A vote of non-confidence for Elections Manitoba

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/10/2023 (738 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is something wrong at Elections Manitoba, and it’s only partly connected to the glacial pace at which it counted votes from the recent general election.

On election night, and not for the first time, the provincial agency responsible for conducting elections ran into problems counting and reporting votes. Despite promises the votes would be counted more quickly and more reliably in this election, there were unexplained delays in the hours after the polls closed on Oct. 3.

The far bigger concern going forward is the lack of accountability on the part of chief electoral officer Shipra Verma, who continues to refuse to do an interview about exactly what went wrong on election night.

It’s certainly not because news organizations aren’t trying to get a hold of her. Repeatedly, the Free Press has made requests and, just as frequently, Verma has refused to do interviews. All of the information we have to date has come from a spokesman for Elections Manitoba, who has also refused to do an interview and instead has provided statements via email.

Those prepared statements were long on hyperbole and short on hard details.

The spokesman who responded to our inquiries this week conceded that while “we didn’t deliver the results quite as quickly as we would have liked, Manitobans can be assured this was a free and fair election.”

That is very similar to language used by Verma in June when the new digital voting system was introduced. At that time, the chief electoral officer patiently explained how voters would still mark paper ballots, but in order to speed up the count and reporting of results, automated vote-counting machines would record each ballot after it was completed.

“The integrity of the vote is preserved,” Verma said of the new technology.

With respect to Verma and others at Elections Manitoba, the only way to prove an election was free and fair is to provide a full explanation when things don’t go according to plan. At a time when so many seek to undermine our faith in democratic institutions, “Trust me” is simply an unacceptable answer.

What do we know about election night? First and foremost, that Elections Manitoba was, in part, dealt a bit of a bad hand.

An enormous thunderstorm that ripped across the province right as polls opened caused power outages in some regions. The cancellation and delay of flights from remote communities that could not utilize the new digital voting system delayed the repatriation of ballots that needed to be counted by hand. There were also odd delays in assigning advance ballots to the right constituencies.

But even with all those unforeseen challenges, Elections Manitoba’s performance seemed lacking.

In Winnipeg, results from several key constituencies froze for nearly an hour ,while other constituencies produced quick and regular updates. Results in some rural and remote constituencies were not kept current and could not account for all of the advance votes that had been cast. Tory Wayne Balcaen was not declared the official winner in Brandon West until Oct. 6, nearly three days after polls closed.

Are the problems bigger than Elections Manitoba is willing to acknowledge?

Consider that the “official” results from this election will not be available until Oct. 13, some 10 days after election day. Although this was the target date identified by Elections Manitoba in June, it took longer in this election to get to the official results using much-heralded new technology than it did in the 2019 election using the old technology.

That seems to suggest there are other issues going on here that have, so far, been unexplained.

For example, Elections Manitoba continues to make reference to “firewall” problems that played a role in slowing the posting of results. What, exactly, constitutes a firewall issue? That remains a mystery, thanks in large part to the fact no one at Elections Manitoba will do an interview, and its spokespeople continue to offer only vague descriptions.

It’s incumbent, at this point in the debate over what really happened at Elections Manitoba, to remind its caretakers that if they don’t have anything to hide, they should stop acting like they have something to hide.

In a perfect but still-reasonable scenario, Verma would have held a news conference on the morning of Oct. 4 — the morning after the election — to explain what she knew at that point and what other issues still remained to be investigated. Making herself available and being totally up-front about the events on election night is the bare minimum of accountability that should be acceptable from a high-ranking public servant in a critically important institution.

Verma will have to have made a full assessment when Elections Manitoba sends its annual report to the Manitoba legislature sometime next year. However, incoming premier Wab Kinew should consider asking someone from outside the agency to take a look at events on Oct. 3.

A chief electoral officer who cannot make herself available to explain what happened on election night, and who continues to offer vagaries when precise details are needed, may not be the best person to assess the job her agency has done.

The integrity of the result of this election may indeed be intact. But it seems we might need someone other than the current chief electoral officer to prove it.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com