Elections Ontario said “99.57” per cent of electronic poll systems are working as they should across the province, said spokesperson Cara Des Granges in a written statement.
“The few voting locations that are experiencing technical issues are being addressed if they have not already been rectified,” said Des Granges, adding that if issues arise, staff working the polls will revert to process electors’ paper ballots.
“This includes using a paper list of electors, where the poll official will manually strike-off the elector who has voted and will manually update a paper copy to identify the strike-offs. All staff are trained on this contingency process,” she said.
Des Granges did not specify which locations are having problems with electronic voting.
The province has implemented for the first time this year “e-Poll books” and “vote tabulators,” according to Elections Ontario’s website. The former replaces paper-based voter lists, scanning barcodes on voter cards, and returning entries; tabulators electronically process ballots, generating results when polls close at 9 p.m.
Jennifer Lee and Cody Brouwers cast their ballots together at a YWCA on Elm St. Lee, who voted for this first time since becoming a Canadian citizen in 2016, called the electronic voting system “seamless” and “foolproof.”
“I was expecting to see a lineup, but there was none at all, no waiting, and the instructions were really clear,” she said.
Brouwers, however, said he could foresee the voting system going awry with swarms of people. He said it took a staff member between 10 and 15 seconds to feed a ballot through the machine for a voter in front of him. If there had been a long line, Brouwers said it might have been different for him and Lee.
“It’s a given, right, especially at rush hour,” he said. “Why can’t we have election day be three days?”
Lee, who’s from South Korea, said that country’s workers are entitled to take the day off to vote. “It actually increases voting turnout, because people have no excuse (to not vote), she said.
Jen Stewart, who attempted to cast her ballot Thursday morning in Toronto Centre, said she waited for 30 minutes in a line of dozens of people. She said she was informed of a malfunction with the electronic scanner and that she could leave her ballot behind, which would be processed at a later time once the issue was fixed.
“I did not have to go to work, but I had a doctor’s appointment,” Stewart said, adding that she ended up leaving her ballot. She called this experience “off-putting,” especially because she was provided with no assurances that her vote, once processed, would be confirmed.
“Will it make it into the computer?” Stewart said. “(Staff) said once the computer was up and running again they would be processed. That’s what they told us.”
Stewart said this election is important to her as she pays $2,000 every month for child care, and she wants to have another child, eventually.
“There’s a lot of important issues on the line that will affect a lot of people,” Stewart said. “You want people to vote, especially young people.”
Laura Dallal, supervisor of the polling station at College Francais, where Stewart voted, confirmed the system was down for about 25 minutes when polls opened Thursday morning.
Within “a minute” of informing people they could leave their ballots, the issue was remedied. “Most of them just left their ballots,” Dallal said.
The station, set up in the high school’s gym, was rather quiet around noon. A few voters trickled in, casting ballots quickly. It was far busier in the morning, Dallal said.
“It’s been very smooth. There was that one glitch, which was fixed at 9:25 a.m.,” she said.
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