The committee met at 10:05 a.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Jessie Sunner. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Newton and the Chair of the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform, an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly.

I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting here today on the legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on the territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples, known as the Songhees and Esquimalt.

The purpose of today’s meeting is to receive briefings from Elections B.C. and to continue planning for our upcoming work. Our first item of business today is a briefing from Elections B.C. on voter engagement and participation, different electoral systems and the historical electoral reform efforts of B.C. This presentation will be valuable information for the committee as we consider the first part of our mandate, which is to examine democratic engagement, voter participation and models for electing MLAs.

From Elections B.C., we are joined today by Anton Boegman, Chief Electoral Officer; Charles Porter, deputy chief electoral officer; and Daniel Posey, director of voter services.

Thank you for being here today. We have 45 minutes scheduled for this presentation, followed by 45 minutes for questions from committee members.

Briefing on Voter Engagement
and Electoral Reform

Elections B.C.

Anton Boegman: Thank you very much, and good morning, Madam Chair, Mr. Deputy Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today for this presentation on voter engagement, the history of electoral reform and, I guess, the next presentation, which will be a presentation on our report on the 2024 provincial election.

As you noted, I’m joined here at the table by Charles Porter on my left, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer of electoral operations and electoral finance, and Dan Posey on my right, who is the director of voter services.

Recognizing that the committee may have broader questions to Elections B.C., I also have asked to attend Jodi Cooke, my executive director of electoral finance, who is sitting in the back, as well as Andrew Watson, our senior director of communications.

I also would like to begin by acknowledging that our meeting is taking place on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations, and I do acknowledge with gratitude and respect their stewardship of the lands that we’re on.

We’ve provided two PowerPoint presentations. I understand, obviously, in the meeting room here that it’s not possible to show those on the screen as we speak. So what I’ll try to do to orient committee members to the various sections is just indicate which slide I’m speaking to as we go through. I hope that that will be helpful to committee members. As well, some of the presentations had embedded some videos in them, which I would encourage committee members to review on their own time if they haven’t done so already.

Moving to slide 2 of the presentation, our presentation on voter engagement and….

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Anton, I’m just going to ask…. We have multiple materials, so if you could just guide us to….

Anton Boegman: It’s this presentation here.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Okay. We are on the voter engagement and electoral reform slide deck.

Thank you. Please go ahead.

Anton Boegman: Our presentation on voter engagement and electoral reform has four parts. First, I’m going to be speaking to some trends and some concepts that we’ve seen in voter engagement and participation. I’ll then turn the presentation over to Dan Posey, who will speak about different electoral systems that have been used or that have been considered in British Columbia. Dan will then turn it over to Charles, who will speak to the history of electoral reform in British Columbia, as well as provide a note on some implications that must be borne in mind when considering changing electoral systems.

We’ll begin with some background on voter engagement and participation. Of course, engaging voters in the democratic process is a very important responsibility, but we believe that it’s a shared responsibility across many actors.

[10:10 a.m.]

Electoral management bodies, of course, play an important role, but other actors — candidates, political parties, civil society groups, academia, the media and, indeed, our education system — all play an important role.

The role of election management bodies — this is now slide 4 — is to administer elections in accordance with the legislation. In British Columbia, Elections B.C. administers the provincial electoral process in accordance with the Election Act. We ensure that British Columbians can exercise their constitutional right to vote by providing accessible and inclusive voting opportunities. We also work to reduce administrative barriers to voting and make sure that voters have the information that they need to vote.

As an example, the Election Act requires that voting places be in convenient locations for the majority of voters in the district and also that they’re easily accessible to voters who have disabilities or mobility challenges. Accordingly, we try to ensure that voting places meet a set of accessibility criteria. This criteria includes things like ensuring that doorways and spaces in the layout of the voting place meet the requirements for wheelchair accessibility, that we have automatic door openers at the entrance to voting places, or if we don’t, we’re able to place an election official at that door in order to ensure that people who have challenges entering the voting place are able to do so.

Election management bodies also have a responsibility to provide voters with factual information about voting and voter registration. This part of our mandate is also established in the legislation and includes providing information about how to register to vote, about voter eligibility and the identification requirements for voters and about the availability of different voting opportunities.

Elections B.C. conducts direct outreach to communities of voters that have greater administrative barriers to voting. This includes voters with disabilities and First Nations groups, as examples. We’ve also established an accessibility committee to gain better understanding of how to engage with and provide services to these groups.

We develop educational resources about voting for the general public and for use in schools, as well as resources for specific communities, and we try to make sure that material on our website is available in a variety of languages to reflect the needs of various British Columbians.

We also support candidates and political parties in their efforts to increase voter participation. During an election, we share participation data with campaigns to support their get-out-the-vote efforts. This data helps campaigns identify voters who haven’t voted yet, so they can contact them and encourage them to cast their ballot.

The role of candidates and political parties is also important, and it’s to engage voters with their platforms and campaign for support. Campaigns reach voters in ways that election management bodies do not. For example, they hold campaign events, rallies, and they do a lot of door-to-door canvassing. Many campaigns provide their supporters with information about voting opportunities.

Campaigns also motivate voters in ways that election management bodies do not. They provide voters with political reasons for voting and, as you’ll see later in this presentation, political reasons — the desire to support or to oppose a candidate or a party — are a top motivation that voters have indicated for why they vote.

As mentioned, of course, in the previous slide, candidates also conduct get-out-the-vote activities. Get-out-the-vote activities help voters make a plan to vote at a specific voting opportunity and may provide assistance up to and including transporting voters to a voting place.

As I mentioned, there are other actors and other groups besides election management bodies and candidates and parties who play a role with respect to voter engagement. Civil society groups play a role. They work directly with communities to educate voters. They have grassroots orientation. This allows them to build trust with voters in communities that may have lower trust in institutions. These may include groups that work with new Canadians, for example.

[10:15 a.m.]

Academia fosters long-term voter engagement. Universities, colleges and research institutions create environments that inspire active participation in democracy, both on and off campus. Academics also provide research that informs practices around voter engagement.

The media supports voter engagement by acting as both an information source and a forum for political discussions. Its multiple platforms, from traditional broadcast channels and print journalism to digital outlets and social media, can provide information on electoral processes to voters and highlight political debates that inspire democratic participation.

The education system supports voter engagement by providing the opportunity for incorporation of learning about democracy into curriculum. Many social studies teachers provide lessons to students about the principles of democracy, the history of voting rights and aspects of elections. Schools also support simulation exercises, like holding mock elections in parallel to provincial and federal elections.

Voter turnout is often viewed as a proxy for democratic engagement. This slide provides an overview of voter turnout in B.C. provincial elections. Voter turnout in B.C. is measured as a percentage of registered voters, not as a percentage of eligible voters. This is primarily because election management bodies know the exact number of registered voters but can only estimate the number of eligible voters using census data.

This is important because the number of registered voters directly impacts the measurement of voter turnout. For example, if an election management body purges its voters list prior to an event to remove obsolete voter records, voter turnout may appear to increase in the subsequent election, even if it is the same number of voters voting. Conversely, if an election management body expands its voters list and adds new voter records, voter turnout may appear to decrease in the next election — again, even if it’s the same number of voters who vote.

As you can see from the slide, over the last 30 years, there has been a slight decline in voter turnout in British Columbia. This trend matches other jurisdictions in Canada, as well as in most Western democracies. As you can see on the slide, voter turnout in B.C. hovered around 70 percent in the late ’90s and the early 2000s but has since fallen to around 60 percent or lower.

One likely driver of the decline in turnout percentage between 2001 and 2005 is that the 2005 election was the first election following the merge of the provincial voters list with the B.C. section of the national register of electors. The national register of electors, of course, is the voters list that is used for federal elections in Canada. This action increased the count of registered voters in B.C. by more than 550,000 voters.

As comparison, this slide shows voter turnout in federal elections from 1997 to 2005. Federally, the decline in turnout is less pronounced, but voter turnout was consistently 70 percent or higher earlier, and then you can see that it is maintained, generally, in the high to mid-60s or low 50s over the most recent elections.

The next series of slides, beginning with slide 8, will show voter turnout by age group in B.C. provincial elections between 2005 and 2024. Slide 8 shows voter turnout at age 75-plus. Now, Elections B.C. has tracked voter turnout by age since 2005, which is why we’re able to provide data looking at these trends. Of course, different age groups would have different levels of voter turnout.

On the next series of slides, the dotted line is average voter turnout, and the solid line is voter turnout for the listed age group. As you can see, voters 75 and older have above-average turnout in our provincial elections. Looking at slide 9, this is for the age group 65 to 74. You’ll see that they participate at a much higher rate than the average. Indeed, voters in age 65 to 74 have the highest turnout of any age group in B.C. provincial elections.

[10:20 a.m.]

Moving to slide 10, this shows voter turnout age 55 to 64. Again, this age group has above-average turnout, but you can see that it was wider. There was much more turnout in early 2005, 2009, and their participation has merged closer to the provincial average in recent elections.

Slide 11, showing the turnout for voters aged 45 to 54. In here, you see that this age group has roughly average turnout with overall turnout in British Columbia. At some points, it’s slightly above, some points it’s slightly below, but pretty substantively, it mirrors the average turnout for this age group.

The next several slides show voter turnout for younger age demographics in B.C. As can be expected, seeing as older-voter age groups have higher turnout, the younger-voter age groups will have turnout below the provincial average.

Turnout for voters aged 35 to 44 — you can see this illustrated with a fairly consistent below-average turnout across all the elections since 2005 to 2024.

However, the next age group, in slide 13, voters 25 to 34, have the lowest turnout of any age group in B.C. provincial elections.

Slide 14 shows turnout for the youngest cohort, voters aged 18 to 24. Again, they have below-average turnout.

However, for this age group, there are fewer registered voters, due to the high number of first-time voters, because many voters who are first-time voters register when they go to the polls, rather than registering in advance. It simply means that if voters in this age group who are eligible voters don’t vote, they don’t register. So of course, if they’re not registered, they’re not accounted for in turnout. This means that when looking at voters aged 18 to 24, the voter-turnout percentage for this age group may be slightly inflated over the actual population.

There’s been much academic research on why voters vote and why voters may choose not to vote. Obviously, for many voters, it’s an individual choice. Elections B.C. conducts voter surveys post-election to try to understand why some voters vote and why some voters don’t vote. We try to use this information to inform our activities, in terms of voter communication activities and administrative activities, to reduce any identifiable barriers.

Looking at slide 15, this shows some of the top reasons for voting and top reasons for not voting in the most recent election.

Top reasons for voting, among all respondents, were what we would call principled reasons. This is 39 percent of voters who voted, of the respondents to the survey among voters who voted, that said the reason they voted were value-driven responses like: “It’s my civic duty” or “It’s important to have my voice heard” or “I vote because it’s my democratic right to vote.”

However, political reasons were a very close second, in terms of the top reasons for voting, at 38 percent. Political reasons include results-oriented responses like: “I voted because change is needed” or “I voted to support the candidate of my choice.”

Personal reasons were a distant third at 13 percent. This includes some what we’ll call habit-informed responses like: “I always vote” or “I like to vote.”

Then the remaining percentage was just a collection of much smaller reasons why people decide to vote.

The top reasons for not voting. The largest single reason was what we call everyday reasons, and 44 percent of voters who did not vote cite everyday reasons as the main driver — things like: “No time,” “I was travelling,” “I was too busy,” “I forgot to vote.” Those are what we classify as everyday life reasons.

[10:25 a.m.]

Political reasons also was the second choice why voters indicate they did not vote. Here, the political reasons included comments like: “I did not like any of the candidates,” “My preferred party did not run a candidate in my district” or something like, “My vote would not have made a difference.”

There were a number of themes that came out of the other reasons, which were 12 percent for not voting including comments like, “No reason. I just didn’t vote,” or “I don’t know why I didn’t vote,” or they just indicated that there was another reason but didn’t specify what that other reason might be as to why they did not vote.

And then electoral process reasons were cited by 6 percent of the voters who didn’t vote. These include statements like: “I didn’t know where to vote” or “I did not receive my voting card in time.”

Our survey also surveyed voters and non-voters about their access to information and what they saw. Slide 16 speaks to some of the findings from that part of the survey. So 94 of all respondents — this includes both voters and non-voters — said that it was very or moderately easy to find information on where to vote, 96 percent said it was very or moderately easy to find information on when to vote, and 93 percent said it was very or moderately easy to find information about different ways to vote.

So while, of course, Elections B.C…. We always are looking at ways to improve how we engage with voters and provide information to them that they can easily find. We do believe that the results of this part of the survey indicate that access to information is not a core barrier to voters voting in B.C. provincial elections.

Now I’m going to look at some trends that we’ve observed in how voters participate and how voters choose to vote during provincial elections. Again, we’re looking at a time frame of 1996 to 2024. This begins in slide 17, where we’re looking at final voting in provincial general elections. As you can see on this slide, the way that B.C. voters have participated in final voting — that’s voting on election day — has changed over time.

Indeed, if one was to look back through the history of British Columbia from the very first provincial election up until perhaps 2005, voting on final day was definitely the most popular voting opportunity. In earlier times, over 90 percent of all voters voted on final voting day. That held true through ’96, and nearly 90 percent in 2001, but started to transition beginning in 2005. There you see that it went from 80 percent, 74 percent, 69 percent and 60 percent down to 28.8 percent in 2020. That was, I believe, a unique response to the pandemic and the election that was held during the pandemic, but then it increased to 44 percent in 2024.

What we see here — because voter turnout has not overall increased — is, quite simply, participation. Voters’ choices in participation have been switching from voting on election day to other, perhaps more convenient, options to vote.

If we look, on slide 18, at advance voting, we can see where this has been the main area of switching behaviour from voters. Advance voting has shown a consistent upward trajectory. Whereas in 1996, it was around 6 percent — a slight increase in 2001, just over 10 percent in 2005 — there has then been a consistent increase election over election, and in 2024, for the first time, advance voting numbers surpassed final voting numbers in terms of percentage of overall turnout.

[10:30 a.m.]

Moving ahead to slide 19, this looks at voting by mail in B.C. elections, again over a similar time frame. Voting by mail hovered at less than 1 percent from 1996 through 2017, and then in the pandemic election, it caused a significant percentage of voters to choose to vote by mail during that time.

The 2020 election, of course, did introduce many voters to the convenience of voting by mail in a general election, but British Columbia does have a history of voting by mail in other events, primarily standalone referenda. There were vote-by-mail referenda held in 2002 on treaty negotiations; in 2011, on the harmonized sales tax. There was a plebiscite in Metro Vancouver on a transportation and tax initiative in 2015 and a vote-by-mail referendum on electoral reform in 2018. So British Columbian voters overall are much more familiar with the processes involved in voting by mail.

In 2024, we saw a significant decline in the number of voters voting by mail as compared to 2020. So 3.7 percent of overall turnout was by vote-by-mail in 2024. This was far lower than the 2020 levels, but still, if you look at the previous, from ’96 to 2017, was ten times higher than in those elections.

At this point, I’d like to transition over to Dan Posey, who will now go through the presentation on different electoral systems.

Daniel Posey: Thank you, Anton. And good morning, Madam Chair, Mr. Deputy Committee Chair and committee members.

In the following section, we will provide information on the current electoral system used in British Columbia and systems that have been used historically or proposed as a new electoral system through referenda.

The digital copy of your presentation, as Anton mentioned, includes links to videos Elections B.C. prepared that I will not be able to show here. These videos provide additional information on many of the systems I’m about to discuss.

Another resource describing the systems considered most recently in British Columbia is the How We Vote report that was prepared in the lead-up to the 2018 referendum.

British Columbia has used or considered several different electoral systems for our provincial elections. In this section, we will describe these systems in simple terms, focusing on the key aspects of each system. We will not evaluate their suitability for B.C. provincial elections.

As a non-partisan office of the Legislature, Elections B.C. does not have a position on which electoral system should be used in B.C. We administer elections according to the Election Act, and the act is currently written for elections that use the first-past-the-post electoral system.

During the 2018 Referendum on Electoral Reform, we were also required by legislation to conduct a public education campaign about the different electoral systems on the ballot. We can provide input to policy-makers on the implications of administering elections under different electoral systems, but we remain neutral on the question of which system is the most suitable for the province.

As mentioned, I’ll now provide a brief overview of each of the systems on the following slides.

Except for a brief period in the 1950s, B.C. has used first-past-the-post for its electoral system. First-past-the-post is also the electoral system used for Canadian federal elections and provincial elections in other provinces as well as many other jurisdictions outside of Canada and at the local level of jurisdictions in Canada.

The alternative voting system is a ranked choice voting system that was briefly used for provincial elections in 1952 and 1953. First-past-the-post was reinstated immediately after the 1953 election.

Proportional representation, while often discussed as the alternative to first-past-the-post, is not a specific electoral system but rather a category of electoral systems. There are many electoral systems designed to produce proportional results. The systems listed on this slide are the ones that have been considered for use in B.C.

First-past-the-post, also known as single-member-plurality, is the current electoral system in British Columbia. As mentioned, it is used for provincial and territorial elections across Canada and in federal elections and in many other jurisdictions, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

In modern B.C. elections, each electoral district is represented by one member of the Legislative Assembly. Voters vote for one candidate. The candidate with the most votes, or a plurality, is elected, even if they do not have a majority.

[10:35 a.m.]

Under first-past-the-post, voters mark a ballot for a single candidate in their electoral district. In first-past-the-post, a political party’s share of the popular vote does not ultimately affect the number of seats the party wins in the Legislature.

This system is sometimes called “winner takes all,” because elected candidates can secure 100 percent of the power, meaning the single seat for their district, without a minimum threshold of support from the voters. They just need to have more than the next candidate on the ballot.

The distribution of seats in the Legislature results from the outcome of the election in each individual district. And slide 24, please…. I’ll just note that this is one of the video slides that cannot be played. It’s available at your convenience afterward, and we’ll move on to slide 25.

The alternative voting system I mentioned was briefly used in B.C. in 1952 and 1953. Under the system, voters marked their ballots by ranking candidates in terms of preference — as many as they might wish to support on the ballot. Each party is only represented by one candidate on the ballot, and this is sometimes known as single transferable voting or ranked choice voting.

If no candidate has a majority after counting the first preferences in a district, the candidate with the fewest first preference votes is eliminated, and their ballots are transferred to the second preferences on those ballots, with the first candidate eliminated. This continues until a single candidate for the district achieves a majority of the votes in their district, and they win the seat.

On the left of this slide, you can see that in each district, a single candidate eventually wins. On the right, there’s a ballot with many candidate names, where candidates are ranked by voter preference. This is not a proportional representation system. It’s still winner takes all, but the alternative voting system simply ensures that the elected candidate has support from the majority of the voters in their district.

Proportional representation, as mentioned, is a family of electoral systems that are designed to produce proportional results. The basic principle of proportional representation is that a political party’s share of the seats in the Legislature should be roughly equal to the party’s share of the popular vote. Proportional representation systems often balance local representation with the addition of multiple-member districts or regions to achieve proportionality.

For example, if a party receives 40 percent of the popular vote, indicated by one of the slices of the pie chart on the left here, they would be likely to receive about 40 percent of the seats in the Legislature, imagined on the right.

B.C. single transferable vote is the electoral system that was recommended by the 2003 B.C. Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. In B.C. STV, voters rank candidates by preference, like the alternative voting system used in the 1950s. But B.C. STV uses multi-member electoral districts. At a provincial level, these districts produce largely proportional results.

To be elected, candidates must reach a certain number of votes, called the electoral quota, in their district. This quota would be specific to each electoral district based on the number of seats for the district and the number of votes cast.

Under B.C. STV, the single-member districts shown on the left are combined into larger, multiple-member districts. Parties may run multiple candidates, and voters in the district rank all candidates by their preference. All voters’ first preference votes are counted, with further rounds of counting used to transfer votes to their second, third or so on preference from candidates who are elected with a surplus of votes or who are dropped from the ballot because they have received the fewest votes.

These votes are then transferred to candidates that are still on the ballot. The counting process continues until all the seats in the district have been filled by candidates that achieve enough votes to meet the electoral quota.

Another electoral system designed to produce proportional results is dual-member proportional. Dual-member proportional was created in 2013 by Sean Graham, then a mathematics student at the University of Alberta, and as its name suggests, dual-member proportional mainly uses dual-member districts.

Most electoral districts would be represented by two MLAs. However, the largest rural districts would continue to have one MLA. Single-member districts would continue to use first-past-the-post as their means of electing a member.

[10:40 a.m.]

In dual-member districts, parties can have one or two candidates on the ballot. Parties decide which of their candidates is listed first on the ballot and which is listed second. Voters vote for one candidate or a pair of candidates by marking the ballot once.

These images show how the structure of electoral districts may change under dual-member proportional, with the introduction of dual-member districts on the image on the right for the lower portion of the area shown. The first seat in a dual-member district is won by the candidate with the most votes, i.e., it operates under the rules first-past-the-post uses. This seat is filled by the candidate listed first on the ballot, as the system is designed.

The second seats for dual-member districts are instead determined using the breakdown of the popular vote by a political party. A party’s second seats are filled in districts where its candidates did particularly well.

There are some additional considerations. For example, parties would need to achieve a popular vote threshold — this could be a percentage, such as 5 percent — to receive second seats, and independent candidates that finish first or second under the design would win their seat.

Candidates compete not only to have the most votes locally in their district but also to have the highest vote share among all the other candidates from their party at a provincial level. The combination of results for the first seats and the allocation of second seats on the basis of popular vote are the mechanisms that are used to achieve proportionality in this model.

Mixed-member proportional is an electoral system that combines single-member districts that elect members using first-past-the-post and regions that elect members representing political parties from a list. Together these produce proportional results. It was invented for use in Germany and is now used in New Zealand as well as the Scottish and Welsh legislative assemblies.

The electoral geography of mixed-member proportional is demonstrated on the left, with a group of electoral districts that form a region. In many mixed-member proportional systems, voters cast two votes on one ballot, which is shown on the right. One vote would be for the preferred candidate in their local single-member district and one vote for the preferred candidate or party at the regional level.

The division of seats between single-member districts and regional lists is a consideration of this model. For example, 60 percent of the seats could be elected using first-past-the-post in single-member districts, while 40 percent could be elected through proportional representation of the regional lists and top-up.

Rural-urban proportional is essentially a combination of the single transferable voting system, BCSTV, and the mixed-member proportional system. Rural-urban proportional uses multi-member districts, single-member districts and regional top-up districts together in different areas of the province. Multiple-member districts are used wherever possible, particularly in urban and semi-urban areas of the province, and these operate under single transferable vote.

Single-member districts are retained in more sparsely populated areas and combined into a region that has a list for top-ups to achieve a degree of proportionality at that regional level.

The image on the left is our current model with single members for each electoral district, while the image and ballot on the right show the multiple-member districts from STV, which most British Columbians would vote under, using this model.

As I mentioned, the sparsely populated areas of the province, meaning larger districts, would use mixed-member proportional, where the districts would be combined into regions, under the conception of this model, that elect members using first-past-the-post, as well as the regional seats that top up to achieve proportionality.

I’ll now pass the presentation to Charles Porter, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer.

Charles Porter: Thank you, Dan. Good morning, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice-Chair and committee members.

I’m now going to provide a bit of historical background. This will not be a complete history of electoral reform in B.C. There are many examples of electoral reform in our history, such as those measures which created universal suffrage. For this presentation, we are going to focus on broad changes in the electoral system. I will first provide a brief overview and timeline, and then we’ll go into more detail.

[10:45 a.m.]

On slide 41, you’ll see in front of you a timeline which starts in the year of Confederation, 1871. First-past-the-post was used for the first time in a provincial election then and carried on in a number of elections going forward through to the 1950s. First-past-the-post was used in both single-member and multi-member districts. If we fast-forward to the 1950s, we had two provincial elections conducted under an alternative voting system, which were followed immediately by a return to first-past-the-post. Much of the province had multi-member districts elected via first-past-the-post up until 1991.

In 1991, multi-member districts were eliminated, on the recommendation of the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission at the time. Single-member districts have been used now in every part of the province since then. In 2001, the B.C. Liberal Party pledged to create a Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform if they were elected.

This followed the 1996 election in which the B.C. NDP had formed a majority government but had lost the popular vote. In 1996, the B.C. NDP had formed that majority government, winning 39 of 75 seats but with only 39 percent of the popular vote. B.C. Liberals had received 42 percent of the popular vote but only won 33 seats.

In the 2001 general election, the B.C. Liberals won a majority, and in 2003, they created the B.C. Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. The citizens’ assembly released its final report in 2004, recommending a switch to the BCSTV electoral system. This triggered B.C.’s first referendum on electoral reform.

In 2009, B.C. held a second referendum on electoral reform. This time more information was available to voters on how electoral districts would need to change to implement BCSTV. In 2018, B.C. held its third referendum on electoral reform. We’re now going to cover some of these historical events in some more detail.

The B.C. Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform was created in 2003 to consider different electoral systems for B.C. provincial elections and to recommend whether the current first-past-the-post system should be retained or whether a new system should be adopted. In 2004, the assembly released its final report, recommending the adoption of BCSTV and also recommending that a referendum be held.

The 2005 referendum was a provincewide vote on whether to change to the single transferable vote, the BCSTV electoral system, as recommended by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. The ballot question, as established in the final report of the citizens’ assembly, was quite simply: “Should British Columbia change to the BCSTV electoral system, as recommended by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform — yes, or no?”

The Electoral Reform Referendum Act required the referendum to be held in conjunction with the 2005 provincial general election, and it established two thresholds for the referendum to be binding on government. It needed to satisfy both of these requirements. At least 60 percent of valid votes provincewide had to be in favour of BCSTV, and a simple majority of 50 percent plus one in at least 48 of the 79 electoral districts.

Voting in the referendum was available at the same voting opportunities as the provincial general election. A referendum information office had been established by the government of the day to educate voters about the different electoral systems which were on the ballot.

In the 2005 referendum results, the majority of voters were in favour of adopting BCSTV. About 58 percent supported adopting the BCSTV system, and about 42 percent supported keeping the first-past-the-post system. In 77 out of the 79 electoral districts, over 50 percent support was achieved, but because only one of the thresholds was achieved, government was not obliged to introduce the BCSTV electoral system.

[10:50 a.m.]

The 2009 referendum was B.C.’s second provincewide vote to determine which electoral system British Columbians should use in the future for provincial elections. The ballot for the 2009 referendum asked: “Which electoral system should British Columbia use to elect members of the provincial Legislative Assembly — the existing electoral system of first-past-the-post, or the single transferable vote electoral system, proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform?”

Slide 49, please — the 2009 referendum, continued. The Electoral Reform Referendum 2009 Act established that voting in the referendum would be available at the same voting opportunities as the 2009 provincial general election. The act also set two thresholds for BCSTV to be selected as the preferred electoral system and for the results to be binding on government.

For this to happen, the BCSTV would have to receive at least 60 percent of the popular vote provincewide, and the BCSTV would receive a simple majority in at least 60 percent, or 51, of the 85 electoral districts at that point in time. Like in the 2005 referendum, a referendum information office was established by government to provide non-partisan information to voters on their choices.

Moving on to slide 50 — 2009 referendum results. The results of the referendum were announced provincewide on June 3 of 2009. Overall, 1.651 million referendum ballots were cast, representing about 55 percent of registered voters. Voters chose to keep the current first-past-the-post voting system. About 61 percent supported keeping the first-past-the-post system, and about 39 percent supported adopting the BCSTV system.

Moving on to slide 51 — the 2018 referendum. The 2018 referendum was B.C.’s third referendum on electoral reform. The ballot for the 2018 referendum included two questions. The first was: “Which system should British Columbia use for provincial elections?” There was only one choice that could be made by the voters — the current first-past-the-post voting system, or a proportional representation voting system.

There was a second question: “If British Columbia adopts a proportional representation voting system, which of the following voting systems do you prefer?” Voters were to rank in order of preference. They were entitled to choose only one, or two, or all three of the systems, and could rank them. The choices were dual-member proportional, DMP; mixed-member proportional, known as MMP; or rural-urban proportional, RUP.

Moving on to slide 52 now — the Electoral Reform Referendum 2018 Act established that the Chief Electoral Officer would conduct that referendum on electoral reform and that the results would be binding for government. This was a stand-alone event. It was not held in conjunction with a provincial election, unlike the 2005 and 2009 referenda.

The act also established that voting in the referendum would be conducted by mail, that the ballot questions posed to voters would be determined by Lieutenant Governor in Council regulation and that the threshold for the referendum, to be binding, would be more than 50 percent of validly cast ballots voting in the same way. The 2018 referendum was supported for the first time by a neutral and factual public education campaign developed and run by Elections B.C.

Moving on to slide 53 — the 2018 referendum results. Voting in the referendum took place from October 22 to December 7, 2018, with results reported to the Speaker of the Legislature and announced provincewide on December 20 of 2018. Overall, 1.4 million ballot packages were returned to Elections B.C., representing 42 percent of registered voters. Voters chose to keep the current first-past-the-post voting system. Just over 61 percent supported keeping first-past-the-post. Almost 39 percent supported adopting a proportional representation system.

[10:55 a.m.]

When making their choice on which was the preferred proportional representation model, voters chose mixed-member proportional as the most preferred system. Dual-member proportional received about 37 percent of the votes. Mixed-member proportional had just over 63 percent of the votes and rural-urban proportional was eliminated at round 1 given the rank choice system that was in place.

The 2018 referendum was the first referendum with a rank choice question that used electronic tabulators to count paper ballots in a provincial referendum, and that required Elections B.C. to conduct that public education campaign on the topic of the referendum, i.e. in addition to providing information about how to vote.

Now I’m moving on to slide 54 — changing electoral systems. Now moving on to the final section of our presentation, which are some thoughts for the committee to consider in relation to some of the implications of change.

Changing electoral systems is a complex and lengthy process. A range of other changes are required in order to implement a new electoral system. The Election Act and its regulations would require comprehensive change to update the provisions in the act and those operational regulations which govern voting, counting and results reporting processes.

B.C.’s provincial electoral districts redistribution would need to occur. An electoral boundaries commission would likely need to be appointed to propose new electoral districts, and after the establishment of those districts, voters would need to be assigned to them through a redistribution process by Elections B.C.

Elections B.C. processes and technology would need to be re-engineered, and many systems and processes would need to be changed. We’d have to produce all new guidance and training materials and retrain across our organization to administer elections under a different electoral system.

We’d need to have strategies in place for maintaining public trust. In the 2024 provincial election, there were increased levels of disinformation and misinformation about the electoral process. We have noted that processes that were not as well understood by voters were more vulnerable to disinformation and misinformation.

In the future, if a new electoral system were to be established, it would likely not be well understood at first. This may create increased opportunity for misinformation and disinformation and a potential decline in voter trust. An ongoing public education program for B.C. voters and political participants would be essential for ensuring that any new electoral system was well understood and that public trust in the electoral process is maintained.

Thank you for your attention to this presentation. That concludes this presentation, and we would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much Anton, Daniel and Charles for your presentation. Members, if you have any questions, now is the time to ask them.

Ward Stamer: Thanks very much for the presentation. To go back to the first part of the presentation when we looked at the voter turnout on the age breakout. Just your thoughts when you look at the graphs…. Regardless of the percentages, one of the trends that I can see, and maybe you can you can follow up on that, is that the age group of 75-plus and that other age group of, I think, 60 to 65 — the growth in that turnout has stalled.

When you look at the graphs and forgettable percentages, and you look at the trends. most of the other age groups are in the same trends, where it seems like most of the most of the voting turnout is increasing regardless of the percentages. If you just look at the way that the graph is performing, where the older generations seem to have flatlined, do you have an explanation as to why that that is occurring?

Anton Boegman: Our survey work has not given us insight into that. Anecdotally, as part of our review, we do ask our district electoral officers to forward to us any comments, questions, concerns that they have in relation to things that they’ve received from their voters. We don’t have any insight. At least, I don’t have any insight, currently, as to why that is flatlined, but it is something we could look further at and provide further material to the committee on that question.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Any other questions?

[11:00 a.m.]

George Anderson: I just have a question regarding the various voting systems. I was curious if you had any data about the preferences of different age groups. I know that you’ve been able to track what age groups are voting. I was just curious if you had any correlation or connection between the systems that different age groups would prefer.

Daniel Posey: I don’t believe so.

Anton Boegman: Again, our surveys that we do with voters are in relation to the previous election or the previous event that has taken place, so it’s specifically in reference to their experience there — where they saw their information, which barriers they may or may not have had. We have not done survey research into which electoral system would be preferred by different age demographics.

This may be something that academics have done research into. I’m not sure whether that was considered as part of the 2018 report that was prepared by the Attorney General prior to the 2018 referendum.

Again, this is an area where we don’t have research on that, but we could endeavour to look into some of the material we’ve provided, to see whether there’s anything available.

George Anderson: Just to follow up, the reason that I ask is because, obviously, there’s a 2005 referendum, 2008-2009 and then the one in 2017-18 in which British Columbians were asked what their preferred system would be. That’s where my question follows from. If we’re already speaking to British Columbians at that point, we might, probably, have some of that data. But I appreciate the information.

Amna Shah: Thank you for the presentation.

My question is in regard to voter engagement and how you’re able to not only sort of get the message out around getting the vote out but also providing accessible options for voters in its different forms. Could you maybe give us a brief explanation of the process about how you arrive at the possible options as you try to promote accessibility and access to voting options?

If we’re talking about folks with disabilities who are, for example, unable to leave their home and you’ve, in this previous election, offered voting by telephone, how do you arrive at the decisions that these are the ways in which we promote accessibility?

Anton Boegman: I’ll speak to kind of our approach to that. Of course, all of the various voting opportunities that are provided to voters in British Columbia are established in our electoral legislation. Our role is to be able to implement those particular options as they are defined in the legislation.

Some options are available to all British Columbians. Those are in our communication materials. We highlight options that voters have for all British Columbians.

Other options are only available to a certain subset of British Columbians. For example, assisted telephone voting is intended for voters who have a permanent or semi-permanent disability that prevents them from voting independently at another voting opportunity. It’s a model that we adopted from Australia where it was first introduced. The communication for that is primarily through groups identified by our accessibility committee, CNIB, the advocate for the Sight-Impaired Consumers group and groups like that that serve voters who do have those distinct types of disabilities.

Another way is directly from voters themselves who have questions. During an election, we staff a contact centre that has information about all the different voting opportunities that are available to British Columbians. If someone calls in and says, you know, “I’m going travelling. I’m not going to be here during the campaign period. How can I cast my vote?” then they would give them options.

Here in B.C., you can vote from when the election is called until the close of voting on voting day. So if they’ve not already left, they could go into their local office, and they could cast their ballot there. If they’re going to be away over final voting day, they could take advantage of the advanced voting opportunity and those sorts of things. Our district staff are also trained in all of these different types of options, so they’re able to respond to questions that are there.

[11:05 a.m.]

We also provide lots of briefing materials, information materials, to political parties through a number of forums, and we highlight the various ranges of voting opportunities that are available. Political parties will also, being aware of what the voting opportunities are, use them to engage their supporters and encourage their supporters to turn out.

One of the reasons why advance voting, I believe, has become very popular in British Columbia is that political parties have embraced it as a way of getting their supporters to turn out. So part of their get-out-the-vote effort has focused on that.

For other groups, we have to take a much more custom approach. For instance, with First Nations communities, we communicated with all First Nations communities directly and provided them information on voter registration and voting opportunities. We offered to hire a community liaison officer from within that community who could be a focal point for information about voting and voter registration. In there, we worked through those liaisons where they were available and, also, locally with each community to try to establish voting places that were accessible to members of those communities.

I think we had 90 percent of First Nations communities that had a voting place within five kilometres of that community, and 63 percent, I believe, actually had a voting place in the community. Again, that was done in response to feedback that we had from them.

District electoral officers play a very key role because they’re the ones who identify potential voting places during an election. They are hired from within their community. They have a local knowledge of their community — where the population centres are, what the transportation routes are. They are the ones who identify advanced voting locations throughout the six-day advanced voting period, as well as locations that are available on final voting day. That local knowledge is a key part.

We send a where-to-vote card to all registered voters, which highlights for them the advanced voting opportunities within their electoral district as well as their assigned opportunity on voting day.

We also provide information throughout the campaign period on different voting opportunities that are available through our outreach campaign. We do advertisements. Some are statutory advertisements in newspapers. We do advertising across traditional media, in social media. We had some advertising on some TikTok videos about the different voting opportunities that were available. We do try to provide that information broadly to all voters about the different options that they may have.

Amna Shah: Just to switch gears, looking into the voter turnout sort of graphs and seeing some of the averages across the different age ranges, obviously, these are numbers that are in relation to the number of registered voters that exist across the province. Do you have data that indicates the relative increase in registered voters across this province over the different election cycles?

I’m just wondering that because, of course, if you look at the actual hard numbers, there are more people than have ever voted in this past election, but the percentage of turnout is low. I’m wondering if you could comment on the increase of registered voters and if there’s any age group that you’ve seen the largest increase — while I respect that the age 18 to 25 range numbers here may be inflated because of first-time registrations.

Anton Boegman: We do measure on an ongoing basis what we call voters list coverage, and this is the percentage of voters on the list as a percentage of the estimated population of eligible voters in the province. Our most recent estimate — we work with B.C. Stats on these estimates — is that we have 96.7 percent of all voters who are eligible to vote in British Columbia on the list. That’s spread out across the age groups.

[11:10 a.m.]

If we look back — we’ve measured this over time — in 2009, our coverage was 92.6 percent. In 2011, it was 93.6 percent; 2013, 96.9 percent; 2017, 94.4 percent; in 2020, it was 96.1 percent. It’s an ongoing measurement that we do. It is based on the estimated eligible voter turnout. That is an estimate, so it is not a finite number, but we do measure this coverage over time.

Sheldon Clare:Thank you very much for your presentation. I’ve had a little bit of experience in teaching some of that history myself.

I have a question about the last election with regard to data on individual polls. Now, in previous elections, poll data was available from each poll to be given to the campaigns. That data was not available and has not been made available for this particular previous election.

I understand that there were concerns about things like the small number of some polls that could possibly lead to the identification of votes or voters. It seemed to me that it would be possible to combine that data to the electoral district as a group report.

However, will that data be made available? It is an essential part of campaign readiness, get-out-the-vote activities and identifying demographics.

I’ll have another question. I’ll wait for your response on this one.

Anton Boegman: In response to that particular question, as a result of the changes to the Election Act that were implemented in 2019 and how voting is now administered, that data is not available. Before, each voter would go to their assigned poll on voting day, and that information was available based on who had turned out at their assigned poll.

Now the most granular level of voter turnout that is available is at the voting place level, so that’s what we report turnout by. Each voter, including which electoral district and their electoral district voting area or poll assigned number…. That information is available to political parties and to MLAs after the election so they can receive that information and understand which of the voters in each of these polls did in actuality participate.

But the types of results that were available in the 2017 and 2020 election, the poll-by-poll results…. Those are not available under the current model.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Sheldon, go ahead with your second question.

Sheldon Clare: Okay. Thank you. I also wondered about identification of areas. It’s kind of related to that question, I suppose, because one of the things that’s often been pointed out is that various demographics have lower turnouts than some other demographics.

Is there demographic information available, for example, to note whether different communities within the province, based on their ethnicity or their cultural background, to determine voting patterns, for example, First Nations or the Indo-Canadian communities…? What sort of data is available in respect of that?

Anton Boegman: The information that Elections B.C. tracks and reports and is available on voter records does not include anything other than the voter’s name, their date of birth and their residential address. We don’t track ethnicity. We don’t track membership in groups and those sorts of things.

That type of research may be available through academics. There may be academics that study turnout by ethnic background or by community, but that’s not data that Elections B.C. captures and reports on.

Rob Botterell: Thank you for the presentation this morning. I was looking at slide 15, where the top reasons for not voting are everyday life, 44 percent, and political, 38 percent, in particular.

[11:15 a.m.]

You provide us helpful information on the high percentage of voters that are registered. Then on slide 6, I noted that voter turnout has increased from 53.86 percent to 58.45 percent.

I guess I’ll maybe approach this with a question from the other direction. Obviously, Elections B.C. has made a major effort to increase accessibility and ease of voting. What’s left? What’s left in the toolkit to try and get the vote up, in terms of the way in which the vote is conducted or the process?

Anton Boegman: That’s a great question.

Speaking from Elections B.C., obviously, as an election management body, as you noted, our focus is really on what’s controllable by us. That is the types of voting, the voting opportunities that are available, where voting places are, making sure that there are no informational barriers to voters, making sure that there are no administrative barriers to voting, that they know what they need to do in order to vote.

I would think that the other aspects would likely be public policy decisions that government may wish to bring into play or not. As a non-partisan office of the Legislature, we don’t take a position on public policy types of questions. But there are examples around the world.

For example, if you think about voter turnout, I know Australia had a significant concern about low levels of voter turnout in the 1920s, I believe. Their response was a public policy response to make voting mandatory.

That’s just an example of what one jurisdiction has done. There is a lot of academic research on the topic of ways to increase voter turnout. I would encourage committee members to access some of that.

There are some that suggest that whether you would have a proportional system or not may influence voter turnout, although I do not believe that the evidence that I have seen or the data that I have seen is conclusive in that regard.

Our experience in talking to voters is that there are many reasons why they want to vote or why they don’t want to vote. It’s an individual choice. A lot of them look to: what are the issues at play? Do those issues resonate with me? Are the campaigns engaging me? What am I buying, from a social marketing perspective?

There are lots of other reasons, I think. As an election management body, that’s not part of our mandate to get into that and to look at that.

What our focus has been on has been on providing information to voters, reducing administrative barriers to voters, making sure that in the identification of voting places we can have voting places that meet the needs of voters, that meet the needs of specific communities.

Then our other role is really…. We do listen. We listen to all the comments that we receive through our 1-800 centre, to the people that write into us or email us. We conduct extensive “lessons learned” after each election to understand what the issues were, what we want to keep doing, what we want to change and what we want to improve.

If there are areas where we can improve, in terms of voter accessibility, in terms of where voting places are, in terms of how we communicate, we certainly try to do those. But that’s the focus of our mandate.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): A couple of things.

I’d like to jump back on what you were saying about voter accessibility. Is there a breakout on areas in our province where we didn’t have advanced polling?

I’ll give you an example. In my riding, Westsyde used to be basically its own entity until it became part of Kamloops. The latest census data that I just looked at was 7,800 people from 2001, so I’m guessing it’s probably at least 10,000 or 12,000 people. There was not one day of advance polling in Westsyde — not one day.

[11:20 a.m.]

Yet in Barriere, where I was the mayor, which probably has an overlying catchment area of between 3,500 and 4,000 people, we had four days

I would say, as a criticism, Elections B.C. did a very poor job of advance polling in Westsyde, knowing that this was a date in an election that was already pre-planned and wasn’t just a surprise. I’m wondering how many other opportunities throughout the province did B.C. Elections have to fail to be able to give those people in those areas that same opportunity that we gave in so many other places in B.C. That’s one.

Two, when you mentioned about voting data accessibility, is there an opportunity for this committee to see that breakout? I mean, if you’re not going to be providing information on persons that are actually voting per polls, can we see the numbers on the registered voters per polls, the turnout on those polls and also a breakout with our First Nations on that same data?

I’m curious to see what the breakout is on percentages of our First Nation communities from the amount of registered voters and the voters that are actually getting out to vote — and the breakout with the advanced polling as well, just to see what that correlation is.

Anton Boegman: I’ll speak to, first, your question about the data.

We certainly can look at voting places and the polls that are assigned to those voting places and determine turnout vis-à-vis the voters that are assigned to those places. We can also identify voters who were assigned to those voting places but chose to vote in another method of voting, whether they voted at advance voting, at the district office or by mail, etc. That’s data that we can create and can provide to the committee.

In terms of your first question, I fully admit that in every election there are areas that Elections B.C. can improve. Our process for identifying advanced voting locations, as I mentioned, is driven by the local district officer, who endeavours to try to find both advance voting places and general voting places that are convenient for the majority of voters in the district and that meet those specific accessibility requirements for voters with disabilities or voters with mobility challenges.

Getting advance voting places is sometimes very challenging for us. We have legislated access to schools. A lot of schools push back at having voting taking place on days that are instructional days, or they have other issues that mean that the school is not available. They could be redoing the gym. They could be doing lots of things. So there are certainly one-off instances where we may plan to have a voting place in one location and where that particular location is not available.

Of course, the other areas that we get…. Some are community centres. They may be churches or hotel lobbies — those sorts of things. Those, again, are dependent on the availability. As I said, we do endeavour to have advance voting locations that are convenient for the voters. In some cases, it’s not possible. That may be because the voting location was not available to be rented. It may also be because we missed things, and we didn’t identify areas where there need to be specific voting locations.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Madam Chair, can I ask a follow-up on that? I’m just thinking about the legality.

If there’s a school, whether it’s a high school or an elementary school, do we have a legal right to be able to determine that is the location that we’re going to have advance polling and say: ‘Yeah, we’re not going to be doing it through instructional Monday to Friday, but it’s available on the weekends’”? Do we have that opportunity to tell the school board: “We’re going to do it whether you like it or not”?

Anton Boegman: The act requires that schools be given to Elections B.C. if we request those schools to be used.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): To answer my question, we do. So if we want to say, “Yes, next time we’re going to be using either Westsyde Secondary or Westsyde Elementary School,” we’re going to be able to use them.

Anton Boegman: The act does allow us to do that, yes.

George Anderson: I just wanted to follow up on the post-election surveys. You had individuals say everyday life, political, etc. I’m just curious. How does Elections B.C. o about conducting these surveys?

[11:25 a.m.]

Daniel Posey: I know we work with B.C. Stats on doing our post-election voter surveys. Sometimes B.C. Stats will use a data collection company that they have an agreement with in order to do that work.

Typically, they are phone-based surveys that we do. There’s a sample size that’s selected. It’s determined to be statistically significant. Then when we reach voters or non-voters, they have to pass the initial self-selection as to whether they vote or do they self-identify or whether they don’t vote, in order to fill in, and then we keep going. We have those numbers.

George Anderson: Following up to that, I know that you mentioned phone-based. Is that land lines? Is it cell phones? The reason I ask this is that I don’t have a land-line phone. I know my parents do, and many people my parents’ age also have land-line phones. But younger individuals, using cell phones, may see an unknown number and then choose not to pick up. Are we using social media? I’m just curious. It might not necessarily provide the best results if we’re only using land lines.

Daniel Posey: I don’t know about that question, but we can get back to you on that one.

George Anderson: I do have one last question. It’s with respect to this new world that we live in, where we’re seeing more artificial intelligence. We’re seeing deepfakes, and these situations are on the rise.

I’m just curious as to what Elections B.C. is doing to ensure the integrity of our electoral system in light of this ongoing attack to our electoral system, and just the role that artificial intelligence is playing.

Anton Boegman: There were new provisions enacted in our legislation in spring of 2023 which partly incorporated similar provisions that are in the Canada Elections Act but also responded to some recommendations that our office made.

These were specifically looking at certain types of false statements against candidates, against political party leaders, against election officials. They were prohibited if they were based on a false statement that was made with the intent to affect election results or that contained a false statement about the place of birth of a candidate — for example, that they were subject of an investigation or convicted of an offence based on their membership in a group, and these types of things.

We also have new provisions in our legislation prohibiting misrepresentation or impersonation of a political candidate or a figure, which would then speak to things like deepfakes. If someone put a deepfake or a deepfake audio or photo of a candidate, as an example, that would be prohibited in the election.

We had a team that we set up, and we developed resources around this to respond to those types of incidents, should they arise, in the past election. There were around 40 unique incidents that were reported to Elections B.C. and that we looked at. I think we determined that perhaps six…. I’ll just look at my report, because we detail it in my report. I’ll have to find the exact number, but I believe it was six that we actually carried forward to look at with our investigations team, as to whether a contravention may or may have not occurred, and that work is ongoing.

We also have a provision where if there is specific election advertising or content that does not meet the provisions of the act, Elections B.C. can order a takedown of that content. There was one instance where we would have ordered a takedown, but when we contacted the social media company that was hosting that content, they voluntarily took that material down.

So there are certain provisions within our legislation, but these provisions are specific; they’re targeted; they’re time-bound. They, for example, are in effect during the campaign period or during the election period.

[11:30 a.m.]

Of course, the information environment has changed materially over the past decade or so. My belief is that in response to some of these challenges that we’re seeing to our democracy, it’s a societal-wide response, so there needs to be effort in terms of civil society groups.

Government needs to take a leadership role. Certainly regulators have a role. I believe that the media has a role. Academics have a role. I think that the civics curriculum in schools probably could focus more on some of the basics of our democracy that may not be taught as much as they should be.

George Anderson: Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): I actually have a question as well, going to the different voting systems. When looking at proportional representation, I was wondering if there were any questions that were in your data, in your research, tabled about what that would look like. For example, one party gets 40 percent of the vote, and 40 percent of the seats are theirs — how those would be determined. Is that completely left to the party to determine who that would be? Is there any research of how the public would want that 40 percent determined?

Daniel Posey: I can just mention that what we covered is at a high level. Every system is not homogenous, where it’s been deployed around the world. Mixed-member proportional is the one I think that you’d be referring to there, where there are a few different options that have been considered.

In some systems, when you’re voting, you may vote just once, and that vote counts for your local representative as well as goes against the party list that may exist in the background for the region.

In other cases, you can actually be voting independently on each side. And in the third case, there could be a list of candidates that’s extremely long that represents that region, where you are picking which specific candidate you would wish to put a vote beside at that regional level.

In all three of those, the intention is still, within the systems, that the regional votes cover in the gaps for where the single-member outcomes at the districts and, say, MMP occur.

The difference in proportionality is filled from that list area. So it could be that a particular party does very well, and they’re receiving both many single-district seats and many list seats. It could be, in other cases, where they don’t quite get over the barriers in the individual districts, but they did well regionally, and they get some of the list seats from the side.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Right, but going back to the individual. You know, people are voting for a party, but they may also be voting for individuals, regardless of…. Maybe it’s not tied to a party.

I guess the question is more about, even if you’re filling it in from that…. You have 40 percent, and one party is getting 40 percent. But the preferred candidates of who make up who’s actually going to be sitting in the Legislature from that — is there any research or data about how people would want those folks actually chosen? Or is it: “It’s your party; you get to pick”?

Daniel Posey: As I mentioned, it varies by system. In some cases, it’s the party that picks the list, and so they’re often called party lists in those cases. In other cases, it could be that there’s a quite lengthy ballot where the voter is actually directly picking both the candidate at their district level as well as which candidate at the regional level they want to put their weight behind.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you. I have a follow-up list.

Sheldon, you have a follow-up question?

Sheldon Clare: Yes, thank you.

One of the things that has been raised by some folks in the recent election was custody of ballot box and security of ballots. You’re probably well aware, and it’s not a surprise, that I might be asking about the Prince George–Mackenzie situation. I did read the court documents and affidavits around that, so I have an understanding of what happened.

Perhaps it would be beneficial for the committee to hear about how ballot boxes are handled and under what circumstances a ballot box might be taken from a polling place and be in the custody of a voting officer, a clerk or elections officer in a place other than the voting place — for example, in a rural area, taken home or stored elsewhere, most likely during advance polling. Could you go over that, perhaps?

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Just before you answer that, I just want to make sure we stay on the general topic of it, versus the specifics, which is the second part of our mandate for this committee.

[11:35 a.m.]

Anton Boegman: Yes, and I’m happy to answer that question now, or some of those aspects will be covered in my second presentation on the report on the election.

That’s to your preference, Madam Chair.

Sheldon Clare: If I can interject, Madam Chair. Thank you. I’m going to be away for this afternoon as I have another commitment that I’ve gotten to leave to attend. If that was to be part of that, I was hoping to have a response at this time if that’s possible.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Okay.

I’m happy for you to answer it now, just staying on the general piece of it. Thank you.

Anton Boegman: Sure. Obviously, care and custody of election materials is a top priority for Elections B.C. We accomplish care and custody and security of election materials through a number of means.

Obviously, production of ballots is a key aspect. Ballots are stored under lock and key in the district office prior to them being distributed to election officials. How they’re distributed obviously depends on where the election official is. Typically they’re distributed the day before voting for local or close-by election opportunities. They may be distributed earlier for those voting opportunities that are held in remote or distant locations.

During voting, of course, all voting materials are in the custody of election officials who are there, who are trained, who take an oath of office to uphold the rules of the election and ensure that voting materials remain secure.

Typically, at the end of each voting day, the ballots that were cast in the voting place are sealed in the ballot box. That ballot box is then signed by the election officials and by scrutineers that are present. And then those ballots are then taken to a secure location.

In urban districts, of course, the secure location is the district office. They’re secured in the district office until after the election.

In rural areas, for example, it’s not possible to secure them in the district office. And very important is to maintain the chain of custody, and the individual who has control of that chain of custody is the election official, the senior election official for that location.

So it is a general practice, not only in British Columbia but across Canada, for ballot boxes that, say, have been used for a day of advance voting in a remote location, to be held in the custody of that official. They will take them home. And that maintains the chain of custody and security of those materials rather than leaving them in a locked building that they’re not party to. They’re simply impossible to get to the district office.

As an example, there was an advanced voting day in Atlin. The district office is in Smithers. It’s impossible for…. It would take 28 hours for someone to drive from Atlin to Smithers with the ballot box. So the local care and custody of the ballot box obviously is not universal across the province. It’s only in those locations where it is necessary, but it’s done to maintain the chain of custody and secure those materials.

As I said, the ballot boxes are sealed. They’re signed, so that any kind of tampering would be immediately evident. And then those boxes are returned to the district office as they can be.

Sheldon Clare: Very good. Thank you. I did want to get that on the record, because we have had people who don’t understand that aspect of the situation regarding ballot box custody. I worked for Elections B.C. and Elections Canada as a trainer and instructor for several elections, and I thought it was important to be able to see that on the record. I thank you for your answer.

Anton Boegman: Thank you.

Rob Botterell: I really have two or three points to flag in case you have additional research, and it may be that you don’t, and then that’ll help the committee identify where to get that information.

But you’ve provided a high-level overview, which is very helpful, of the various proportional representation systems and first-past-the-post and so on.

[11:40 a.m.]

I wondered if you have access to or have a breakdown, say, by country or whatever, of the number of countries, for example, or jurisdictions that use the various systems. I realize there may be some subsets under them, but it would be helpful to understand the range. If that’s not something you have, then we can work on getting that.

The second one: I wondered if you had any background analysis on changing electoral systems. For example, on slide 55, you’ve identified various items that lead you to the view that it’s a complex and lengthy process. I wondered if you have any information, say, for the transition that New Zealand went through, or other jurisdictions, to understand their experience and the cost and time and so on.

Then the third question — these are more information questions than anything — was just: do you have any more detailed background on slide 15? You provide a helpful overview, but if there’s a more detailed backgrounder or more detailed information?

As you point out, you’re doing everything you can that’s within your control and your mandate to make it super easy to vote while protecting the integrity of the election system we have in B.C., but the type of information that is the more granular information, here, would be helpful as we start to hear submissions and gather information around the public policy issues as well.

Those are three areas where it’d be helpful if you have some additional information to get.

Anton Boegman: Sure. Thank you for that. A couple of additional pieces that have just been confirmed…. This is more for the question that Mr. Anderson gave us earlier around the voter/non-voter survey. It was actually done by Leger. They were the survey team that did that, the company that did that, and it wasn’t a phone-based survey. It was an online survey, so it was accessible online to respondents.

On the third question that you had, the entire report on the post-election survey of voters and non-voters is available, currently, on our website, and we can send a link to the committee for that.

The other two questions, in terms of the breakdown of countries that use various systems and background analysis on the transition — we don’t have that research information. We likely could find it quite easily and provide some of that information to the committee. Or committee research would be able to do that yourselves. That’s for your preference.

Back in 2007 or ’08, I believe, Elections B.C. convened a conference on changing election systems, which had some reports from various people from countries who had transitioned electoral systems, and it was to get a better understanding should B.C. be required to do that. We can certainly try to make some of that material available to the committee.

Amna Shah: Just two brief questions. This first one might be a bit silly. Final voting day…. There’s a graph here of the number of British Columbians who voted on final voting day. Of course, British Columbians were able to vote out of district on voting day as well. I’m wondering whether you’re able to identify that data, in the overall data that you have, to determine which areas in the province utilize the most out-of-district voting opportunities.

[11:45 a.m.]

I guess I can just ask my second question as well. This is just further to Ward’s questions around voter engagement and accessibility. Is there a policy or some type of standardized timelines or expectations around how returning officers or electoral offices respond to concerns or requests from the general public around, let’s say, advanced voting day locations?

So if somebody was to either file a complaint or ask a question that this is not accessible enough for our community, our rural community, is there a policy that is supposed to be followed to address those concerns? Because I heard you say earlier that you are informed, not just by, let’s say, your accessibility committee but also based on general concerns from the public as well. So I’m asking about…. I guess I’ll clarify. I’m asking about a very specific time frame, and that is during the campaign period. How do you respond to those concerns?

I will say, it’s just my experience, generally speaking, across this country that sometimes concerns are typically not addressed in a timely manner, because sometimes there’s a lot going on. So I’m wondering, if there isn’t right now, would you consider a policy that would ensure that concerns from the general public around accessibility are addressed?

Anton Boegman: Thanks for that question. Certainly, your first question about the different participation by the different voting places is something that we can produce, I believe. Also, which districts are using and which locations are using out-of-district voting, a lot of that information is currently available in our statement of votes report, which looks at voting results from each electoral district and participation in each electoral district. But we can look at that and provide additional information to the committee.

In terms of the voting places, what we did in this election is we posted these three months before voting day and we communicated with political parties about where the voting locations were. The idea was to have this information out available in the public for commentary on: “Do we need to have more voting places?” And: “Are there issues with the voting places?” That was to enable us to receive input and make changes.

Did we receive significant input and changes, Dan?

Daniel Posey: We didn’t receive significant input and changes at a provincial level, but certainly at regional levels we did and adjusted planning around that, particularly North Island. There were requests to ensure some additional opportunities for specific communities. One in particular was Wei Wai Kai. We planned additional voting opportunities. In that case, it was a voting place and a mobile team that went to serve the community, explored other instances when they came up.

Usually, the response times were quick. Of course, they become very short as we get into the campaign period, because we attempt, wherever possible, to not lose time during the critical windows. So they rapidly approach our usual standard, which is around three business days.

Anton Boegman: What we do take as an approach when receiving individual comments and questions from voters, obviously, depends on where we are in the election cycle and what opportunities are available. If there’s an individual who says, for instance, “I’m mobility-impaired. I can’t get out of my car to go into the voting place to cast your ballot,” then we will make sure that, because we can administer curbside voting, we can bring the ballot box out to the voter. We’re able to do those sorts of things.

We communicate one-on-one with them about what opportunity would work for them. It may be a comment that, for instance, there’s not an automatic door opener. “I can’t get my wheelchair in this location.” Then we would ensure that there is a staff person there who can meet their needs going into that location. If someone says, “I can’t get to the voting place on this day,” is there another day that they can make it to the voting place?

[11:50 a.m.]

We do try to respond on an individual basis to every voter that contacts us, whether that’s at the district office, whether that is at headquarters through our 1-800 contact centre. Certainly, as Dan indicated, as a result of the initial posting of where the voting places were, we did make some modifications based on input that we received from voters and from different community groups. As he said, that is certainly within the standard that we have for responding to the public, which is three business days.

Amna Shah: Thank you. Could I just ask a quick follow-up? When you provide this list in advance of the election of different voting places, how do you communicate that to the public? Is it by way of your website? Is it by active communication to particular groups? Maybe municipal councils or anything? How do you…?

Anton Boegman: It is a combination of ways that we communicate that. The political parties are a key constituent group for this because they’re very interested in where voting places will be and whether those voting places serve the communities. It’s, of course, also on our website, and we do make some outreach to specific communities about where the planned voting locations for those communities are.

Do we do anything further than that, Andrew, in terms of social and other comments?

Andrew Watson: Good morning, committee members. I’m Andrew. I’m Elections B.C.’s communications director.

Another thing we do is share that information with our accessibility committee to ask them to share it with their networks who serve voters with accessibility challenges.

We also have an accessibility page on our website which includes a dedicated email address. It’s accessibility@elections.bc.ca. We try and get that out there as much as we can and encourage anyone to share any feedback through that channel so that we can action it appropriately.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you. We’ll go for one last question from Ward.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Madam Chair. I want to pick up on what Rob was just mentioning.

But first of all, I want to thank Elections B.C. on the improvements to accessibility. I’m really enjoying this committee meeting because there’s so much more information that is coming through. I didn’t look at it from a balanced perspective. Imagine, first of all, when somebody says: “Well, why do you need to have phone-in ballots? Why do we have to do that?” We’ve got all these examples out here for accessibility.

You mentioned, Mr. Boegman, about somebody that couldn’t even physically get out of a vehicle, and you would be able to accommodate him.

But just imagine for a second that you were blind and deaf right now. Imagine how hard that would be to communicate. To have people come to our Legislature and actually show how people are actually communicating on your back to be able to communicate with you, and then having a person that was originally blind then went deaf and can still communicate verbally but can’t hear what you have to say….

I want to thank you very much for improving those opportunities for those people in our province to be able to vote. It’s very important.

But to follow up on what Rob was mentioning, I’d like to know a little bit more on other jurisdictions and how they transformed from, possibly, a first-past-the-post to what they’re doing now. But also, looking at some of the other realities…. And one of the realities is that we’ve got 93 members now in this House, and we really don’t have any room for any more. I mean, look at the room we’ve got right here. But when we’re sitting in the House, it’s like this.

When you look at other jurisdictions, say, even across the line, where you have both a House of Representatives and a Senate and then you still have a federal government, and you look at how their election cycles are…. I’d be curious to know what the other election cycles are in New Zealand and Germany and things like that, but also where the non-confidence vote comes in.

I think there was a desire back in the teens for a fixed election. That was part of this whole referendum process where we went from municipal elections from three years to four years. There was a lot of pushback from rural because they figured four years was too much of a commitment. Three-year was fine, but they wanted to make sure that we were lock in step with municipal and provincial elections. At the same time, we had a law that said we had fixed elections, and then that got thrown out the window.

[11:55 a.m.]

Now, what are the dynamics of having that non-confidence vote? I know in other jurisdictions, if a vote fails in the House or whatever that body is, the government doesn’t fail. I’m wondering what those dynamics are when you have that ability for a non-confidence vote. You’ve got parties that are whipped. You may have members that disagree with a policy or a bill, but they’ve basically been told: “You have to vote with government; otherwise, the government is going to fail.”

Where does that all get put into the mix, when we go forward with opportunities to bring information to the public and look at other voting mechanisms or other representation mechanisms, when you have that non-confidence vote? Regardless of how you try to proportionally have representation in your Legislature, by having that non-confidence vote, that still changes the dynamics. In other jurisdictions, they don’t have that ability.

Anton Boegman: Thanks for that comment and those questions. I do know that in the 2018 report that was put out, there’s an appendix which provides more detail on the different proportional systems that were considered by government at the time, in considering which systems should go on the ballot. Some systems were not put on the ballot — and why they weren’t put on the ballot.

The detail in that does include a description of how many seats, for example, would be in there. My high-level recollection of that is that most of them could be accomplished. I think at the time it was 87, so they said between 87 and 95 seats, that kind of thing. So it was in the general range of where we are now with 93 seats.

On the second part of your question, about the non-confidence vote, the dynamics of how that plays out is certainly not an area that Elections B.C. has expertise in, in what happens in the other jurisdictions. Each of those jurisdictions would have their own unique legislation, which would explain the role around the continuity of government, around the time that’s allowed, for instance, for different parties to come forward to form a coalition government, and these sorts of things.

I would think that the best source for that would be through your research of the committee to be able to look into those unique systems and how they work. Obviously, the impact of non-confidence depends, again, on the type of system that they have and the provisions that they have for the continuity of government.

Ward Stamer: Good. Thank you for that.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Wonderful. Thank you so much for your presentation, Daniel, Anton, Charles and the entire team.

Thank you to the committee for your thoughtful questions.

We’re going to take a break to 12:10 now. Then we’ll get started on the second part.

The committee recessed from 11:58 a.m. to 12:11 p.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Okay, welcome back, committee members. We’ll call the committee back to order.

Now we’re going to hear from the Chief Electoral Officer regarding the first volume of his report on the 2024 provincial general election. This presentation is related to the second part of our mandate, reviewing the administration of the 2024 provincial election and making recommendations for future elections.

We have 45 minutes scheduled for this presentation, followed by 45 minutes for questions from committee members.

Anton, I’ll turn it over to you.

Briefing on First Report on
the 2024 Provincial General Election

Elections B.C.

Anton Boegman: I’m pleased at this point to make this presentation and provide comments to the committee on the first volume of my report on the 2024 provincial election. This report was tabled in the Legislature on May 27.

Although I will be providing all of the comments for the presentation part of this, I do have my colleagues still here at the front with me, and additional colleagues, just in case there are questions around their specific areas of expertise from committee members, who will be able to give you a more fulsome response.

Apologies that the presentation doesn’t have slide numbers on it, so I’ll just try to make sure that I orient you to each slide before I move to speak about that one.

Moving now to the overview slide, my presentation will generally follow the structure of the report. I’m going to first just do a general overview of the election and summarize some of the key successes and challenges that I’ve detailed in the report. I’ll then move to describe the preparations that Elections B.C. made in getting ready for the election, beginning with legislative change that was enacted in 2019.

Next, I’ll review administration of the election from writ issue to final voting day. This will mostly focus on voting opportunities, although the report does include additional information, of course, on the candidate nomination process and some other aspects. Then I’ll move to summarize the counting process in British Columbia, the two counts that we have and including recount process.

Last, I will speak a little bit about what is still to come. This will move away from the report but talk about the work that Elections B.C. is currently doing in our close-out activities and what the committee members can expect in the two forthcoming volumes of my report. That will be tabled, volume two, in the summer, and then volume three in the fall.

Moving to the next slide, just a few comments. The 43rd provincial election for British Columbia was held on October 19, 2024. Since that time, my team has been working on a range of post-election activities. We’ve had a significant focus on “lessons learned” reviews. We’ve conducted lessons learned with election officials, with our district offices, across the organization, different program areas. We have sent instruments to political parties for their feedback.

We’re in the process of finalizing those reviews, compiling those reviews and identifying which lessons learned we need to bring forward to future elections.

The campaign finance team is also very busy at this point in time. They’re reviewing the more than 500 post-election financing reports that were filed by political participants and determining how we’re going to be administering the election expense reimbursements as well as which files need to be forwarded to our audit team for further follow-up.

Then, of course, working on the post-election reporting.

[12:15 p.m.]

The first volume of my report that I tabled includes our administration of the event, including voter registration, the enumeration activities we did, candidate nominations, the voting opportunities, ballot counting and a little bit about voter turnout.

Moving to the next slide that shows some statistics and numbers.

The report does include many statistics about the election and some of the key ones that I’d like to highlight. There were 93 electoral districts. This was up from 87 in the previous election, based on the addition of six new electoral districts which were recommended by the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission and approved by the Legislature.

Now, across our province, the district electoral officers established numerous voting opportunities for British Columbians. These included, in this election, 343 advanced voting locations over the six days of advanced voting and 1,241 voting places on final voting day.

There were more votes cast in this election than in any previous election in British Columbia, and over 2.1 million voters came out to the polls to exercise their right to vote. To serve voters at the polls, we hired over 17,000 election officials provincewide. This is a core element of our citizen democracy, where local community members are hired and trained by Elections B.C. to administer voting opportunities for their fellow citizens.

In this election, there was also a significant reduction in the number of ballots rejected during counting across the province. The number in this election was 10,000 less than in the 2020 election, where we went from 14,000 ballots rejected to just over 4,000 ballots. I think this reflects material efforts that Elections B.C. is doing to make every vote count.

Moving to the next slide, which talks a bit about the new and modernized voting process.

The 2024 election was the first provincial election in B.C. to use a modernized voting process following legislative changes in 2019 and 2023. The implementation of these changes commenced immediately but had not been completed in time for the 2020 snap election which was held during the pandemic.

The legislative amendments allowed for proven and secure technology to be used to facilitate voting and the counting of paper ballots. We used electronic voting books to look up voters and strike them off the provincial list in near real time. This was accomplished through a secure and encrypted cellular network.

Electronic voting books allowed us to serve all voters on a first-come, first-served basis, which is an efficient and voter-focused model that addressed some of the emergent issues from previous elections.

Another key change in 2024 was using electronic tabulators to count paper ballots. Tabulators are never connected to the internet and count paper ballots accurately, securely and very quickly.

Other technology used included being able to print ordinary ballots on demand for out-of-district voters. This replaced the previous write-in ballots on a list of candidates that they would use.

Together the electronic voting books, ballot printers and tabulators enabled a vote-anywhere, count-where-cast model that is unique in Canada.

The modernized voting place also enabled more votes to be counted on election night than in previous elections. In addition to the votes from advanced voting and on final voting day, we counted almost all absentee and 30 percent of mail-in ballots on election night, around 97 percent of the total votes in the election. The remaining 3 percent of ballots were counted at final count.

This election we were able to start the final count process earlier than in the past, six days after the election, which was compared to 13 days under the old model.

Moving to the next slide, please. Implementation of the modernized voting place was one of the successes of the 2024 election. There were also a number of challenges for Elections B.C., and I’d now like to speak in some detail about both of these aspects.

Moving to the next slide on key successes. The modernized voting place delivered significant benefits for voters. We tracked wait times and found that on average, voters received a ballot within two and a half minutes of arriving at the voting place on election day. During advanced voting, the average wait time was just over four minutes, despite record advanced voting turnout.

[12:20 p.m.]

Results from our post-election survey confirmed a high level of voter satisfaction. So 98 percent of respondents described the voting process as very easy or moderately easy. Then 96 percent of respondents were very or somewhat satisfied with the information they received from Elections B.C. about voting. And 77 percent of respondents said the voting process was moderately or very efficient.

The paper ballot tabulator has allowed us to report preliminary results very quickly on election night. Polls closed at 8 p.m. By 8:30, we had reported 59 percent of preliminary results, and by 9 p.m., we had reported 85 percent of preliminary results. That means we were able to count around 1.7 million ballots within one hour of polls closing.

Another key area of success was the additional strategic partnerships we pursued to help us administer a modernized election and respond to changes in the environment that we operate in. Elections B.C. has always depended on partners to deliver provincial elections, and this was especially so in 2024 as we implemented the technology-enabled voting process for the first time and operated in an evolving environment with new risks.

Some of our partners included the Canadian firm DataFix, which developed the custom electronic voting book software; Elections Ontario, who leased us tabulators for use in voting places. The office of the provincial chief information officer as well as the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security were both key partners for consulting, monitoring and responding to cyber risks and IT security threats.

We partnered with Elections Canada, the Media Ecosystem Observatory at McGill University and Sapper Labs in terms of evaluating and reviewing social media monitoring in support of our new false statement provisions. There were many additional partners, as detailed in the report, who were very instrumental in helping us to deliver a successful election.

Some other key successes included voting accessibility. I’ve highlighted the number of advance and general voting places. Approximately 91.5 percent of all voters voted at either advance or on final voting day. Voting was available throughout the campaign period in 94 district electoral offices. I say 94 because Powell River–Sunshine Coast had both a primary and satellite office due to its geography.

Voting was also available throughout the campaign period for all voters via mail. Approximately 7 percent of all voters turned out via voting in the DEO office or by mail. We provided special voting opportunities through mobile teams of election officials, primarily visiting long-term-care as well as acute care hospitals, correctional facilities and remote locations. Approximately 1.5 percent of voters participated through the work of mobile teams.

For voters who had disabilities that prevented them from voting independently at other opportunities — primarily voters with vision loss, but other voters qualified for this as well — we administered assisted telephone voting; 0.2 percent of voters used this opportunity.

All voters in B.C. could vote at any voting opportunity anywhere in the province. This included voting opportunities inside their district as well as outside their district. The accessibility of B.C.’s voting model proved invaluable in responding to the significant adverse weather challenge of the atmospheric river on final voting day. This manifested in torrential rain on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland as well as snow in some electoral districts up north.

A number of voting places had closures due to weather-related disruptions. These voters were redirected to other voting places that were open, which was seamless under the new model because of the electronic voting books and the ability to vote anywhere. Some voters were able to vote by assisted telephone voting in emergency cases where it was unsafe or not possible to redirect them to another open voting place.

Voters took advantage of the access provided. On average, voting places served voters from 16 other districts. Some voting places served voters from over 50 other districts. And one voting place at UBC’s Student Nest served out-of-district voters from 91 of the province’s 93 electoral districts.

[12:25 p.m.]

All advanced voting places and most final voting places were wheelchair accessible. For voters who were able to make it to a voting place but could not enter the building, election officials were trained to serve voters outside, at the curb or in the parking lot.

Election officials also offered assistance to voters who had difficulty reading, writing or marking their ballot. Braille candidate lists, large-print ballot posters and plastic ballot templates were available at all voting places as resources for voters who understood and could read Braille.

New for this election, assistive voting equipment was available in district offices to allow voters to mark their ballot using an assistive device. Voters could listen to an audio recording of candidate names and affiliations and indicate their vote using a hand-held selector device, a sip and puff straw or paddles.

We reached out to voters in communities that have traditionally faced barriers to voting, including Indigenous communities, young voters, voters living homeless and voters with disabilities. To improve knowledge about voter registration and the voting process in Indigenous communities, Elections B.C. created Indigenous community liaison positions. Indigenous community liaisons worked with Elections B.C. in the lead-up to the provincial election to help members of their communities register and vote.

Keeping the election secure was also a key priority for us. For the first time, we created an Election Integrity Working Group, or EIWG, which I will discuss further in this presentation.

A number of quality assurance measures were put in place under our legislation to ensure the accuracy and reliability of election technology, including the necessary testing for tabulators, chain-of-custody security for all election materials, producing a zero tape in the presence of candidate representatives before voting began and hand-count audits of results from randomly selected tabulators and ballot boxes.

The legislative changes passed in 2023 included measures to prevent misleading advertising, disinformation and impersonation in elections. We developed an assessment framework and established a dedicated team to respond to allegations of advertising or content that contravened these new provisions.

Prior to the election, we launched new information resources on our website, including a disinformation register to prebunk known myths about the B.C. electoral process and to provide the correct information.

Throughout the campaign, we conducted several public education campaigns to provide accurate information about voting and counting processes. For this election, one of our campaigns focused on the use of technology in the voting process and the specific measures in place to keep elections secure.

Of course, along with successes, we also faced challenges. A significant challenge prior to the start of the campaign period was the withdrawal of B.C. United. This materially impacted the candidate nomination process less than a month before writ day, creating additional workload for candidate nomination and campaign finance teams.

Communicating with all impacted candidates and parties during this period was critical to ensuring that participants knew and complied with the rules in question. We also fielded a high volume of public inquiries on this topic around financing and what would happen for money that had been donated to a candidate that was no longer being endorsed by the party.

As noted, another major challenge was the atmospheric river on final voting day. During the lead-up to and during final voting day, an atmospheric river caused severe weather-related disruptions. There were widespread power outages, slides, floods, road and bridge closures and cancellations of flights and ferries. This did negatively impact the movement of election officials and materials in many electoral districts.

A small number of voting opportunities had to be cancelled because it was unsafe or impossible for election officials or voters to attend. Voters were redirected to other voting opportunities, or if there were no other options available, as noted, assisted telephone voting was enabled for a small number of voters via CEO emergency order.

This was a big challenge for our team on final voting day. We worked closely with B.C. Hydro to restore power to voting places as soon as possible. We also worked with the media and with our local election official teams to redirect voters, which, of course, was possible thanks to B.C.’s vote anywhere model.

[12:30 p.m.]

A third challenge was the challenging information environment and intense public scrutiny due to close results after final voting day. The information environment in this election was more challenging and fractured than in previous elections.

The inconclusive election night result led to several false online narratives about the electoral process. Well-established aspects of our elections were challenged online, including misinformation about election officials taking ballot boxes home, about final count and the timing of final count and other aspects of the process.

Thankfully, trust in our democracy remains high. The post-election survey of voters conducted found that trust levels remained unchanged from 2020, when this was first measured, at 80 percent confidence, and only 7 percent of respondents were not confident in election results.

Then there were also administrative challenges. During preparations for two judicial recounts, we discovered that a ballot box secured in the Prince George–Mackenzie district office had not been counted during initial or final count. This box contained 861 votes.

During preparations for the judicial recounts, we also discovered that five electoral districts had failed to fully report the out-of-district results recorded on 11 tabulator tapes, impacting 69 districts, most by only a few votes. These errors did not affect the results in any of the ridings and were corrected via a CEO order and a partial judicial recount in Prince George–Mackenzie.

We held a press conference during the election to transparently disclose these errors and how they were being corrected, and I’ll provide more information on this topic later in the presentation.

I’ll now move to the next slide, which will talk about our election preparations. The 2024 election was administered following a number of legislative changes between 2019 and 2023. The next slide speaks to some of those legislative changes. In 2018, following the previous provincial general election in 2017, Elections B.C. submitted a report to the Legislative Assembly recommending modernizing how British Columbia elections are administered to provide better services to voters and other stakeholders.

Amongst other changes, the report recommended using technology to implement a first-come, first-served model to reduce lineups and make voting more efficient; enable faster results reporting, with almost all ballots counted on election night, including absentee and mail-in ballots; and a close-to-real-time voter strike-off system, where participation data could be easily shared with parties and candidates to support their get-out-the-vote efforts.

The Election Amendment Act, 2019, received royal assent in November 2019, addressing all of the recommendations from the 2018 report. This act was passed with the unanimous support of the Legislative Assembly and represented the most significant changes to the Election Act in 25 years. The new legislation enabled the modernized voting place, including the use of electronic tabulators to count paper ballots and electronic voting books, which were laptops, to strike off voters during close to real time.

The new model was first used in the 2022 by-elections in Vancouver-Quilchena and Surrey South and then, further, in two additional by-elections in 2023. Uniquely, however, the by-elections did not enable Elections B.C. to test the vote anywhere model, which of course is only present during a provincial general election.

In 2020 and 2022, Elections B.C. tabled further reports recommending additional legislative changes to mitigate emerging risks due to disinformation, the potential for foreign interference and cyberthreats. The Election Amendment Act of 2023 addressed many of these recommendations.

These amendments established the prohibitions against misrepresentation and false statements regarding candidates, election officials and election results and granted the CEO authority to issue takedown notices for advertising and content that contravened these rules. These legislative changes also included amendments to improve the vote-by-mail process.

Slide 13 is on preparing for the election. Preparing for the election also included implementing new electoral district boundaries. An independent and non-partisan electoral boundaries commission was appointed on October 21, 2021, and ended up tabling its final report to the Legislature on April 3, 2023. The commission proposed the creation of six additional electoral districts in areas of rapid growth across the province, bringing the total number of provincial electoral districts to 93 from 87.

[12:35 p.m.]

The commission also proposed adjustments to the boundaries of 72 electoral districts and changes to the names of 41 electoral districts. The Legislative Assembly approved all of the commission’s recommendations and officially established the new electoral districts in May through the Electoral Districts Act.

Elections B.C. then began the process to implement the new boundaries. This required us to update all of the electoral district data and our information management systems. We had to redistribute all of the voters on the list based on the new electoral districts. We had to divide new electoral districts into voting areas, and upon the completion of quality assurance in this area, we had to create all of the new tools and electoral district maps for the province.

Elections B.C. conducted a public awareness campaign for the new boundaries ahead of the election. A provincewide mailout was sent to every household and delivered to over 2.1 million residences. We created a My District App on our website, which allowed users to enter their address, see their existing electoral district and find their new district. The app also allowed users to compare new boundaries with those used for previous provincial elections in 2020 and 2017.

Surveys conducted before and after the public awareness campaign indicated that awareness of the new electoral districts jumped from 31 percent before the campaign to 56 percent following the campaign.

The next slide is on the enumeration. A high-quality and accurate voters list is essential for an inclusive and accessible election. A high-quality voters list makes voting faster and easier for voters and helps us contact voters with information about when and where to vote. Historically, voters who are not registered at their current home address have faced greater administrative barriers to voting, so improving the list before an election is an important step.

In 2024, our enumeration activities included a data enumeration. The legislative changes enabled Elections B.C. to use new data sources. Those included data from ICBC that meant that we received the name and address updates for every registered voter that has either a B.C. driver’s licence, a B.C. identification card or a B.C. Services Card. The B.C. identification card and the B.C. Services Card were key additions to the data that we now receive to update the voters list on an ongoing basis.

Elections B.C. also went through a process to remove stale records from the voters list in February of 2024. These were voter records that did not participate during the 2017 and 2020 provincial general elections and that had not been confirmed by the voter or via any of Elections B.C.’s data sources. We also updated our voters list with the latest information from the national register of elections.

Voter registration notices were sent to 2 million addresses across the province. We followed this up with a public awareness campaign incorporating digital, radio, print and social media advertising. In each electoral district, our district officers conducted a number of ground activities, including registration drives at locations like libraries, malls and community centres.

Voter registration staff also visited locations where eligible voters are less likely to be registered, such as facilities that serve voters living homeless, post-secondary institutions and First Nations communities. These activities in the 2024 election took place immediately before the start of the election.

I’ll now speak to our activities in administering the election from writ day to the close of voting.

The next slide is the one that shows informing and educating voters. Making sure that voters have information they need to vote is a critical success factor for Elections B.C. We ran a wide-ranging, provincewide public education campaign throughout the election using traditional digital media. The campaign included advertising, sending where-to-vote cards to every registered voter and sending a voter’s guide to every residential address in the province.

An early campaign focused on advanced voting. The ads emphasized the convenience of advanced voting and the ability to vote at any advanced voting place. New communication channels were introduced to support public education and awareness. Email and text message reminders were sent to voters who had opted into receiving these messages when they registered to vote.

[12:40 p.m.]

Public education advertisements also informed voters about the new voting process, about how technology would be used and about how Elections B.C. keeps elections secure.

As previously noted, our post-election voter and non-voter survey found that over 90 percent of respondents said it was very or somewhat easy to find information on where, when and how to vote and that 96 percent of respondents were very or somewhat satisfied with the information provided by Elections B.C. in this area.

The next slide will show a breakdown of how voters chose to participate by voting opportunity. B.C. has the most accessible voting model in Canada. Voters could vote on any day from when the election is called until the close of voting at 8 p.m. on final voting day.

The voting opportunities included voting at a district office from when the election is called until 4 p.m. on final voting day; advanced voting, which was held on October 10 to 13 and on 15 and 16, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each of those days; on final voting day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific Standard Time; at special voting opportunities with mobile teams visiting voters in hospitals, long-term care facilities, correction facilities; and remote locations by mail and, if certain criteria were met, by assisted telephone voting.

The portion of voters who cast their ballot at advanced voting increased to 47.5 percent of turnout in 2024, a significant increase from 35.4 percent in the 2020 provincial election, this despite there being one less day of advanced voting in 2024. For the first time, more than 1 million voters cast their ballot during advanced voting. Voting by mail was a significantly less popular voting option in 2024 than in 2020. However, the 3.7 percent rate of vote by mail in 2024 still represents a tenfold increase over historic levels.

Voter surveys indicated that 46 percent of respondents were aware that voting by mail is an option for all eligible B.C. voters.

The next slide is on the Election Integrity Working Group. Preparations for the 2024 provincial election included a greater focus on election security, and this was part of our public awareness campaign. The security environment around elections has changed significantly in recent years. Our elections remain safe and secure, but we are aware of increased risks to the electoral process, and we work with partners to mitigate them.

Some of the emergent risks are in the areas of cybersecurity and physical security for election officials in voting places, disinformation about the electoral process or about candidates and parties and the potential for foreign interference in our elections.

As I mentioned earlier, a key initiative to safeguard election integrity was the establishment of our Election Integrity Working Group. The working group was chaired by Elections B.C. and included representatives from provincial and federal agencies, with responsibilities for different aspects of election integrity. It brought together expertise in cybersecurity and law enforcement and intelligence services with that of election, privacy and influence regulation.

The members of the group included Elections B.C., the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C., the office of the registrar of lobbyists for B.C., the office of the Deputy Minister to the Premier, representing the B.C. Public Service, the office of the B.C. chief information officer, the Canadian centre for cybersecurity, a part of the Communications Security Establishment Canada, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Elections B.C. formed the working group in response to the complex and evolving risks to election integrity. The group met on an ongoing basis leading up to and during the election to assess the risk environment, to facilitate collaboration between members and support the development of appropriate risk response strategies for individual agencies. The working group operated on a non-partisan basis and at a non-classified level. The EIWG is unique at the provincial level in Canada.

Thankfully, no risks to election integrity materialized during our election that required a coordinated response from the working group. Having it ready to do so, however, was a vital insurance policy to make sure we could respond quickly to any emerging issue that touched upon the mandates of the participating agencies.

I’ll now speak to the counting activities that followed the close of voting on election day, moving to initial count after final voting day slide.

[12:45 p.m.]

Following the close of voting at 8 p.m. Pacific Time on final voting day and after the last voter has left voting places, election officials move directly into initial count. Initial count yields the preliminary results in an election and includes the count of most of the ballots cast. In 2024, 97 percent of ballots were counted at initial count. This is up from around 90 percent of ballots under the previous model and represents an additional 150,000 ballots that were counted on election night.

The report details the specific voting opportunities which were included at initial count. In general, these were ballots cast during advance voting and on final voting day at voting places which used the electronic voting books and provincewide voter strike-off system to ensure that voters could only vote once.

Ballots cast at district offices, which also used the strike-off system, were also counted at initial count, as well as vote-by-mail ballots and any assisted telephone voting that were either received or cast by October 15 and which had successfully passed the necessary integrity checks.

As anticipated, preliminary results started to come in quickly on election night. Prior to election night, we had set targets of reporting the first preliminary results from every electoral district within 15 minutes of the polls closing, and over 50 percent of preliminary results within 30 minutes of polls closing. Both of these goals were met, with first results reported within 5 minutes of polls closing, 59 percent of preliminary results reported by 8.30 p.m. on election night, and 85 percent of preliminary results reported by 9 p.m.

Under the processes in the 2017 provincial election, only 14 percent of preliminary results had been reported by 9 p.m. on election night.

The next slide will speak to some district electoral officer recounts. Following initial count, election officials validate the results that were recorded and reported on election night and undergo preparations for final count. Close contests are also reviewed for consideration for a DEO recount. These take place automatically at the beginning of final count period if the difference between the top two candidates is 100 votes or fewer.

Automatic DEO recounts were held in two electoral districts: Juan de Fuca–Malahat and Surrey City Centre. These were a recount of all ballots counted in these districts during initial count and were conducted by a scrutinized hand count. In Kelowna Centre, a partial recount was approved to address a discrepancy of one vote that was identified between a ballot account and a tabulator results tape. In each case, the DEO recount confirmed the outcome of initial count.

Final count in the 2024 election began six days after final voting day. Final count has been part of B.C. elections for over 100 years since absentee voting was first introduced in the 1920s. Under previous legislation, final count began 13 days after final voting day. Under the new model, final count takes place at a date determined by the CEO, no sooner than four days after final voting day.

Final count is necessary to ensure that all remaining ballots that were not counted at initial count can be considered. These ballots are absentee votes, contained in certification envelopes, as well as mail ballots and assisted telephone voting ballots that were received or cast between October 15 and the close of voting.

These ballots were not cast in a voting place which used the provincewide strike-off system, so each vote had to pass integrity checks before it could be counted, including having the voter’s eligibility verified and confirmation that the voter had not voted previously. These checks could not take place until after voting closed and voter participation information from all voting opportunities was available. In some cases, they took longer to complete as absentee ballots had to be first securely shipped from the remote voting locations where they were cast to the district electoral offices to be considered.

In 2024, final count began six days after final voting day and took three days to complete — between October 26 and October 28. Over 63,000 ballots were counted during final count. At the end of final count, candidates are declared elected in each electoral district, subject to any judicial recounts.

[12:50 p.m.]

If, at the conclusion of final count, results in a district are within 1/500 of the total votes cast, an automatic judicial recount will be conducted. Judicial recounts are conducted by a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and the timings and procedures of the recount are determined by the courts.

Automatic judicial recounts were conducted in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna Centre. A partial judicial recount of one ballot box was conducted in Prince George–Mackenzie. After the conclusion of the judicial recounts, the seat count was unchanged from the results reported at final count.

As I have mentioned, on November 4, 2024, I announced that Elections B.C. was applying for a partial judicial recount in the Prince George–Mackenzie electoral district due to identification of an uncounted ballot box and that a CEO order had been issued to correct some results that were reported at final count. These errors were discovered during preparations for the judicial recounts in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna Centre.

The circumstances leading up to these errors were thoroughly reviewed by Elections B.C. after the election and are detailed in the report. Our goal was to identify why they occurred and how to prevent them in the future. Our review confirmed that these mistakes occurred due to election official error. In each instance, election officials did not follow documented procedures, including voting results validation checks. These errors did not impact the outcome of the election in any electoral district, and our review also affirmed that 87 electoral districts counted and reported the results correctly.

These errors should not have occurred, and as Chief Electoral Officer, I take full accountability for the work of our election officials and the mistakes. These errors were identified and corrected through the checks and balances in our electoral model. Ideally, however, the corrections should have taken place before final count.

Our goal is always error-free election administration, and we’re taking several actions to prevent these types of errors in future elections. These include automating the uploading of tabulator voting results data through an encrypted laptop, which would replace the manual phone-in process that is currently used. This will prevent data entry, transposition and results-omission errors.

Using automated data checks to accurately balance voter participation numbers with the votes recorded will ensure that all ballot boxes have been recorded and reported.

Providing more time in district offices for quality assurance processes between initial count and final count.

Improving and enhancing the election official training and tools that we provide to focus on results reporting and the quality assurance processes.

Despite these mistakes, I firmly believe that our new voting model proved its worth in this election. It enhanced services for voters while retaining the integrity checks that keep our elections secure.

Our report on the election also highlights how the information ecosystem leading up to and during the 2024 election had changed materially since the last provincial elections in 2017 and 2020. Misinformation and disinformation remain a risk to our democracy.

The Election Amendment Act, 2023, addressed misrepresentation and certain false statements. We also actioned several other strategies to identify and mitigate the impact of misinformation and disinformation, which included our proactive social media monitoring; the partnerships with Elections Canada and other groups for online social media monitoring; the establishment of the Election Integrity Working Group; and the disinformation register on our website.

A number of false online narratives did emerge, however, both during and, more significantly, after final voting day, which questioned some long-standing elements of election administration. Many of these narratives appeared to be designed to cast doubt on electoral processes and reduce trust in our election.

Many posts on B.C.’s election originated first outside of the province before being shared and spread in B.C. Specific false narratives that we observed online, and that are outlined in our report, include allegations of widespread non-citizen or multiple voting affecting results; that voting by mail is not secure; that anyone could vote by phone without integrity checks; that ballot boxes were not securely stored; and that Elections B.C. found results after final voting day and, through corrupt practices, introduced extra ballots prior to final count.

[12:55 p.m.]

The reality is that B.C. has well-established processes that keep our elections secure. False online narratives have the potential to heighten polarization and decrease trust, and I believe that they are corrosive to our democracy. Corrections to the specific instances of disinformation are included in our report.

Next slide, which is on what’s next. As I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, our election close-out activities are ongoing. We’re reviewing more than 500 financial reports of political participants. This involves reviewing what has been reported, doing an assessment of the various contribution information that’s provided, forwarding some of those that meet our audit-risk threshold to our audit team and doing follow-up reviews or any investigations where necessary.

As I mentioned, we conducted comprehensive lessons-learned processes, and we’re identifying and implementing some of these key process and document improvements. We’re also reviewing all inputs that we have received from the public, from political parties, from our own election officials across the province and through our own observations on the election and considering potential legislative recommendations.

Then, we’re working to compile the cost of administering the election. There are still payees and vendors that we’re waiting to submit invoices on so we can make sure that they get paid for the services and products they provided in the election. These details will be provided in the next two volumes of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the 2024 provincial election. Our report on the cost of administering the election — this report will also include further detail on audits and investigations — will be published this summer. And our report on recommendations for legislative change will be published in the fall.

Before I close, I would like to point out that on January 13 of 2025, an application for an invalid election in Surrey-Guildford was filed in the B.C. Supreme Court. The court has yet to hear that application. On hearing the application, the court may declare that the election in Surrey-Guildford is confirmed as valid or that the election was invalid and that the seat is vacant. For the latter ruling, a by-election would be held.

Elections B.C.’s role in this court process can be described as a neutral friend of the court. We provide factual information on the electoral processes used in our elections.

This concludes my presentation on volume 1 of my report on the election in 2024. With that, we’re happy to respond to any questions that committee members may have about the report or the forthcoming volumes. Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Anton, for that very in-depth report. Really appreciate it.

I’m sure we will have many questions, so I will open up the floor to that.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): First of all, I want to congratulate your organization in putting together a very thorough but understandable and readable summary in this report. This is the first report that I’ve read produced by the provincial government so far that is basically unbiased. I want to thank you very much for that, because I think that, to me, proves the integrity of our elections and having officials like yourselves in charge. On behalf of myself and my party, I want to thank you for that.

Anton Boegman: Thank you.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): There are a couple of questions I have, and I know we’ll have a ton of questions on that.

You mentioned timelines and court timelines. I’m looking at some of these judicial recounts, the parameters and how those recounts took place, the timelines in those recounts. Can you clarify why there is a difference in that deliverable in a timeline?

[1:00 p.m.]

Even though you’ve got the Supreme Court of B.C. looking into these recounts and having, as you mentioned, up to their discretion the period of time that it takes to get that decision returned, I would offer that there was a tight timeline, because they all came back at the same time, yet the one that was on the 13th was separate. Why isn’t that the same? Why isn’t there a specific timeline attached to that, even though it’s a different process than the initial recounts in the election?

Is there going to be a recommendation from your office on changes to legislation that we can look at for a streamlined process — if that is still an opportunity, going forward in our elections, where that mechanism is still available — so that there is a specific timeline and that it has to be performed within six months of the election date or within one year of the election date, instead of having it solely up to the judges to decide when that actually occurs?

Anton Boegman: You’ve hit on some key aspects of the legislation that we administer. The Election Act does set specific timings around when a judicial recount must be held following application. It also sets specific timelines giving candidates, as well as Elections B.C., a timing within which we must, or we have available to, request a judicial recount following the declaration of results at final count.

The section on application to the courts for invalid elections, section 150, does not have any timings in it relating to when the court must schedule a hearing on that application. It does have timings in it relating to when the application can be put forward and criteria around what may be the basis of that application. This is certainly an area that Elections B.C. is looking at.

As I said, we’re considering a wide range of potential inclusions in our recommendations report that we can put forward. I can’t comment on why the courts have not scheduled this or their process for doing that. That is entirely at the discretion of the courts.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you, Charles, Anton and Daniel for being here with us today and answering our questions.

Anton mentioned Indigenous community liaisons. I looked in the report. It says that 50 communities expressed interest, and then it mentioned community leadership. I was just wondering if the leadership was the one that was making those decisions to appoint a liaison in their community?

Anton Boegman: I’ll ask Dan to respond to this, as Dan was our official who was in charge of implementing that program.

Daniel Posey: Yeah, 50 communities expressed interest. In the end, 23 communities did have a liaison that they wanted to move forward with, and it was at the preference of the community. In some cases, they came forward with the sense that plans were already in place and that no further action was required in those instances. In other cases, they wanted to have that liaison to make sure that there was a stable line of communication and information for the community, coming from Elections B.C.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: The communities that participated, are they advertised in the local newspapers and made aware of…? Say a community member that doesn’t live on reserve but lives somewhere else in that riding — how are they made aware?

Daniel Posey: It would be through the community channels. This is an area where we didn’t want to, for the pilot program, impose a structure onto each community across the province. What we did was encourage that they could use any of their own channels of communication to members to be able to raise awareness about that program. I do know that, in some cases, that may have occurred on things like social media pages and other channels of communication within a particular community.

Amna Shah: Going into the area of misinformation and disinformation, I suppose I have some mini questions, which could lead to a bit of a broader question.

In light of the amendments to the act which allow Elections B.C. to issue takedown orders for advertising material, which include social media posts, could you maybe expand on, for example, what is misinformation and disinformation? What is it exactly other than the takedown order, or is it only the takedown order, that you have the authority to give?

[1:05 p.m.]

Is there any further follow-up, or is there any observation of trends, including the types of sources from where misinformation and disinformation are coming from? And will any recommendations be made about potential further amendments to the act to potentially give it more teeth, to give you more teeth to be able to counteract the overall effects of misinformation and disinformation?

I suppose that the reason why I ask this is because in this age of information exchange, oftentimes it takes one post to completely shatter the trust that many may have in an electoral process which we may have confidence in and which you so eloquently describe as being pretty much tamper-proof. I’m wondering if you could also comment on the broader strategy around prevention and enforcement on how to tackle this issue.

Anton Boegman: You are correct. That is a very meaty question, and I’ll try to respond to it. If I miss something that you particularly want me to dig into, please follow up. I would also ask my colleagues to chime in if there are areas that I am skirting over.

I would think one area that I would encourage committee members to review is my May 2020 report to the Legislature on disinformation in the digital communications age that covers in great detail disinformation, misinformation and the risks from foreign interference. It provides examples around what these are, and it essentially identified areas where we saw gaps in our current legislation and some suggestions on how we can mitigate those risks.

I was very pleased to see a number of those recommendations be adopted by and incorporated into our Election Act, but there are still some outstanding recommendations in that report that whenever I talk to legislators, I encourage them to have a look at.

At a very high level, the difference between disinformation and misinformation is that disinformation is false or inaccurate or incorrect information about a certain topic that is, typically, deliberately spread. Misinformation may be someone who thinks that is true, and they spread it because they’re not aware of it being untrue. That’s kind of the main difference between disinformation and misinformation.

Sources can come from many different actors, and we saw in our monitoring of social media that many of the false online posts were coming from outside of British Columbia. In fact, most of them are coming from outside of British Columbia. There were comments that clearly showed someone didn’t understand the processes that are in place. Misinformation and disinformation can appear on social media. They can appear in published journals. They can come from different members of community. So they can come across the board.

One that particularly struck me as being illustrative of that fact…. There was an opinion put out — I believe it was the Canadian Taxpayers Federation — on the delay between initial count and final count that characterized the delay as because Elections B.C. was essentially sitting on our behinds and not counting ballots. We should have been counting them all on that night.

Of course, that completely is not what is established in the legislation, and indeed, it would not be possible to count these ballots on election night because you can’t do the necessary integrity checks to make sure that those ballots can be counted.

[1:10 p.m.]

That’s just an example of…. It’s a well-respected organization. They published their opinion piece, but they obviously didn’t fact-check before publishing it — to understand why there is a delay between the two counts in British Columbia, why we have the two counts in British Columbia and that the two counts have been in place since 1920.

I think the response is multifaceted, and I think I might have touched on it a bit earlier, in the first presentation, to the question that Mr. Anderson had on the topic. I just have my stats here. There were 39 reported incidents; 30 of them progressed past our preliminary assessment. Of these 39 incidents, 15 were identified through our own monitoring, and 24 were received from 44 different complainants. There were 30 that we then looked at. Twenty were determined to be unfounded, and ten were determined to require further follow up.

Of those ten files, there were 15 potential contraventions: five false statements about election officials or voting-administration tools. Four instances of false election information — that would be false information about where and when to vote. Two instances of misrepresentation. I don’t believe that any of these involved deepfake audio, video or photo. Then there were four unauthorized transmissions. This is someone purporting to be somebody else, sending out information.

In all these cases, we responded. There was one instance where we determined, given the nature of the post, that it should be taken down. We reached out to the platform to do that. The platform — on our notification, before the order had been issued to order the takedown — voluntarily removed that content.

Part of what we had done beforehand was that we had spoken to every platform that was present. We’d had meetings with their representatives. We explained what the new rules were. Our experience was that for the social media platforms where regulation is in place, they’re very interested in following that legislation, and they did establish points of contact for us and procedures that we could use to report contraventions to them.

Remarkably, some platforms that were proving very hard to reach did provide us with contact information — for TikTok, for Reddit, for X, for Meta Platforms across the board. I think establishing these lines of communication was essential, because in a takedown order, it’s a requirement, within 24 hours of the notice being given, that that content has to come down. We do reflect…. You’re right. A post can just go up once, and it can materially impact where things are.

The reason why we put effort into developing what we called our disinformation register, to try to pre-debunk some of the things that we thought might come up, was because we wanted to be out ahead of some of the potential false narratives that could be arising. Obviously, this is a chicken-and-egg-type process. You can do your planning and think you have everything covered; then other things come up that you didn’t plan for.

One of my key lessons learned, for us as an election agency, is that we do need to be more proactive, throughout the campaign period, in speaking about the process. I spoke to a colleague south of the border. They held weekly press conferences that talked about the process and that talked about myths that they were seeing and what the correct information was.

That’s a new consideration for most election agencies, which typically provide a lot of information at the beginning of a campaign and then want to step back to allow campaigns to take front and centre to talk about issues, to talk about platforms, to talk about what they’re trying to do. I firmly believe that the process has to become a greater part of the story, throughout the election campaign and, indeed, before and after.

One of the things that I wished we had seen more, perhaps, was some more challenging incidents — in relation to the false-statement provisions and the misinformation, the deepfakes — because I do not believe that these were sufficiently tested in the election.

Having more of a test on them would help to highlight whether the legislation was sufficient or whether additional changes should be made. It is an area that we’re also considering very strongly, as we think to recommendations for legislative changes, to whether additional protections are needed and what those protections might look like.

I hope that covered what you were looking for.

[1:15 p.m.]

Amna Shah: That certainly does for most of it. Thank you.

I suppose just as a follow-up around where to from here when it comes to consequences, whether it be for individuals or groups or organizations who post or advertise mis- or disinformation, whether there is a collection of that data moving forward in the event that there are repeat offenders of this, I suppose, thing.

Anton Boegman: Yeah, so I guess it would be also important for committee members to know that our electoral legislation is not necessarily the only legislation that is at play here. Some of the types of things that you may see, particularly actions by foreign actors, are covered by other legislation.

The federal government consulted broadly, and I’m pleased they invited us to consult on this, on some of the potential changes to federal legislation in the CSIS Act and the Security of Information Act in particular. That would enable better partnerships between federal and provincial agencies and would allow for federal agencies to have better teeth in terms of addressing some of the risks to elections that we’re seeing.

The CSIS Act was amended to enable CSIS to share information with provincial partners such as election agencies, which regulate the election administration. The Security of Information Act was also updated to provide for specific penalties for foreign interference in elections at any level — at local, at provincial or in federal jurisdictions. So there is other legislation that covers the regulation of this space and the types of things that we are seeing.

Of course, the other aspect to point out is that our mandate regarding disinformation and false statements and misrepresentation…. I think I used the word “time-bound.” So it only is in place during the campaign period or during the election period, depending upon the type of potential contravention.

There are exemptions, of course, for satire and parody that had to be crafted to be a balance between the constitutional right to free speech and what may be seen as a necessary protection for our election. And so of course, outside of those times, there are no prohibitions on any type of misinformation or false statement or these sorts of things in relation to the election period.

Amna Shah: Just the last one, sorry. That was actually my question that you just answered, and I’m actually quite shocked that this only applies to just the campaign period. There could be…. What we saw was, from my opinion and what I saw, that a lot of the misinformation, disinformation occurred after the campaign period in relation to the results and the administration of the election by Elections B.C.

I’m so shocked that this does not apply to after the campaign period. That’s just a comment of mine. I do want that to be noted. But if you have any comments to share about that?

Anton Boegman: Yeah, so what we can do is we can actually provide to committee members, just as a follow-up…. Some of the provisions do apply throughout the election period, which is kind of from writ to return. Others only apply during the campaign period but kind of outside of the overall election period. Then, of course, there are no restrictions, but we’ll provide you with some documentation that shows which provisions apply and what is the duration of that application. That should be helpful for committee members.

I think the other point to take away is that the false statements also had to be made to affect the election results. We had to do an assessment of what we saw and what we thought is going to affect election results.

[1:20 p.m.]

So you can be posting on your platform, you can have four followers, and you could be saying something that’s counter to the Election Act, but four followers are not going to affect election results.

In cases like that, if we were to…. You think: “Are we throwing more fuel on the fire, if we are trying to regulate something like that that does not meet those provisions?” Obviously, it’s not everything that we see, but it’s things that meet the specific criteria that are established in legislation.

Because of our Charter rights, of course, our very important free speech rights, there are no laws anywhere in Canada around truth in anything to do with elections. I think some Australian jurisdictions — they don’t have the same constitutional background as us. South Australia is one that has a kind of a “truth in election” law.

I spoke with their election commissioner previously about this. He’s found that now 90 to 95 percent of all complaints he sees are about a campaign claiming something, and someone says, “Well, that’s not true,” and he has to do research into that to try to find out whether there is some veracity to that or not.

Of course, those types of laws — they’re not constitutionally sound in Canada. Ours are much more targeted and more specific, but we will provide that information to you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): I had two questions myself. One is just building up on the misinformation, disinformation piece. I really appreciate how the myth-busting in the report has been done.

Just for the record, and to talk a little bit about the Election Integrity Working Group, if you could touch a bit on those kinds of myths that we did see floating around about the double votes, the people who couldn’t vote voting. If you could just touch a bit on how that ties into the Election Integrity Working Group and the work that they do and ensuring the integrity of our elections.

Anton Boegman: Sure. Because of the nature of the Election Integrity Working Group…. It’s a partnership of various agencies, and each agency has its own legislation that it administers, and they each have their own tools that they can bring to play on any potential instances. Partly what we wanted to accomplish in forming the group was just a better understanding of all potential partners in this area, about what their specific role was, what their legislation spoke to, to identify if there were any gaps overall. Then, if there were gaps, how could we address these?

We also wanted to understand what the information flows were. Who was permitted to share information about something with other agencies? For instance, there are prohibitions in our legislation on who can contribute to a campaign, as an example. You have to be either a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, a resident of B.C., you know, these sorts of things.

Well, if CSIS became aware, for example, that there was some scheme to funnel money into a particular campaign, would they be able to share that information with the regulator that has authority to act in that? Initially, they weren’t able to do that sort of thing because there were specific restrictions in their legislation, and of course, once the provisions are enabled for sharing of information, then there has to be an information-sharing agreement and all sorts of other procedures put in place.

But CSIS on its own, if it understood that these sorts of things were happening, knew in general what the rules were, and there are levers that they could have applied. They could have had someone visit someone, or they could have spoken to someone about something.

It was in this nature to try to understand what the mandates were, what the levers were, how information could be shared, to put in place a structure that, overall, would be able to look at and address some of these concerns to election integrity. So that was the nature of the group.

I’m sure you noted during the recent federal election that there’s a group called the SITE task force, which is a formalized task force, including many of the same representatives that we had federally on our Election Integrity Working Group. It also includes the Privy Council Office.

That task force actually made two statements during the election campaign to alert voters to two areas of disinformation that they had seen. I believe one was targeting Chrystia Freeland, and the other was targeting Mark Carney. And the platform — I believe it was WeChat where this information was circulating and some of those narratives.

[1:25 p.m.]

Right now there’s not a similar formal group. That group has not…. There’s no one who would have the mandate to release that type of information.

As an election administrator, speaking about campaigns and candidates is very risky. We’re non-partisan. We must maintain absolutely neutral…. We must focus on what’s in our mandate. Federally, the Privy Council Office can do that. Is there need for a provincial group to be able to do that, part of government to be able to do that? Perhaps.

I do think that some of these mechanisms that we put in place, that were formal, perhaps could be formalized in a way to ensure those ongoing connections and ensure the continuance of that type of work.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you. Then the other question I had was with regard to advance and mail-in ballots and when they’re counted on the election night. Could you just speak to why it’s done that way, comparing it to, maybe, other jurisdictions, where it’s counted in advance and then brought to election night? Just touch on that.

Anton Boegman: The biggest reason why we have the two counts, of course, is our vote anywhere model, our absentee model. It is super accessible for voters. Voters can vote at any opportunity they happen to be close to.

One of the tools we deployed this election was a voting wait-time app that we had up during advance voting. Through reports that we had from advance voting places, we were able to estimate the wait time at any one advance voting location.

Someone using that app who wanted to vote at advance voting could pull it up, and they could see that one voting place might have a ten-minute wait time; another one has a zero, so I’m going to go there. Because you can do that.

Under our completely manual model that we had before, any type of absentee vote was, in essence, a provisional vote. It was secured in a secrecy envelope or sleeve, then in a certification envelope that had the voter’s details on it. After the election, all of those ballots had to be sent from where they were cast and received to the home district of that voter.

There was a massive exercise to shuffle paper and sort paper and ship paper and send and receive it. The receiving district officer would then go through all of those again. Because it was after the election, and they had the participation records that we would then create for them, they’d be able to assess: “Did this voter vote previously?” In that case, that ballot, that envelope, would be set aside.

Was the voter registered correctly? Was the envelope completed as required by the legislation? All these checks had to be done before they could consider those votes. In that model, all the vote-by-mail ballots…. They were sent and issued by each local office, so they all came back to the office. Everything was done in that format.

Under that model, the only ballots that could be counted on election night were votes that were cast at in-district opportunities, where you could make sure that the voter hadn’t voted previously.

So the advance voting — they would go in, there’d be an advance voting certificate completed, which was used to strike off the voting book that evening. Then, of course, during voting day, the voter would come in; they had to vote at their assigned location. There was a specific poll book for all voters assigned to that location. When a voter voted, they would check a box by their name, and the voter would sign their name, and so you’d know that they had voted.

If that voter went to vote at any other opportunity that day, it would have to be in this absentee model, with provisional votes, which were then counted at the second count.

We, of course, counted as many ballots as we could on election night, but it was only previously advance voting and general voting that were cast in district that could be done this way. Through the changes that were put in place, and by enabling a provincewide network-secure strike-off system, we were able to count many of those absentee votes on election night.

We could print a ballot for that voter’s electoral district that they could fill out. The tabulator could adjudicate that ballot correctly and count it for that electoral district, and we could strike the voter off in that district and share that information with all of the other voting places. If that voter then went to another voting place, and they showed up and said, “I want to vote,” the official would say: “Well, you’ve already voted. It shows right here.”

We were able to count more ballots during initial count this election than we were previously, but there will always remain in our model some votes that are cast under these manual processes, because you can’t deploy the technology everywhere in the province.

[1:30 p.m.]

One, there’s no network connection that’s reliable enough for some of that. Two, it’s just not feasible or cost-effective to transport this material over some of the distances necessary. It’s hard to support the equipment if it is there. We do have a number of in-person, manual voting processes —traditional polls, as we call them — and any absentee votes cast during those ones have to then go through these same checks, and so they have to be counted at final count.

Rob Botterell: First of all, I just want to thank you. This has been really informative and helpful and really equips, I think, on both parts of the presentations, with some really helpful context and background.

I had a really simple question, which is just…. On page 13 of your report — and you mentioned it in your presentation — 80 percent of, I guess, voters were very confident or moderately confident in the accuracy of the provincial election results and then 14 percent neutral. So that just leaves 7 percent being either not very confident or not at all…. My question is: when was this survey conducted? At what point did you do this testing?

Anton Boegman: Yeah, it was after the election was conducted. Andrew is just going to pull up the exact date for that.

Rob Botterell: Okay. I mean, that’s a huge vote of confidence in the work you do. I think there’s a lot of folks around this table who would be thrilled if there were only 7 percent who were upset with what we do and 93 percent thrilled. So thank you again for your presentation.

Amna Shah: I think I prematurely can ask a question.

I just have one final question around — and pardon me if this is too specific — unauthorized sign placements, advertising that does not follow the rules around eligible advertising and that is to be included in campaign finance reports, such as, for example, missing an “authorized by” line.

My question around these two items is whether Elections B.C. is generally proactive or reactive around those issues, because my understanding is, really, it’s sometimes a complaint-driven process. It’s a large province geographically. I understand that. But I’m wondering if there is a plan or some type of policy that you have around ensuring that these types of breaches of the rules don’t occur in a rampant manner. Essentially, what do you do about those two things?

Anton Boegman: Great. So the survey closed on November 14. That’s when the survey closed.

In terms of our actions, I think we do a combination of proactive monitoring as well as reactive monitoring, and you’re correct in that the first person to notice something that is counter to them or that’s against their campaign will definitely let us know. We do receive a large number of reports and complaints of these sorts of things, but a number of them are ones that we’ve already noticed and that we do look at.

One area where we’re particularly proactive is any advertising or campaigning within 100 metres of a voting place, because that is a protected area in which campaigning and election advertising is prohibited when voting is taking place, and our officials will go and look. Some of them will measure that distance.

We do take down or cover up any signs that transgress that, although it is an area that we’re looking at in our recommendations, because other than it being prohibited in the act, there’s not an offence for someone who does that. So that’s an area, also, that we’re considering as we bring forward our recommendations.

[1:35 p.m.]

Part of the proactivity that we do, of course, is in the outreach that we do to political participants beforehand. We have around 184 third-party sponsors. We communicate with them, letting them know about what the rules are. We run what-the-rules-are ads. Obviously, all campaigns are informed about the rules for election advertising and what takes place.

We do training sessions, of course, for all the political participants. Often it is a mistake made by a participant and the advertiser where they’re putting the advertising in. Some participants will, for example, have the authorization statement in it, and then that’s not transferred over into the actual ad that you see. But of course at other times, it’s someone who is just trying to impact the system, whether they’re trying to have ads that are done anonymously or not.

Before I let Jodi maybe speak to some more of the proactive things that we’re doing, one other area that I do want to highlight is that, of course, regulating election advertising is, again, limited to a pre-campaign period for third-party advertisers and then the campaign period for candidates, political parties and, of course, third-party advertisers as well.

What we have seen as a trend is that we almost appear to be in a perpetual campaign cycle; one campaign starts as soon as the previous election is over, and continues. In my 2020 report, I recommended a greater period of transparency in election advertising prior to an election, where up to 12 months before an election is called, any direct advertising that would mention a candidate or a party name or a party official would have to be…. There would have to be an authorization statement on it so that voters would know who is trying to influence them. And then six months ahead of a fixed-date election, that would also include indirect advertising, so issue-based advertising and these sorts of things.

That recommendation was in my 2020 report. I very strongly believe that if anyone is trying to influence a voter in making their political choices, it should be transparent as to who is doing that and where that ad is coming for. That’s one area where you would expand the period of regulation to have greater transparency about who is trying to communicate with people. There would be no restrictions on who can do what, and there are no spending limits on that. But I do believe there should be greater transparency in that.

Jodi, do you have any further adds?

Jodi Cooke: I don’t have any new material to add to that. I think you’ve covered it very well, Anton.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Wonderful. Are there any other questions? No?

Then I would just really like to thank you, Anton, Daniel, Charles and everyone, the entire team, for presenting on this and bringing this to the committee. It is a really well organized and presented report, and we look forward to the future additions.

Right now we are done with this portion of our committee work. We’ll take a short break until 1:55 to eat lunch, and then we’ll come back for the in-camera portion.

The committee recessed from 1:38 p.m. to 2:01 p.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Planning

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Okay, committee, we are back in session.

Our final agenda item is to continue planning for the upcoming work of this committee.

I’ll ask for a motion to go in camera.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 2:02 p.m. to 3 p.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Will a member move adjournment? So moved.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 3 p.m.