Elections Canada is offering an apology about voting irregularities in the Kenora Riding in the last federal election.
Polling stations were not set up on elections day in three fly-in communities (Pikangikum, Cat Lake and Poplar Hill) and voter registration cards were sending people to polling stations in communities hundreds
of kilometres away.
Elections Canada says it apologizes to any elector who was unable to vote as a result.
It also says it is continuing to determine exactly what happened in these three communities, going back even before the election was called.
Elections Canada says it is taking a look at how discussions unfolded and decisions were made.
Elections Canada has issued a prepared statement on the issue:
“We know that there was some confusion between Elections Canada and the communities in Kenora. Arrangements were made that, despite the intention to serve these communities well and address their specific needs, clearly fell short of doing so. We apologize to any elector who was unable to vote as a result.
At this point, we are continuing our work to determine exactly what happened in these three communities, going back even before the election was called. We are taking a look at how discussions unfolded and decisions were made, but here is what we know so far:
In general, across Canada, returning officers worked with Indigenous communities to determine the best options to vote for those communities in the context of the pandemic. During the early summer months, when these discussions happened, some communities were subject to evacuation orders due to fires.
In Kenora, the returning officer made plans to provide 43 polling places located on a First Nations reserve on election day, as well as three on-reserve polling locations for advance polls. The plans for the three communities mentioned above included an on-site election day poll, but no on-site four-day advance polling. Voter Information Cards for electors in these communities were printed on this basis.
In early September, we were informed that most community members would be on the land on September 20, and thus unable to vote at election day polls.
The returning officer initially responded by encouraging those who could not vote on election day to vote by mail. In response to requests from political parties, the returning officer ultimately took the decision – authorized by Elections Canada headquarters – to run a one-day advance poll in each of the three communities on Sept 13.
The returning officer communicated with the Chiefs and with each of the candidates to let them know that voting on September 13th would be the only in-person option for those communities. It was also suggested that people who could not vote on September 20th should apply to vote by mail. A decision to cancel voting services on September 20th was made at the local level based on the understanding of the situation in the three communities.
Given the timing of the decision, Elections Canada could not update Voter Information Cards on time, and several electors were unaware that their in-person poll had been moved to September 13th.
In short, we know that upon learning that the communities would face difficulties with the poll on election day, the returning officer made alternate arrangements. We know that it wasn’t enough, and that communication with electors was not adequate.
We are still working to get a complete picture of what happened. This involves consulting with the returning officer and Elections Canada staff as well as with community leaders and those who were affected.
Any time an elector misses their opportunity to vote, it is something we take seriously –something we take personally – and we’re working to ensure this doesn’t happen again. We must complete a thorough review of all the facts about what happened in Kenora. This will involve a deep look at our own procedures and the decisions we made along the way, but it will also involve working closely with stakeholders in these communities.
As part of our examination, we will look at the voting services offered to Indigenous communities across the country to find out if what happened in Kenora is a singular event or if it is indicative of a more general problem. As we do after every election, we’ll also be looking at ways to improve our pre-election outreach to Indigenous electors. We know that to deliver the services that people need, there has to be engagement. We need to build trust and work to maintain that trust. We will look at ways to improve how we engage with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities between elections, so that when election time comes, we can rely on those relationships to help ensure that everyone feels supported and well served.
A key part of improving our services is being clear with electors about our plans and giving them the opportunity to provide feedback. We will be transparent about our efforts to improve our services and look forward to consulting broadly with affected individuals and stakeholders prior to the next general election.
It’s only by connecting directly with communities that we can get a true sense of their specific needs and that we can build the trust needed to be able to engage with the community in meaningful ways. By building and fostering those relationships we only improve the chances that community members will want to step forward to work with us to help deliver future elections, to tell us what they need from us, or to tell us where things need further improvement.
With regards to the issues with some Voter Information Cards sending electors to distant polling locations, in this situation we found five electors who, according to their data source, should be located in the community of Wabauskang 21. However, in the information contained in the National Register of Electors (used to generate the Voter Information Cards), they were associated with streets located in different communities. This led to them being geocoded to different polling divisions, and therefore to polling places that were further away, up to six hours away from their house. This shouldn’t have happened and we apologize to those electors.
With electors living on reserve, in some cases it can be challenging for us to know who is living where, as there is often only a house number and no street information in our systems to which we can compare it to. Sometimes, the community name provided does not match what is in Indigenous Services Canada’s data or the census subdivision info from Statistics Canada. We rely on these sources (and others) to associate each elector to an electoral district and polling division. In general terms, inconsistent or non-standard information adds complexity which may lead to errors, since we process over 500 million rows of data per year. We are acutely aware of the human impact of these data errors. We apologize that this happened and are working to improve.
Elections Canada is dedicated to serving Indigenous electors and we know they face unique barriers to voting.
We’ve made significant efforts to improve our service offerings, but we know there is still room for improvement. We need to specifically address what happened in Kenora to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and take a close look at our overall approach to serving First Nations, Métis and Inuit electors so that these issues can’t arise elsewhere.
There is no singular or one-size-fits all solution. We have to work with communities across the country to determine the right electoral service model for that community, and secure the community’s help in implementing that electoral service.”
(With files from Tim Davidson: Kenora)
