during advance voting in Prince George-McKenzie electoral district, as Boegman explained during a Nov. 5 press conference.
After the first day of advance voting, the ballots were secured in a sealed box at the district office for that station but were omitted during a recount due to an error by the local team.
An oversight occurred during the recount process, where only the ballots from the second day of advance voting were included, leading to the omission of the sealed ballot box’s contents.
Boegman mentioned that the error should have been caught on election night when reconciling the number of voters with the ballots
Related Stories
The mistake was only noticed during preparations for judicial recounts by Elections BC.
“This, again, was not done,”
Boegman revealed that due to a court-imposed publication ban, the issue could not be made public until Nov. 4.
Elections BC also identified unreported results from six ridings outside the district, as mentioned in the statement.
Unreported votes represented less than 0.08% of the total results, according to Elections BC.
Boegman pointed out, “These reporting omissions impact a small number of votes in 69 electoral districts but comprise only 0.05% of total votes in those districts.”
Elections BC acknowledged that unintentional errors by the numerous election officials across the province could occur.
Recounts are set for Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 in the Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna Centre ridings.
John Rustad, Conservative Party leader, has urged an independent review of the incidents, stating, “this is an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
