Election Diary of Vote Tabulation, Validation, Media Calls, Victory, and Concession, Immediate Aftermath

• Author: Gregory Tardi
• Pages: 529-563

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 17

ELECTION DIAY F VOTE

TABULATION, VALIDATION,

MEDIA CALLS, VICTOY,

CONCESSION, AND IMMEDIATE

AFTEMATH

SPOTLIGHT

   to the reporting of results on a Canadian elec-

tion night was that delivered by Peter Mansbridge of the CBC, on June ,

, at exactly  p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time, on what was then

called Newsworld.

In an innite universe, on a planet oen convulsed by violence, there is Canada;

Its commitment to “Peace, Order and Good Government” a daily reality;

A nation of Democratic principles.

The central government is formed by the will of the people;

Citizens send men and women to the capital city to make the laws of the land.

Their work is done on Parliament Hill;

The single most potent symbol of the Canadian Democracy;

And tonight, we are here to report on who you have decided

To empower to lead us all.

The polls have just closed in Newfoundland;

The votes are about to be counted.

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ANATOMY F AN ELECTION

DAY 0 | MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2019

  9:30 ..    

CEA: Pursuant to section  of the Act, after the validation of the

results, the returning ocer must prepare a certif‌icate of the votes cast,

deliver the original to the Chief Electoral Ocer and a copy to each can-

didate. is is the only instrument legally attesting the results.

VOTE COUNT : In the Canadian federal system, voting is by paper ballot

marked with a pencil. Vote-count is done by hand. is is perhaps out

of sync with the most modern of technologies, but it incorporates the

human factor, meaning that it avoids technical glitches and incorporates

an element of inter-party balance, with obser vers from diverse political

parties looking over each other.

REPORTING: For the evening of election day, it is important to clarify

legally mandated roles from self-appointed announcement of results. e

law states, as mentioned in the previous entry, that the ocial result is

that put together and reported by the ocials of Elections Canada. It is

true, however, that because a relatively small portion of the population

have read the statute, most people are not aware of this fact. Media outlets

and in particular television chains such as the CBC tend to “call” winners

and losers in their broadcasts. While such calls are based on statistical

modelling and satisfy the great and immediate interest of viewers, they

cannot be held to be a substitute for reliance on the Canada Elections Act.

VOTE TABULATION: Section  of the Canada Elections Act provides, in

eect, that the results of the voting in the advance polls are to be counted

on the evening of polling day and are to be added to each candidate’s

results at that time and not before. In the sense that the result of the

voting can appear to favour one candidate at the election, the addition

of the advance poll results to the overall polling day result can produce

unexpected upsets.

1 www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/federal-election-ballots-are-still-counted-by-hand-

it-could-be-a-long-night.

2 www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/10/21/canadians-cast-their-ballots-aer-

divisive-campaign-and-amid-tight-polls.html; https://election.ctvnews.ca/results;

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/canadian-federal-election-

live-riding-map-results; www.hungtonpost.ca/entry/canada-election-2019_ca_

5dade601e4b0f34e3a7a79fd.

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Election Diary of Vote Tabulation, Validation, Media Calls, Victory, and Concession

As the votes were counted in the riding of Victoria during the byelection

on Nov. 26, 2012, things were looking grim for the NDP candidate Murray

Rankin.

As poll aer poll reported, the Green Party’s Donald Galloway was in the

lead and it seemed as though Rankin was on his way to losing the seat that

New Democrat Denise Savoie had held since 2006.

But then, right at the end of the night, the last few polls reported their

numbers and the NDP crushed in each one of them. Rankin would win, edg-

ing out the Green’s Galloway by 1,118 votes, a three per cent margin of victory,

and go on to a Parliamentary career that will end with his retirement as an

MP as of this 2019 general election.

What made the dierence at the end of Rankin’s rst narrow by-election

victory? It was the advance polls, the last polls to be counted that by-elec-

tion night. Galloway had won the most votes among those ballots dropped

in the box on election day only, but the Greens could not overcome the “NDP

machine” on southern Vancouver Island, and it was that NDP machine that

pulled the vote with a better ground game than the Greens could manage.

. . .

The strength of that ground game was made manifest in the domin-

ance by the NDP in the advance vote results.

It was one of the most striking examples of how a party’s focus on get-

ting its partisans to a voting booth as soon as advance polls open can oen

make the dierence between a win and a loss.

And with what appears to be a tight every-vote-counts and every-seat-

counts general election right now, a party’s ability to put resources into get-

ting out its vote over the weekend’s advance poll could mean the dierence

between government and opposition.

. . .

Message: win the advance polls and you have a much better shot of

winning aer all the votes are counted on election day.3

IRREGULATIES: In every election, some irregularities are bound to hap-

pen as a result of human nature. On this occasion, in the electoral district

of Kitchener–Conestoga, one or more Deputy Returning Ocers took

documents home rather than reporting them properly to the Returning

3 https://globalnews.ca/news/6030680/analysis-liberals-conservatives-advance-poll-

battles.