Q&A: Why we're still counting federal election ballots by hand
London Morning spoke with voting system expert Aleksander Essex
When Londoners voted in the federal election on Monday, they likely noticed there wasn't an electronic tabulator when they cast their ballot.
While electronic voting is used in the Ontario election and by other countries around the world, Elections Canada continues to use the simple ballot box. For insight into why votes are still counted by hand, London Morning host Andrew Brown spoke with Aleksander Essex, an associate professor of software engineering at Western University.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Andrew Brown: So what do we know about why Elections Canada is still doing the paper ballot in the box?
Aleksander Essex: Well, that's a great question for the chief electoral officer, and they have, I'm sure, their reasons. But I think one comment made in a recent CBC interview gives us some insight. They described their method of vote counting as "open to scrutiny." That means independent observers and candidate representatives can actually stand there and watch with their own eyes as the ballots are being counted.
AB: A lot of us who voted in the Ontario election will remember our ballots going through a machine, and then we got the results quickly on election night. I think they called the PC government in six minutes. Why is Ontario able to pull this off?
AE: Well, in fairness, Elections Canada was also able to count up the election fast enough for CBC to call it on election night. Elections Ontario moved toward tabulators for a variety of reasons, including cost and general ease of administration. One advantage is that you don't need as many people in the polling place — at least in theory. So you can do a faster vote count.
That said, Elections Canada's vote counts are still pretty fast because it's usually just one contest. If it were a large, American-style ballot, there'd be a stronger use case for tabulators in terms of practicality. But for a single-race ballot, we can manage just fine without them.
AB: Is there any downside to using tabulators?
AE: It's not about tabulators versus hand-counting — it's about being open to scrutiny. You can make tabulators open to scrutiny, but we don't. And that's something that really needs to be addressed.
AB: Could you elaborate on that a little bit? What do you mean by "open to scrutiny?"
AE: I've worked at the polls, and when I'm a deputy returning officer, I have to count the ballots in full view of candidate representatives. You've got people standing there watching, and if they have a problem with how you interpret a ballot, they can challenge it in the moment. Those ballots are put aside in a separate bag for adjudication.
With tabulators, you punch in a shutdown code at the end of the night, and the machine prints out a grocery store-style receipt with the vote totals. Scrutineers can be there, but they can't observe the count itself — just the receipt. So they're left to simply accept the results.
AB: Because they can't look at the individual ballots at that point?
AE: Right. The only way to look at the paper ballots is through a judicial recount. And to get that, the candidate has to provide evidence to support the challenge. Challenging an election is traumatic for everyone involved, so there's a high burden of proof.
But in fairness, the burden of proof should be on the election official to demonstrate the count is correct — not on the candidate to prove it's wrong.
LISTEN | Understanding why we continue to hand count ballots in the federal election:
AB: OK, so it sounds like you prefer the way the federal election works?
AE: I prefer any method that provides openness to scrutiny. In the U.S., they deal with this in tabulator-based systems through something called a risk-limiting audit. It's a statistical sampling of paper ballots, so you don't have to recount everything. Many U.S. states have laws requiring these audits. If we're going to use tabulators, we need similar laws here. But we're not there yet.
AB: So how does that sampling work in the States?
AE: Well, they literally use Dungeons & Dragons-style dice to generate a random seed. That tells them which ballots to check. They then look at that random sub-sample and use statistics to determine whether the results support the tabulator count. Worst case, they do a full recount. Best case, just a small sample is enough to verify the result.
AB: OK. That makes sense. So which direction do you think Elections Canada should go in?
AE: Elections are hard to design in a way that meets every possible need. There are always trade-offs. One area where Elections Canada could be criticized is accessibility. For example, voters with visual impairments in Canada often have to vote with an assistant. In the U.S., the law requires that voters with disabilities be able to vote unassisted, which means they use more electronics at the polling places. That's something Elections Canada might have to improve.
But when it comes to transparency, how do I know my vote counted? Scrutineers are there. If a losing candidate were to say, "No, actually I won," Elections Canada could say, "Well, your scrutineers were there. So what's the issue?"
AB: Right. Do you see any changes coming to Elections Canada voting in the future?
AE: Openly and overtly, I don't see any changes on the horizon from Elections Canada. But I do know there's a lot of pressure and interest in electronic voting, and it is achievable. If we're going to go there, we have to do it right. That means designing a system that allows for scrutiny of vote counting.
The UN, for goodness' sake, requires transparency in that process. If we can provide that electronically, I don't have an issue. But it's going to take more thought — and more funding — to deliver.