Good morning. Thank you very much for the invitation to address the committee today.
As you know, my name is Anton Boegman. I am B.C.'s chief electoral officer, a position that I have held since 2018. Prior to this appointment, I was Elections BC's deputy chief electoral officer for operations for eight years. I have also served in a senior management capacity at Elections BC since 2004, administering five provincial general elections and four provincial referenda. Two of those referenda were held entirely by mail.
My remarks this morning are in relation to the administration of the 42nd provincial general election in B.C., which is still under way. General voting day was Saturday, October 24. While the campaign period and voting for the election are complete, we are still preparing for the final count of over 600,000 absentee and mail-in ballots, which will begin on November 6. This context will frame my remarks: They will reflect the B.C. electoral legislation and they will reflect the public health situation and rules in place in B.C. preceding and during the campaign period.
My understanding is that this committee intends to study the challenges posed to the normal conduct of federal elections by the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify the measures to be taken to adapt the approach and conduct of a general election to preserve the health and safety of all Canadians. To address this objective, I will provide two broad comments and then speak to the top three challenges that we faced in administering a pandemic election in B.C.
To begin, everything associated with election administration in a pandemic is challenging, from retaining returning officers, finding office space and securing voting places to recruiting and training election officials and implementing voting processes. Each element is more complex and nuanced and requires many unique and targeted mitigation measures. For example, voting places usually include many close-contact interactions, shared spaces and shared materials, all of which create a virus transmission risk. To mitigate this, we had to re-engineer the voting place and voting processes to allow for physical distancing and only one election official per voting station. We placed acrylic barriers on voting tables and provided election officials with personal protective equipment. There was more frequent cleaning. We established sanitation stations at entry and exit points and we allowed voters to bring their own pens or pencils to mark their ballots.
The pandemic also made election planning and preparation significantly more challenging. Developing and implementing a pandemic election model that maintains accessibility and integrity while ensuring safety for voters, election officials and political participants was unheard of pre-COVID. Major elements that were crucial to our success included early and ongoing consultation with public health experts, our ability to vary from legislation in response to an emergency or extraordinary circumstance, and an ongoing access to necessary funding. I don't have time in my opening statement to speak in more detail on this theme, but I would be pleased to do so in response to members' questions.
Within the context of a pandemic election and a rapidly changing environment, three key challenges emerged that I believe are relevant to federal elections: providing safe and accessible voting opportunities to at-risk voters and communities so that they are not administratively disenfranchised; scaling capacity to meet significantly increased demand for voting by mail; and maintaining safety and business continuity at Elections BC headquarters, in district electoral offices and in voting places.
During our planning for a pandemic election, it became apparent that with effective safety plans and protocols in place and more in-person voting opportunities, as well as enhanced access to remote voting options, the vast majority of British Columbians would be able to vote safely. It was equally apparent, however, that at-risk or self-isolating voters, voters in care homes and voters in specific communities, such as first nations communities, would face significantly greater challenges to participating in the election. The use of tailored voting options and focused and ongoing communications, at times involving a much broader set of stakeholders than usual, was necessary to reduce barriers to voting. The tailored voting options included community-organized voting by mail, the hiring and training of community members to administer voting within their community, the use of mobile teams with full protective equipment and the expansion of operator-assisted telephone voting.
Administrative flexibility was also critical to effectively respond to changing circumstances and new outbreaks.
Scaling capacity to support major increases in voting by mail was identified early as a critical issue. We conducted voter surveys through the summer that indicated that 35% of British Columbians would prefer to vote by mail if an election were held during a pandemic. Greater use of this option was also an essential element in our strategy to spread voters across multiple voting options to reduce lineups and congestion at voting places and to allow for effective physical distancing at in-person voting opportunities.
We were able to leverage existing processes, systems and partnerships that had been in place previously for provincial referenda that were conducted entirely by mail. Further, legislation was adapted, vote-by-mail packages were modified to support automated production, and inbound voting request channels were streamlined to support high-volume efficiency. During the campaign period, we received and fulfilled over 720,000 requests for vote-by-mail packages, which was an increase of more than 7,200% over the last provincial election in British Columbia in 2017.
Last, the issue of maintaining safe spaces and business continuity across all work locations was a key challenge, particularly within the tight timelines established in law. We had to mitigate the risks to staff and voter safety and the risk of potentially having to close a district electoral office or voting place because of an outbreak. We worked with the provincial health officer, WorkSafeBC and regional health authorities to develop safe electoral offices and voting place plans and to emphasize their implementation and monitoring. Each office and voting place had a customized safety plan. The effort to address this challenge was significant and should not be underestimated.
I'm very gratified to be able to say that during the campaign period, we passed a number of WorkSafeBC pandemic safety audits and there were no COVID-19 exposure events at voting places, offices, or at our headquarters in Victoria.
Madam Chair, that concludes my opening statement. I'm now happy to respond to any questions that committee members may have. Thank you.