Site MenuVote Counting & Results – Advisory Committee of Political Parties – Meeting Summary February 4-5, 2021
Presenters: Sophie Martineau (Assistant Director, Operations & Field Governance) and Dawn Borutskie (Electoral Operations Planning and Administration)
The purpose of this presentation was to update members on how Elections Canada is preparing to deliver special ballot voting services, and how it is planning to report on results. To this end, Ms. Martineau remarked that due to the higher expected numbers of mail-in ballots and added safety measures, EC is planning changes as to how ballots are processed and counted and how results are reported. Specifically, Ms. Martineau explained that if vote counting cannot be completed on Election night, it would continue on Day -1. The counting of special ballots would start no earlier than Day -2 and to respect physical distancing and may occur at alternate locations. Furthermore, while Elections Canada will allow political parties to send candidates, representatives, and observers to witness the counting process, physical distancing and safety would be practiced first and numbers may be limited due to space.
On the tabulation of results, Ms. Borutskie explained that preliminary results from the general election will be published on the Elections Canada website. The vote count on election night would not include local special ballot counts which would take place after election night (on Days -1, -2, -3). The validation of results would start later than normal (closer to Day -4 or -5) to account for the completion of counting of local special ballots.
Members were informed that EC is currently formalizing its approach to counting and reporting of results in a regulatory policy, which will be aligned with the Canada Elections Act.