The committee met at 10:02 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): First, as part of everything, this is unprecedented, so I really want to send out my appreciation to everyone on the committee and to our presenters today for participating and, of course, to Kate and everyone at the Clerk’s office for once again heroically stepping up and making a big effort to make this happen. Thank you so much to everyone.

We should get going. Right now, first on the agenda, is Elections B.C.’s supplementary funding request ’20-21.

Anton Boegman, if you could go ahead and please make your presentation.

Supplementary Funding Requests

ELECTIONS B.C.

A. Boegman: Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Deputy Chair and committee members, for the invitation to meet with you today via video conference to discuss the supplementary budget request for Elections B.C. I deeply appreciate the opportunity, given the current circumstances.

As British Columbians work to overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, I know there are other much more pressing priorities for legislators and government. However, looking ahead to fall 2021, I’m optimistic that society as we know it will resume and that social restrictions that prevent large-scale gatherings like elections will be lifted. To quote Dr. Henry, this is for now, this is not forever, and we are going to get through this.

In order to ensure that Elections B.C. is ready for the scheduled October 16, 2021, election under the new legislation brought into effect by Bill 43, we need to continue to move ahead with preparations this fiscal year.

I’m joined on the call today, as mentioned, by a number of Elections B.C. senior staff, including Charles Porter, deputy chief electoral officer for electoral operations and finance; Yvonne Koehn, deputy chief electoral officer for corporate services; and Tanya Ackinclose, director of finance.

As you may recall from our annual budget submission in October, I indicated that if the bill modernizing the voting process in British Columbia was passed by the Legislative Assembly and received royal assent, we anticipated submitting a supplementary budget request early in 2020, once we were able to complete our planning and budget development processes.

[10:05 a.m.]

I will start by directly identifying the funding we require in this request, and then we’ll provide some background to help committee members better understand why this supplementary funding is needed now.

The budget request presented today is a direct result of the new legislative responsibilities mandated to Elections B.C. through Bill 43, the Election Amendment Act, 2019. A minimum of 18 months of preparation is required to implement these new requirements prior to the next scheduled provincial general election on October 16, 2021. Therefore, work began immediately following royal assent of the bill on November 28, 2019.

As I mentioned in my March 13 letter to the committee, Elections B.C. was able to cover the additional costs related to this work in the 2019-2020 fiscal year out of existing budget allocations. Looking forward to 2020-2021, Elections B.C. will require an additional operating budget of $3.597 million to keep moving forward in our preparations.

Elections B.C. will also require operating funds in 2021-2022 to complete implementation of Bill 43. However, that funding will be included in our overall election budget request, which will be presented at our annual budget meeting with the committee next fall.

When the Attorney General introduced Bill 43 in the Legislature on Thursday, October 31, 2019, he described the bill as “the most significant modernization of election administration in B.C. in a generation.” The bill implemented almost all of the recommendations for legislative change put forward by Elections B.C. through the Chief Electoral Officer’s May 2018 report to the Legislative Assembly.

The Attorney General further stated: “Together these changes represent the most significant update to election administration in British Columbia in over two decades. If passed by this House, it will greatly enhance the accessibility and service Elections B.C. provides to voters.” Bill 43 was passed unanimously by the House, and as noted, it received royal assent on November 28.

To the specifics of this supplemental budget request, pages 1 and 2 of the cover memo in the budget proposal document describe the background, context and other key aspects of the request, with additional detail of the request broken down by STOB on page 3.

The request of $3.597 million consists of two components: first, $1.924 million, or 53 percent of the total, to implement the legislative changes contained in Bill 43 and effect the transition to the new voting model, including the use of electronic voting books and vote tabulators in voting places. The remaining amount of $1.673 million, or 47 percent, is for necessary election preparations that are required under the new model and that must be completed in the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

While the funding request is presented as a single amount broken down by STOB, I find it useful to consider the supplemental budget from this implementation and event preparation perspective, as it clearly identifies what parts of the requests are one-time costs necessary to effect the change as well as those directly related to event preparation and delivery.

The primary components of the supplemental budget request are as follows: $1.23 million for salaries and benefits for additional temporary staff support in information technology, policy development, e-learning, project management, voter registration services for the new list of future voters and contract management. I would like to emphasize that these new positions are not permanent, ongoing staff for Elections B.C. but rather temporary project staff necessary to support the effective implementation of Bill 43 and the transition to the new voting model. They’ll be working to support the development of new processes, regulations, systems and reference materials.

The request also includes $1.188 million for office expenses, primarily printing costs for new election administration forms as well as election official training materials and reference guides. This category also includes funding to carry out a comprehensive simulation of the new voting model in spring 2021.

[10:10 a.m.]

A further $775,000 is required for information system costs, including the funding necessary to customize the selected electronic voting book system to meet the needs of B.C.’s new voting model, and for ballot printers to test the ballot-on-demand processes envisioned by Bill 43.

Together these expenses represent approximately $3.2 million, or 89 percent of the total supplementary funding request. The remaining costs include $217,000 for professional services, which are primarily legal fees for regulation review; and $187,000 for salaries and benefits for district electoral officers and deputy district electoral officers to complete training and work assignments to prepare them to administer voting under the new model.

The costs associated with many of these activities are those that would normally be incurred during preparations for a fixed-date election. In this case, we are simply fast-tracking them to earlier in the cycle.

Before I close my remarks and turn the meeting back to the Chair for questions from members and for discussion, it would be remiss of me not to address the work of Elections B.C. in the current COVID-19 situation. I am cognizant that this supplementary funding request may be perceived as being unnecessary at this time, given the current environment. And I recognize that financial and other priorities of government and legislators have changed since November. Our world is profoundly different at present.

Like many other organizations, Elections B.C. has transitioned to working from home where possible, and those staff who must go into the office are working in accordance with provincial health guidelines.

We don’t know what the next weeks and months will hold and how this pandemic will impact future electoral events. To better understand this, I have initiated discussions with the provincial health officer.

Worldwide we have seen many elections cancelled or postponed. Those that were in progress during the pandemic outbreak experienced reduced turnout, and in some events, enhanced alternative voting options were used to improve accessibility. Election administrators are watching what is currently happening in the United States and how their election this fall will transpire.

While our current planning for the 2021 election assumes that COVID-19 restrictions will have passed, we have been thinking of how an election might be administered in which the risk to public health for both election officials and voters is minimized. This includes an election building in physical distancing and protective gear. We’re considering what might be required to hold an election using expanded vote by mail.

Although not intended as such, the changes included in Bill 43 would actually support an election in a time of heightened public health risk. Having single election officials at check-in stations and using tabulators to count ballots eliminates a number of the close-contact situations that are inherent in the current system.

I’d like to emphasize that our thinking here represents preliminary risk mitigation strategies in the event that the pandemic extends beyond the next 12 months and that ongoing discussion with the provincial health officer will inform our planning. We also look forward to further dialogue with this committee at the spring and fall meetings.

Mr. Chair, I will end my remarks here, and I’m happy to turn the proceedings back to you for comments and questions from committee members. I hope I have been able to provide the committee with a better understanding of what is included in this supplemental budget request and why it’s being brought forward at this time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Anton, and thank you for all the work you’re doing. Of course, again, this is a very difficult time for the province, and it presents particular challenges to Elections B.C. and everything that you’re doing right now.

We’re going to open it up to the floor, but I did want to ask a couple questions just off the top. We had talked briefly before this meeting, and I’d like it if you wouldn’t mind sharing with the committee, just in terms of your own capacity within your office to continue the work that you’re doing right now during the COVID-19 crisis and how that would impact this budget — or does it impact the budget? — and what you’re doing.

[10:15 a.m.]

A. Boegman: I’m very happy to speak to that. I am tremendously proud of the transition that Elections B.C. staff have made to the remote work environment with, as I mentioned, some staff coming into the office where it’s unavoidable for the work they need to do. We’ve been having daily management team meetings, check-ins, over the last three weeks to see how the transition is impacting productivity and the capacity of the office to continue work.

I’m pleased to say that certainly at this point, we have been able to continue with the work that we need to do. Much of the work — for instance, with the software company that has been selected as the electronic voting book vendor — is happening remotely in any case, and we feel confident that certainly, for the next six months, much of the work that we do can be accomplished within the current environment.

There will come a time when we do need to start doing preparations, when we do need to start doing simulations, when we do need to start doing testing. That will necessitate a work environment where people are closer together. When we get to that point, obviously, depending upon what the provincial health regulations are, there may be some impacts on our ability. Of course, as I mentioned, we have begun thinking on mitigation strategies in the event that the pandemic does continue.

Right now we do have capacity to continue with this work. We have been doing this work. As I said, I’m proud of the work that the team has put in, but at some point in the future, we will need to look at working in a different way, and that may present some capacity issues.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fantastic.

D. Barnett: I have a couple questions or clarifications. First of all, when you mentioned about fast-tracking, could you please explain to me what you were talking about fast-tracking? We do have a fixed election date, but in your presentation, you mentioned fast-tracking.

A. Boegman: Yes, I will clarify that. What I was talking about is some of the activities that are planned as a result of Bill 43. If Bill 43 hadn’t occurred, they would be activities that would have happened in the year prior to the election, so in the next fiscal year. In this case, because of Bill 43, those activities must be completed in the current fiscal year in order for us to be able to implement Bill 43.

D. Barnett: Thank you. And the next question I have — and maybe it’s in Bill 43; you know, as you get older, the memory doesn’t last so long sometimes — is the issue about the 16- and 17-year-olds put on the voters list, so they’re ready for when they’re 18. What is the urgency of this, at this point?

A. Boegman: It has been a long-standing recommendation of Elections B.C., including a number of previous Chief Electoral Officers, to address the significant gap in voter participation, both voter registration and participation at the polls of voters aged 18 to 24. It remains a priority to make sure that this group is not administratively disenfranchised from participating.

The main issue we find is that they’re not registered. Therefore, we cannot contact them with the typical voter encouragement activities we have that indicate when elections take place. We can’t send them the where-to-vote card, and these sorts of things.

I believe that there remains some urgency to these activities, and establishing the list of future voters is the first step in that direction.

D. Barnett: If I could ask another question, what process will be used to acquire these young people’s qualifications, etc.?

[10:20 a.m.]

A. Boegman: There are a number of processes that we are looking at. We are currently working on an MOU with ICBC and the Ministry of Citizens’ Services to be able to access data that is currently held by ICBC for drivers that are 16 and 17 years old. We currently get information on drivers who are 18 and over. Also for the B.C. Services Card, through Citizens’ Services, to get the name and address information of those individuals.

We have an MOU with Elections Canada for the exchange of voter information. As you may know, they also have a list of future voters that was put in place prior to their previous election, so we have the ability to share voter registration information for 16- and 17-year-olds in B.C. who meet the citizenship requirements to be on the list.

These are some of the ways that we’ll be getting that information. Of course, we’re also putting in places processes to enable 16- and 17-year-olds to give us the information through our online voter registration system or by talking to voter services representatives over the phone.

D. Barnett: One more question, and I hope this is it. How will this comply with the privacy act?

A. Boegman: We have been working closely with the Information and Privacy Commissioner, making sure the protocols that are in place comply with all necessary legislation. He has agreed that the systems we’re looking at putting in place are necessary and do meet with the legislation.

D. Barnett: If I may, one more question, Bob, not related to this. It’s related to rural British Columbia, where we have no high-speed Internet. Some people have no Internet at all. As long as you don’t forget that when you’re dealing with new technology and new methods of voting. I hope you keep that as a priority.

A. Boegman: Definitely. Thank you very much for that comment. We will make sure we keep that as a priority.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great.

M. Dean: Thank you so much for your presentation and all of the work of your team and your transition and adjustment in these unprecedented times.

I was wondering if you could share with us some key milestones and a bit of a timeline so that we would know what to expect — just a high level — and, also, how you would be monitoring the timelines and your expectations and where you might need to have backup plans.

A. Boegman: Sure. I’ll speak initially, and perhaps Charles or Yvonne may want to provide additional comments in relation to the milestones.

We actually passed a significant milestone yesterday, which was the signing of the agreement with the vendor that we selected through the RFP process to provide the electronic voting book software. Obviously, the signing of that agreement was necessary to move forward with the development and the customization of their system to meet the needs of British Columbia.

In essence, over the course of the next several months, the focus that we have is on the regulatory framework. We have been designing processes. We’ll continue to design processes and then work with leg. counsel to develop the regulations that support how some of the changes will be implemented under Bill 43.

This is a process that we began following royal assent. We’ve already been able to effect some and table some new regulations, primarily on the campaign finance side. We’re working on the voting options regulations right now. These are something that we would like to have completed, I would say, by the middle of June.

Then moving forward from there, a lot of the work that we envisioned happening over the course of the summer and into the fall is the completion of the software for the electronic voting book and the testing of some of the tabulators, being able to focus on having a pilot of that internally at Elections B.C. in the fall, leading to a simulation sometime in the spring.

[10:25 a.m.]

At a high-level, those are some the key milestones that we’re looking for.

I think the other aspect that, of course, we need to consider is what is going to happen in the current situation. As I mentioned, we have initiated discussions with the provincial health officer and need to understand what their recommendations are and what their best thinking at this point is, if we look at a six-month, 12-month or 18-month window, and what we may be looking at in terms of some of the public health guidelines at those times. They would obviously impact our planning for an election and whether we need to look at, due to the unprecedented situation that we find ourselves in, making a proposal for different ways that we might be administering the next election due to that situation.

I’ll pause there, and perhaps either Charles or Yvonne may be able to provide a little bit more detail around some of the milestones.

C. Porter: I would just add a couple things. There would be a lead time consideration if we were to require contingency to manage the pandemic, so that wouldn’t come any time soon. That would be, probably, sometime this fall. We would not be considering making any changes without fairly extensive consultation with the appropriate folks.

I would also add that on the regulatory side, we’re planning and have been carrying out some fairly extensive consultations with the Election Advisory Committee, and we’ll continue to do that this fall. On the procedural side of things, we anticipate being completed the development of all of the procedures, which would be followed by communications with stakeholders and training of our officials through July and August of 2021, and being ready to go.

We’re also looking at our enumeration strategy and what we would have to do to manage public and worker safety in the event that the pandemic continues or goes through a series of waves. So we’ll be looking at that and consulting on the enumeration strategy with stakeholders in the coming months, prior to finalizing plans.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Any other comments?

D. Clovechok (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Anton, for your presentation and to all of your staff that have taken time to do this. It’s crazy times, needless to say. The bears are out here, a few of them. I saw one yesterday, and it was looking around like to say: “Where did all the people go?”

In any event, I’d like to know just a little bit…. You’ve got about $1.230 million in additional temporary staff at headquarters. If you can just kind of briefly highlight what that will involve and what they’re doing.

A. Boegman: Sure. As I said in my comments, the staff that we have planned for those positions, many of them…. We’ve initiated the hiring of them already, using some of the funding we had in our current year’s budget.

Primarily, the people that we’re looking at for that are in information technology. There are a number of positions that we have planned there to help support the integration of the new systems with our current systems, to help with the business analysis that we have that’s necessary and those aspects of it.

We have some staff supporting the development of policy. Charles had mentioned the regulatory process. I’ve touched on the regulatory process. And of course, in order to provide draft instructions, we have to look through the policy and have a good understanding of what the policy is and what we need to change, what the business objective of that is and how to put that forward. So we have policy development people.

[10:30 a.m.]

E-learning. We have some additional staff identified on the e-learning side. We have made an investment previous, prior to the 2017 election, in e-learning to provide some of the necessary learning materials for election officials and for our district electoral officers and deputy district electoral officers. So as the model changes, we need to be able to update our e-learning materials to reflect the new processes and procedures and provide that to the district electoral officers in a ready-to-use format. So we have some e-learning staff in there.

I’ve mentioned some voter registration services. These are individuals that will be working specifically on the list of future voters and providing support for that. Then we do have some contract management staff planned. This is what we have learned from other jurisdictions who have preceded us in the types of things that are incorporated in Bill 43. They found that their need for specific contract management staff and supports of the changes is an absolute must, because you’re moving to having more contracts that you’re managing. So that’s also been identified within our staffing.

Tanya, I’m not sure if you have any other specific comments you want to identify there. I think I’ve covered everything off. But if I’ve missed something….

D. Clovechok (Deputy Chair): That’s fine. That’s very helpful. Thank you very much.

R. Coleman: Anton, in one portion of your presentation, 53 percent — it’s $1.924 million — for changes to Bill 43. In that presentation, you talked about electronic books and some of the IT stuff. Could you answer me a question? The first one would be: are we buying these, or are we renting them or leasing them? Is all of this stuff — the changes, with Bill 43, with these books…? Will it be able to be integrated into local government elections as well?

A. Boegman: That’s a very good question. What we are doing right now is we are doing a combination of purchase and a combination of leasing. So for the electronic voting books, essentially they are a laptop computer with specific specifications that the electronic voting book software is being developed and put on them. The software itself is something that we are purchasing. We are working with a vendor, DataFix. It’s a successful company. They have a lot of experience in this area municipally as well as provincially. So that’s an asset that we will own.

Certainly, it’s something that we could talk to municipal jurisdictions about. I might add, parenthetically, that many municipalities, essentially — Vancouver, for instance — already use a version of DataFix’s software.

The other aspect is tabulators. We have purchased a small number of tabulators, primarily to provide us with an in-house stock for by-elections but also to enable us to do the necessary testing and simulations that we need to do. We are going to be leasing the remaining tabulators necessary for the election, through Elections Ontario. They have a tabulator lease program. But with this, there is a possibility in future for us to purchase tabulators and to use tabulators ourselves, to offer them to municipalities in British Columbia on a cost-recovery basis, if they want to use them in the future.

We felt it was most prudent, at this current time, to move into this election on primarily a lease basis, with us purchasing a small number of the equipment. Then following that, seeing how things work, we may be coming to the recommendation that might provide the ability to provide much more equipment to municipal governments and to share that.

R. Coleman: So as you go through that — coming back, as we discuss this in the future — and how this all rolls out, to know the shelf life of the equipment and the software relative to changes in technology is going to be a big challenge. I would be curious how we’re making the investments and whether we’re ending up with some orphaned stock, for lack of a better description — that we just end up with an inventory that we can’t use again. That’s why I was asking how you’re going to go about that.

[10:35 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Any other questions from members at all? I don’t see any.

So just before we let you go, Anton, I did want to follow up on one question. One of the thoughts was this idea of moving to on-line voting, and we had a brief chat about that. Obviously, that would solve a lot of the social distancing issues. We’d had that brief conversation, and it might be worth sharing that because, of course, that would deal with a lot of the issues. But maybe you could talk to that. Thank you.

A. Boegman: I could. I wish that I could say something different about on-line voting because you’re right. It would provide a great means to facilitate voting while maintaining the social distancing that’s necessary with the current pandemic.

As you and committee members remember, the Chief Electoral Officer — my predecessor, Dr. Archer — chaired an independent panel on Internet voting that reviewed this issue in detail in 2014. The panel consisted of a former auditor general of British Columbia, computer science experts, as well as a local government, senior election administrator.

The panel recommended against using Internet voting for provincial and local elections in B.C. And since then, the fundamentals haven’t changed, really. Internet voting, I believe, is still not secure enough to be used in a provincial election.

That’s especially true, I think, given the proliferation of cyber threats that we’ve seen through elections in other jurisdictions, such as the U.S. and the U.K. Obviously, a lot of that has kind of been on-line disinformation, but also deliberate hacking attacks. I think moving to a full on-line voting model would greatly increase these risks.

I think it’s very important because fundamentally trust in an election is paramount. Given the security concerns, it’s questionable, I believe, whether an election method solely through Internet voting would provide the level of trust necessary for us to have in a provincial election.

I think the other question to think about strongly is that the time required to implement any completely new system like that would likely be significant, although I must admit we haven’t done any analysis on that.

Bottom line — I would just reiterate that I have significant security concerns around Internet voting, and it would not be an option that I’d recommend.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thanks.

Finally, you’ve gone through the timeline, and I just wanted to make sure that in order for you to hit your targets, you’re coming to us now. So the point is that if you could delay, you would have, but the fact is that for you to hit the targets, you need to do this work now. Is that correct?

A. Boegman: That’s correct. When we initially learned about this, we thought 18 to 24 months would be the absolute minimum necessary in order to implement this new system, which is why we started immediately after royal assent of the bill, using existing funding that we had to start moving forward. It’s not something that we can delay doing and hope to have ready in place for the October 16 election.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Anton. Thank you, Tanya, and thank you, Charles. We really appreciate the presentation, and everything that you do.

Could I have a motion to go in camera, please.

D. Barnett: I’ll move it.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 10:39 a.m. to 11:16 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

Votes on Supplementary Funding

ELECTIONS B.C.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are out of in camera.

We have a motion. Could I have a member please volunteer to make the motions?

R. Coleman: I move:

[That the Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted access to supplementary funding up to $3,597,000 for operating expenditures in 2020/21 to implement amendments to the Election Act.]

Motion approved.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Just to clarify, Nicholas, you were voting in favour. Is that correct?

N. Simons: Yes.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you, Nicholas.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Before you go, who wants to make the next motion?

R. Leonard: I move:

[That the Chair advise the Minister of Finance, as Chair of Treasury Board, of the recommendation adopted earlier today and that the Committee’s recommendation be formally recorded and included in its report on its annual review of statutory office budgets in 2020.]

Motion approved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much.

Was there anything else, on the record, that needed to be said, Kate?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): That was perfect. Thank you so much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I want to thank everyone again. This is our first try at the online meeting. I really appreciate everybody coming.

Stay safe.

D. Barnett: I move adjournment.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 11:19 a.m.