Evidence of meeting #7 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was voters.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
I want to continue on that point, Mr. Boegman, because I'm looking at those smaller communities where there wouldn't be another centre that you could send voters to, or there would be different concerns.
How did you communicate to those types of areas so that within three days, voters knew all of a sudden that there were going to be other options? What was your communication strategy for that?
12:15 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
Our communication strategy was directed right at community leaders. In the case of the first nations community, it was with band administrators and the chief, and they were able to use their internal networks to make that available. Also, in the case of an acute-care hospital or hospitals that would go into a lockdown because of outbreaks, we had preplanned communication tools that could be distributed at the patient level to enable them to use operator-assisted telephone voting.
Preplanning and making sure that we had thought of as many potential instances as possible that would require us to pivot was very critical in ensuring that we could do so when necessary.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thank you very much.
For myself, I always think of how this epidemic is happening in Toronto, where there are lots of different areas and sites where people may be able to go, but in our smaller and rural communities, they may only have one or two options.
Mr. Boda, what did you find in your province? Do you have any quick tips when it comes to communicating or to pivotal changes that we would have to make?
12:15 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Saskatchewan
I mentioned the ability to adapt being in our legislation, but not the ability to change. I think that was one of our real challenges, unlike in B.C., where they did allow for telephone voting. I could not introduce telephone voting or any other kind, so there has to be a recognition that there are limitations with respect to how far you can go.
We pushed our system by introducing extraordinary voting, and that was beyond voting by mail, which was the primary source of providing options for people who couldn't go to the polls. We went beyond that with extraordinary voting, which involves using messengers and couriers in order to provide ballots to individuals who couldn't get to the poll, but even that had its limitations, sadly, in a COVID-19 context. That's one thing to think about.
The other thing is that I was working under the premise, with the chief medical health officer, that there would be very few communities that would actually shut down and would be in lockdown. With first nations, that was the situation, but in other communities, that wasn't the context. If people could go to their local grocery store, we, as a critical service—election administration—would be able to continue to deliver the polling location as long as we were following the protocols of the chief medical health officer. This didn't involve a big gathering of people, because we had been spreading out the voting significantly over the course of the electoral process, beginning on August 15 and moving all the way to October 26. As a result, we had prepared in advance and had capacity for an increased number of COVID-19 cases. The number was much higher than it had been at the beginning of the writ period, but we were able to manage that process.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to both of our witnesses for being here today.
We certainly have had the luxury of seeing many provinces go through elections that help us to inform our decisions. Your participation today is extremely valued, in that you are making the job from the federal perspective so much easier, given that you're able to share your experiences.
Mr. Boda, I'll start with you. In a CBC article dated October 24, you said, “In 2016, we had about one per cent of voters who took advantage of the vote by mail process.” “One per cent is around 4,000. In this case, as of [Tuesday], over 40,000 ballot applications had been received.”
Were you referring to mail-in ballot applications there?
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Saskatchewan
That's correct. We sent out ballots, and they were received. We're now at 55,000.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Great. It's 55,000. With 4,000 being one per cent, 55,000 is then.... What is it?
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Would you say that this process has helped increase the voter turnout?
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Saskatchewan
I would say that the strategy that we pursued.... Again, we had a legislative election date, so we were able to begin planning—not well in advance, but we were able to sustain the turnout rate.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
You were able to sustain it, which is considered an accomplishment, given the current circumstances. Is that correct?
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Is there any indication or any reason for you to believe that there were increased fraudulent activities as a result of mail-in ballots?
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Saskatchewan
No. We've introduced processes to ensure that there isn't double voting, and if there were, we would know about it.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Then you're very confident in the system that you used.
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Saskatchewan
Yes, I'm confident in the system that we were able to create.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Boegman, I'll go over to you for a second.
You were talking about both mail-in balloting and telephone balloting. We had your public officer of health on, and I felt awkward asking her the question because it really falls more under your purview, so I'll ask it more directly of you.
Do you have any evidence or any concern with respect to voter fraud as a result of mail-in balloting?
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
No, I have no concerns with relation to voter fraud. A vote by mail is a proven process in B.C. It's been used successfully in provincial elections and referenda for many years. As we indicated, there have been four vote-by-mail events in British Columbia since 2002, with the most recent in 2018.
As Dr. Boda mentioned, we have many processes in place to ensure that only eligible voters can vote by mail and that they can only vote once.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Tell me about voting by telephone. Are you equally satisfied with the security of that system?
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
I am.
It's not an automated system. It's not a system that sends someone a PIN and they then use their touch-tone phone to vote. It's operator-assisted. The voter is registered previously. The voter has to call in. They have to authenticate themselves based on information that only they know and we know about their voter record. They are then passed on anonymously at that point to the team that administers the vote. There are two people. One of them records the vote and the other person verifies the vote back to the individual over the phone. In that way the secrecy of that ballot is maintained.
The other thing about voting by mail and other absentee ballots, for which assisted telephone voting is an option, is that they don't go directly into a ballot box to be counted on election night. Rather, they are enclosed in the envelopes—the secrecy envelope and the certification envelope—and they then go through an intensive screening process following election day to make sure that they can be counted at the final count. That includes making sure they are properly registered and that they didn't vote more than once.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I only have about 30 seconds left. Very quickly, given the experience each of you had, would you recommend that the federal government consider a vote by mail option, in particular during a pandemic—yes or no?
