Penticton’s electoral riding had just a couple of minor issues in its voting booths during last year’s provincial election, according to a new report from the chief electoral officer.
The 500-page report from Elections B.C. provides a full, detailed picture of the May 9 election last year, which left the province with a B.C. Liberal minority government, which was shortly toppled for a B.C. Green-NDP minority government agreement.
Related: Ashton takes Penticton riding for B.C. Liberals
In Penticton, B.C. Liberal Dan Ashton took the riding with a majority of the votes among three candidates.
According to the document, a total of 51 orders were made throughout the province when it came to voting errors, including two that affected Penticton, though it is unclear to what extent.
One order on April 29 singled out Penticton, Columbia River-Revelstoke and Vancouver-Hastings for unwittingly issuing an unspecified number of voters two ballots stuck together during advance voting.
“During preparations for final count, the secrecy envelopes were opened and examined by the district electoral officer. If both write-in ballots were marked, they remained uncounted at final count,” the order reads.
“If only one write-in ballot was marked, the unmarked ballot was set aside and not considered at final count, while the marked ballot was considered at final count.”
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Similarly, in a May 9 order, Penticton was named along with Kootenay East and Langley East as electoral ridings that made mistakes with issuing absentee ballots to those physically in Penticton, but voting for another riding.
“While certification envelopes were completed as required under s. 98 of the Election Act, the marked ordinary ballots of these voters went directly into the respective ballot boxes instead of in secrecy and certification envelopes,” the order said.
“The general voting book records of these voters were struck through to prevent them voting at general voting, and the ballots cast by these voters were then considered at initial count.”
With exactly 27,508 people showing up to the booths by May 9 last year, Penticton’s voter turnout was 60.8 per cent last year.
Of those nearly 28,000 ballots cast, just 103 were tossed as rejected ballots.