Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Justice and Attorney General

Remember the Dark Ages when you actually found out who won before 9 p.m. on election night?

Over the last decade, Canadians have been sold a bill of goods on “modernizing” elections, particularly when it comes to electronic voting. The federal Liberals are the latest to go down the road of “electoral reform,” proposing to expand the voting period and increase the use of mail-in ballots—all in the name of “strengthening democracy” and making voting more “accessible.”

But if we examine the evidence, it’s increasingly obvious that Canadian elections have become an exercise in delay, defensiveness, and denial.

You just have to follow the headlines:

• “Conservatives Blame ‘Human Error’ for Leadership Vote Discrepancies” (Federal Conservative leadership, 2017)
• “Tabulation Change Led to Delay in Voting Results: Elections Alberta” (2022)
• “Storms, Firewall Issues Cause Manitoba Election Day Delays” (2023)
• “Elections Canada Defends Slow Counting Process for Byelection” (Toronto St. Paul’s, 2024)
• “Recount Begins in Three B.C. Ridings after Irregularities” (2024)
• “City Needs to Fix its Bungled Election Results” (Saskatoon, 2024)

Once or twice, election irregularities are an exception — every election is inexcusable. The new common denominator is electronic voting. Explanations for its associated delays and issues are always the same: growing pains, kinks in the system, and the weather. Shades of the dog ate my homework.

How is this “progress?”

“Thunderstorms and website issues threw a series of curve balls at polling officials…. [This was] the first [election] to see the introduction of new technology meant to reduce lineups and get results faster…. The issues started in the morning with storms that disrupted power…” (CTV, Manitoba, 2023).

“Elections Alberta says a change in how advance ‘vote anywhere’ ballots are counted likely contributed to a delay…. Only a small fraction were available 90 minutes after polls closed…a UCP win wasn’t called for another 90 minutes…. At some points, a candidate was shown as leading in a riding with a single vote” (CBC, 2022).

“The unusual dimensions of the…long ballots [meant they] took more time to unfold and tally…Delays compounded…” (CBC, St. Paul’s byelection, 2024).

“The discovery of hundreds of votes not recorded has led Premier David Eby to commit to striking an all-party committee to examine how the election was conducted. BC Conservative leader John Rustad called for an independent review into this ‘unprecedented failure’ by Elections BC” (Globe and Mail, 2024).

“There is human error…when hundreds of volunteers data-enter 14,000+ records, so we expect a small discrepancy between what’s in our database and what the official ballot count would be…. The party has not released the total number of votes cast for each candidate…The accepted ballots were…scanned by tabulator machines…. The ballots were [then] sent for shredding, making a recount impossible” (CTV, federal Conservative leadership, 2017).

Delay, delay, delay

Electronic voting means fewer errors and faster results? Clearly, the opposite is true.

In the recent Saskatoon election, results were delayed for the third straight time. It took two hours to post results after the polls closed and four hours for full results, as a result of “longer than expected upload time from vote tabulators” (Saskatoon StarPhoenix.) Local news shows had nothing to report, and reporters were reduced to interviewing candidates about what it might feel like to win.

“City Hall provided…a ridiculous manifestation of the delays,” columnist Phil Tank wrote, “with journalists trying to add up the results from long, printed lists posted on bulletin boards in the lobby. It resembled what you might see in a banana republic.”

In last week’s Nova Scotia election, the vote result was held up because one small voting station had opened an hour late “after workers arrived without necessary supplies” (CTV). One pundit pointed out that if, by 9 p.m., the parties internally knew who had won, “why can’t the people of the province?”

Meanwhile, in the land of hanging chads, there still wasn’t a final tally of House votes in California last week, almost a month after the U.S. election. It was the same story for the Senate vote in Pennsylvania, even though the Republican was unofficially leading by 16,000 votes (“staggeringly close,” according to the Democratic election commissioner).

Back in Saskatchewan, Tank questioned why the Saskatchewan government “stuck with manual counting of ballots” in the recent provincial election. Isn’t that obvious?

If an entire country such as France can manage in one day to hand-count paper ballots, which are cast in person, why can’t we? Oh, and France doesn’t have mail-in voting, early voting, use voting machines, and always requires photo ID.

Vive la différence!

The Saskatchewan Election

It was nothing-to-see-here from Saskatchewan’s Chief Electoral Officer Michael Boda, who recently wrote, “There is something about watching democracy in action that should remind us of how fortunate we are…”

Unfortunately on E-Night, however, many voters didn’t get the chance to watch anything in action because they’d long gone to bed by the time counting in several constituencies stopped (well past 10 p.m.) and votes finally trickled in.

By midnight, newspapers had gone to press, which made finding results the next morning a purely online exercise. Boda calls himself an elections “nerd.” Given that, wouldn’t it be an idea for Elections SK to take out hard-copy space in newspapers and actually print the results and margins of victory, constituency by constituency?

Many of us would actually like to nerd-out on the types of facts, stats and demographic breakdowns currently being very publicly dissected after the U.S. election. What was the popular vote in the cities compared to rural areas? What was the younger vs. older voter turnout? Women compared to men?

Boda might also consider clarifying why there was a final count in close races two days after the election—and a final-final count on November 9, two weeks later—which for candidates in those close races is simply cruel.

The November 9 vote, of course, included all the mail-in ballots. Boda is a great fan of vote-by-mail (26,000 voted this way in the recent provincial election), which he says Elections Saskatchewan has put an “increased emphasis” on.

It’s worth asking why.

Voting-by-mail (formerly known as absentee voting) is one thing for those who are genuinely home-bound, ill, or out of the country. But as an option, it should be relatively onerous to apply for and not a form of advanced voting weeks before actual advanced voting—a sub-campaign to the campaign. Vote-by-mail undermines the organic dynamics of an election campaign, when things can change right up to the last day.

Hell, why not send ballots out now for the 2028 election? For partisan-driven voters like me, whose vote is never going to change, I could get mine in the bag early!

Boda should also address other issues that surfaced in the recent provincial election. In a “processing error,” 475 under-18 voters mistakenly received voting cards, while many legitimate voters, such as I, didn’t receive a vote card before advanced voting started. This created confusion at the doors among those who were under the (faulty) impression that you had to have a voting card to vote.

There was also concern about potential double-voting: voters who had received a mail-in ballot who might vote in-person. Some candidates were told that while such voters would have to sign an attestation that they had not yet voted, the only way that Elections Saskatchewan could confirm that was in a recount!

Then, there was the difference between regular ballots and those used in pop-up ballot stations deployed in hospitals or care homes, for example, where it was possible to mark the name of the Party, leader, or candidate instead of the usual ‘X.’ In his post-election summary, Boda might have considered explaining the justification for that.

What should happen next

In 2023, Boda requested that a number of “modernization” measures be put in place for the general election, including vote-counting machines such as the ones recently used in Saskatoon (CBC, June, 2023).

The provincial government said no to electronic voting, pointing to the provincial Election Amendment Act 2022, which had removed all references to it for a general election.

According to provincial legislation, Boda has ‘directive’ powers—including to introduce vote-counting machines—but only for byelections. Any similar directives that he proposes for general elections have to be approved by the Board of Internal Economy, which is chaired by the Speaker and includes two Cabinet ministers, two other members from the sitting government, and two members of the Opposition.

Relying on the discretion of the Board of Internal Economy is not a long-term solution. Alberta recently banned all electronic vote tabulation. Saskatchewan could amend the Election Act to:

• limit the directive-making powers of the Chief Electoral Officer
• curtail the parameters of mail-in voting
• direct that all ballots look identical
• abolish electronic voting in Saskatchewan in both byelections and elections

For generations, paper ballots and hand-counting worked. It’s time to stop the techno-creep, go back to the future, and insist on one man/one woman, one (ballot box) vote.

Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Justice and Attorney General.