Voting machines did not delay the results of British Columbia’s election

The Canadian province of British Columbia is conducting a recount of some votes in an October 2024 election to confirm which party will form a government. However, the delayed results are not due to faulty technology. Elections BC says provincial law requires mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day, and two elections are due for a recount Run.

“We are using brand new electronic voting machines, so you won’t be allowed to see the results until October 26th,” the spokesperson claims in an October 20th YouTube video.

Other users on Some are citing debunked conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, claiming the province’s results were manipulated or a recount was triggered because it used the company’s “voting machines.”

Dominion, maker of election hardware and softwarewon a settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a defamation lawsuit against Fox News that alleged the network knowingly spread false claims linking the company’s voting technology to a conspiracy to undermine the 2020 U.S Choice. Even after the lawsuit, allegations against the company are still emerging in the USA and Canada.

The race in British Columbia featured a neck-and-neck race between the governing BC New Democratic Party (NDP) and the ascendant Conservative Party of British Columbia. Until the end of the election dayThere was no clear forecast as to which party would form government, and attention turned to a final count for the entire province and a recount in two elections scheduled for the following weekend.

Elections BC, the province’s election agency, told AFP on Oct. 24 that officials counted votes using Dominion tabulators – but the recounts were not due to the machines’ performance.

Rather, the provincial election law (archived here) requires a manual recount for any race in which the front-runner is ahead by fewer than 100 votes, as was the case this year in Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Center counties.

“That’s simply because it’s the law,” he said Elections BC Speaker Wesley MacInnis.

“We can’t really speak about the intent of the legislature to include this provision in the law, but I must say that the tabs are correct.”

Final count and recount

Elections BC announced in an Oct. 24 news release that a one-vote discrepancy between an inventory of ballots cast and a tabulation result at the Kelowna Center would result in a partial hand count in this election campaign (archived here).

The agency said this was likely due to human error and that the machine in question produced accurate results during testing. All told should begin on October 27th.

Election officials also planned to conduct a final count for the entire province Oct. 26-28, although not because of a tabulator Malfunction.

“A final count has always occurred no sooner than four days after election night,” MacInnis said, citing provincial law.

“What seems to be happening in this election is that the final count has become very important because the results are so close and voters have no clarity about which political party can form the government.”

MacInnis said the final count consists primarily of mail-in ballots and the break after Election Day is needed to assess voter eligibility. Officials will use tabulators to complete the final count (archived here).).

Tabulation check and technical inspectors

While Some social media posts suggest this is the first time British Columbia has used ballot tabs. MacInnis said officials have previously used the technology in provincial by-elections (archived here).

He said that before voting begins, each party participates in tabulation tests, in which candidate representatives feed pre-selected “wildcards” into the equipment to assess whether they will produce the expected results (archived here).

He added that candidate representative observers or election auditors would be present on election day and would also be present during the final count and recount.

“We’ve seen some misinformation online that there are no auditors in B.C.’s modernized voting model, and that’s simply false,” MacInnis said.

Stewart Prest, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia (archived here), told AFP that there is a difference between tabulators and voting machines, adding that for him the former does not raise election integrity concerns because officials make hard copies Keep for safety reasons.secure.

He confirmed that the recent delay in results was due to Elections BC following procedures to ensure this was the case Exactly.

“This whole machinery exists and has existed before this election, and it exists to ensure that the integrity of the election is respected,” he said on Oct. 24. “What really drives home to us is how close this election was.”

Read more about AFP’s coverage of misinformation in Canada here.