Elections Canada promises changes after headline-grabbing errors with mail-in ballots last election

OTTAWA — Elections Canada says it will make a series of changes to how it handles special ballots in the coming months after a series of high-profile issues with mail-in votes during the last federal election.  

In an internal review of its rules for special (or mail-in) ballots tabled Monday, Elections Canada said it would be implementing 13 recommendations over three phases from fall 2025 to fall 2026.  

“Given the current minority government context and the uncertain timing of the next general election… this will ensure readiness for a potential snap general election before the end of 2026,” reads the report.  

The changes are largely linked to both problems that emerged with mail-in ballots during last spring’s election, as well as the increasing popularity of such ballots over the last decade.

They include better monitoring of mail-in votes sent to electors, streamlining the counting and reporting process for national and international special ballots and automating the printing of return labels sent to voters.  

In the weeks following last spring’s election, special ballots were linked to notable issues in two ridings on opposite sides of the country.  

“It is critical to assess and address issues that emerged in special ballots given the increased use by Canadians,” Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault told reporters during a briefing in September.  

“We saw things that we hadn’t seen before, errors that we haven’t seen before with special ballots,” he added.  

The first issue in Terrebonne, a riding on the south shore of Montreal which the Liberals won from the Bloc Québécois by a single vote.  

But within days of the vote, one Bloc voter said her mail-in ballot had been sent back to her because Elections Canada made a mistake on the address on the return envelope . Ultimately, the agency said it sent out roughly 100 special ballots in Terrebonne with a mistake in the return address.  

Then in May, Elections Canada announced that a box of 822 special ballots was found, uncounted, at the office of a returning officer in the B.C. riding of Coquitlam–Port Coquitlam.  

In a statement, the agency said the box was left behind due to “human error” and “a failure to comply with the written procedures.” It said the box should have been returned to the agency’s headquarters by April 28.  

The ballots came from voters in 74 ridings across the country. Elections Canada said at the time that the mistake did not ultimately affect the vote in any of those ridings.  

But the issue raised questions about how an entire box of special ballots could be mistakenly left behind and how the agency tracks mail-in votes.  

In Monday’s review, Elections Canada commits to improving monitoring of special ballots in all electoral divisions by the end of the fall. The report does not further explain how the issues arose.

The agency says it will implement new data comparison processes that will allow it to faster detect ballots that have been returned but not yet counted on polling night. It also promised to adjust its label-making process to “reduce the risk of human error”.  

By the fall of next year, Elections Canada promises to fully automate printing of return address labels as well as the monitoring systems overseeing return rates of special ballots.  

That will “reduce the likelihood of special ballots being late or not returned to headquarters by automatically flagging potential issues” and “detect potential mail stream issues more proactively,” reads the report.  

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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