B.C. election returns to hand counting for election day ballots

VANCOUVER · Most votes cast in British Columbia's provincial election on Saturday will be counted by hand, a departure from the electronic tabulation used two years ago. Elections B.C. says the snap election called on Sept. 22 left insufficient time to secure and deploy thousands of tabulators across the province. The agency is using a hybrid model where votes from advance polls and district electoral offices, representing more than 891,000 ballots, were counted by machine and will be released after polls close. All ballots cast on election day itself will be tallied manually, which is expected to slow the initial reporting of results.

Chief Electoral Officer Shipra Verma said the 32-day campaign period was too short to address the complex logistics. "With the snap election, we had a short time period," Verma told Postmedia, citing global supply chain issues that made it difficult to secure the 3,000 tabulators needed. She added that even if machines were found, there was not enough time to train the 17,000 temporary staff hired for the election. The electronic tabulators used in the 2024 election were rented from Elections Ontario and were not available this year. "The amount of technology with each tabulator is quite extensive and we want to make sure that we have adequate time to test each and every technologic equipment that we deploy in the field," Verma said in an interview with CBC News. "Also, from training perspective, we have to train the staff. So we chose a model which we thought would be the best served model for British Columbians."

Elections B.C. expects results from the machine-counted advance votes to be reported first on Saturday night. Verma said results from hand-counted election day votes should begin to appear around 9 p.m. PT. In 2024, the use of tabulators allowed the first preliminary results to be reported within five minutes of polls closing, and 59 per cent of results within half an hour. The return to manual counting means the pace of results will be slower this year.

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The election-night count will not include mail-in or absentee ballots, which require additional verification. Those ballots will be tallied during the final count scheduled for Nov. 6 to 10. "Mail-in ballots require additional verification and integrity checks," Verma said. "If you choose to vote by a mail-in option, you can still change your mind and vote in person, so we have to do the additional verification to make sure a voter has only voted once." In the 2024 election, the final count including mail-in ballots determined the NDP would form government, but it took nearly three weeks and two judicial recounts to confirm a majority. If any riding is extremely close on Saturday night, a definitive result may again be delayed until the final count. Ten parties are running candidates in the election for the 93-seat legislature, with the three main parties being the BC NDP, the Conservative Party of B.C., and the BC Green Party.

Advance voting saw a drop in participation this year, breaking a two-decade trend of growth. More than 891,000 people voted in advance, a decrease of more than 11 per cent from the over one million who did so in 2024. All voting stations will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24. The law prohibits any results from being released before the polls close at 8 p.m.

With files from Vancouver Sun, CBC News and CityNews