Elections Canada has admitted that their performance on election night did not meet voters expectations after a number of polling stations reported long lineups and voters complained about not being able to cast a ballot.
As exclusively reported by The Counter Signal in the lead up to yesterday’s election, voters were met with a haphazard combination of website crashes and polling issues.
According to their own admission, the vote was lacking in accessibility.
“We will carefully analyze how the election went, and where we could have done better. Planning and delivering an election during a pandemic came with additional challenges, but we will take the time to look into election day in order to learn from it,” said Elections Canada Spokesperson Nathalie de Montigny.
“We know we did not meet all voters’ expectations in terms of accessibility to the vote with some voters in urban ridings who waited patiently to cast their vote. Our poll workers did everything they could in challenging circumstances to ensure a safe voting process. We want to thank Canadians for their patience and understanding yesterday, and for their commitment to the democratic process.”
Elections Canada bungled the election so badly that even while the polls remained open CBC somehow got the results before a specific riding closed.
“What [the CBC’s been told] is that Elections Canada mistakenly input some data before polls closed in a different part of the country — polls close at 9:30 Eastern from Quebec to Alberta,” said Rosemary Barton during the CBC’s live election coverage.
Additionally, others like reporter Matt Gurney reported that they received a voter ID card with the wrong polling location listed on the file. Instead of the correct location, Gurney was guided to a facility which had a sign plastered on the door saying “NO POLLING STATION HERE.”
Although Elections Canada had to deal with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling an election in the midst of a pandemic, it’s inexcusable that people’s democratic rights were hampered by their incompetence.
