Vote-counting machines, electronic voting book ready for next B.C. election, province says

BC voting sign.

The next time British Columbians head to the voting booth for a provincial election, their paper ballots will be tabulated electronically.

That's one of several changes to the province's Election Act that were approved by the legislature in 2019, but weren't ready for implementation when B.C. held an early election in October 2020.

B.C.'s Ministry of the Attorney General announced Friday that Elections BC had "completed the necessary preparations" to hold an election with the new provisions, which the ministry called "the most significant change to B.C.'s voting process in more than 25 years."

In addition to allowing the use of vote-counting machines - which are already in use for municipal elections in B.C. - the changes allow for the use of an electronic voting book, which will make it easier for election officials to check who has cast a ballot and speed up the in-person voting process.

Elections BC will also introduce ballot printers at polling stations, which will reduce the need for write-in ballots by allowing the printing of custom ballots for people voting from outside their registered electoral district.

The changes were the result of recommendations made by B.C.'s chief election officer after the 2017 provincial election. 

One of the key benefits of the ballot-printing machines, electronic voting book and vote-counting machines, according to the CEO's report, is that the changes make it possible to count all votes - including mail-in ballots - on election night. In previous B.C. elections, the final count of mail-in ballots has happened 13 days after voting day.

The ministry's news release Friday did not mention the possibility of counting all ballots on election night, and an online summary of the legislation appears to leave the question of when mail-in ballots are counted to the discretion of the chief election officer. 

Mail-in ballots can be counted on election night, according to the summary, only if they were cast in a way that was recorded in an electronic voting book, meaning that they've been automatically checked against in-person ballots to ensure no one voted twice.