Election results could come quickly in Manitoba with electronic machines, but manual counting still needed

Election results aren't expected to drag into the night when Manitobans go to the polls in the provincial election on Oct. 3.

Manitobans should have election results more quickly than Albertans did on May 29, thanks to electronic voting machines that are expected to spit out results within about an hour of polls closing,an election official said.

But thatdoesn't mean every ballot will be tabulated in aroundan hour, Elections Manitoba Chief Electoral OfficerShipra Vermasaid of the non-partisan government agency's "internal target."

These vote counting machines are expected to count more than 90per cent of the votes cast during the advance voting period and 85 per cent of the votes cast on election day, Verma said. The ballots cannot be counted until the polls close at 8 p.m.

The remaining votes, which will continue to be counted manually, could take around two hours, Verma said.

That's still quickerthan Alberta's resultswere counted during its provincial election earlier this week.

Only a small fraction of results were available 90 minutes after polls closed. At some points, a candidate was shown as leading in a riding despite only having a single vote.

An Elections Alberta official saida change in how advance "vote anywhere" ballots are counted likely contributed to a delay in publishing the results.

Paper ballots, electronic counting

As seen in Alberta, Manitoba is also using electronic vote-counting machines for the first time, after passing legislation to that effectlast year. Voters willcontinue to fill out paper ballots, but the machines willbe a faster alternative to counting by hand. The results generated by the machines must still be verified by humans.

The City of Winnipeg has already been using the machines.

Vermasaid a faster timeline for counting ballotsis the goal, but plans could still go awry.

"We are focusing significantly on training our staff because these processes are new. We have around 7,000 people to work for us and it's a very short timespan where we hired them, trained them, introduced them to the technology," she said.

They're working on contingency plansin case issues arise, Verma said.

Recent provincial byelectionsin Kirkfield Park and Fort Whyte, which were both tight races,took more than three hours for unofficial final results to be posted.

Verma said it isn't practical to have electronic vote counting in every location. There are technological limitations in someareas and it iscost-prohibitive to have itinevery location, such as voting places, like senior residences with fewer than 100 units, in which the number of ballots cast will be small. Absentee, homebound and personal security ballots will also be counted manually.

Elections Manitoba has recently beenproviding demonstrations to stakeholders, including political parties and academics, to explain the new vote-counting process, Verma said. Media is scheduled to be invited to a demonstration next week.