Voters across B.C. will head to the polls on Saturday in the province’s snap election, but the process for counting ballots will look different from what it did during advance voting. According to Elections B.C., nearly 890,000 people cast ballots during advance voting. Those votes were counted using tabulators. On election day, however, ballots cast at assigned voting places will be counted by hand. Chief Electoral Officer Shipra Verma said the decision was driven by logistics and timing. “The global supply chain issues, the lead time to get these tabulators ready. Training of 17,000 people for final voting day as compared to advanced voting. Number of staff for advanced voting,” Verma said. Elections B.C. says there are roughly four times as many polling stations open on election day as there were during advance voting. While hand counting takes longer than using tabulators, Verma said voters should still see results begin to come in shortly after polls close. “Of course, hand count does take more time than a tabulator, but depending on the size of the poll, we still expect results which should start coming around 9:00 from the hand count,” she said. Not every ballot will be counted on election night. Vote-by-mail ballots, assisted telephone voting ballots, absentee ballots cast at special voting opportunities and absentee ballots cast on final voting day require additional integrity checks before they can be counted. Elections BC says those checks are conducted to ensure electors are eligible to vote and have only voted once. Those ballots are counted during the final count process, about two weeks after election day. The delay means some close races may not be decided on election night. “So if there are close races, we will know for sure by November 10th,” Verma said. Voters are asked to bring two pieces of identification to the polls. Voting stations will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday.
