Premier David Eby is proposing that an all-party committee investigate errors in British Columbia’s electoral vote count, including uncounted ballot boxes and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.

The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed human errors in last month’s count on extreme weather, long hours and the new voting system, although none were significant enough to modify the initial results.

Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating errors to “identify key lessons learned” in order to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative changes.

He says the uncounted box containing approximately 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost and was always in the custody of election officials.

Boegman says the failure of five districts to correctly report a small number of out-of-district votes carried over into tallies in 69 precincts.

Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee review the systems used and actions taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in the next election.

“I look forward to working with all Members of Parliament to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.

Boegman said if an independent review takes place, “Elections BC will of course participate fully in that process.”

He said the errors came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was found in the Surrey-Guildford riding, prompting a review that brought the number of undeclared votes to 28.

Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory gave Eby a one-seat majority. This discovery reduced the NDP’s margin of victory from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that had previously been triggered because of the very close race.

The errors in Surrey-Guildford led to a province-wide audit that uncovered the other errors, Boegman said.

“These errors are the result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of more than 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.

“Election officials worked 14 hours or more on voting days and, on the last day of voting in particular, faced extremely difficult weather conditions in many parts of the province.

“These conditions likely contributed to these errors,” he said.

B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.

Boegman said Prince George-Mackenzie’s uncounted ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered that one vote had not been tabulated, so they recompiled the ballots but mistakenly left out the box for the first day’s votes, including only the second day’s ballots.

Boegman said issues uncovered during the province-wide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.

He said he was confident that election officials had found all the “discrepancies.”

British Columbia Conservative Party Leader John Rustad said Monday the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution charged with ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”

Rustad said he was not disputing the results as legal recounts continue, but said “it is clear that errors like these seriously undermine public confidence in our electoral process.”

Rustad called for an “independent review” to ensure these mistakes do not happen again.

Boegman, who said the election required less than half the number of workers under the old system on paper, said election results would be returned Tuesday in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings.

Full recounts will take place in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna Centre, while a partial recount of uncounted cases will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.

Boegman said out-of-precinct voting has been a part of British Columbia elections for many decades and explained how thousands of voters have used the province’s telephone voting system, calling it a “very secure model” for disabled people.

“I think this is a unique and very important aspect of our elections because it’s about providing accessibility for British Columbians,” he said. “They have unprecedented access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published November 5, 2024.