Will a massive ballot cause another vote count delay? Elections Canada is looking to avoid it

Elections Canada is taking proactive measures ahead of the upcoming byelection in Montreal to prevent the long delays in ballot counting that occurred during a Toronto vote earlier this summer.

The September 16 byelection in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun will feature a record 91 candidates on the ballot, making it the longest ballot in Canadian federal election history.

"Elections Canada is conscious of the importance of providing timely results on election night," the agency said, noting that it has been conducting simulations to adjust procedures and avoid unnecessary delays due to the high number of candidates.

To improve efficiency, Elections Canada is hiring additional workers to count votes from advance polls and plans to start counting those votes before polls close on election day.

The previous record for the longest ballot was set in June during the Toronto–St. Paul's byelection, where 84 candidates participated. The nearly meter-long ballot caused significant delays, with final results not announced until 4:30 a.m. the next day.

Most of the candidates in the LaSalle–Émard–Verdun byelection are associated with the Longest Ballot Committee, a group protesting Canada's first-past-the-post voting system. The group advocates for a citizens' assembly to oversee electoral reform, arguing that political parties are too resistant to making the government more representative of diverse voter views.

Sebastien "CoRhino" Corriveau, an organizer of the protest and leader of the satirical Rhinoceros Party, said the campaign aims to raise awareness about electoral reform and proportional representation. "It's a ridiculous way of doing stuff," he said, but noted that previous efforts had failed.

Corriveau emphasized that the group's goal is not to influence the election outcome but to highlight issues with the current voting system. "The system is rigged, and the rules are written by the winner," he stated.

Elections Canada may need to make temporary changes to the Elections Act to accommodate the unusually large number of candidates. The Act allows the head of Elections Canada to make short-term adjustments in cases of "an emergency, an unusual or unforeseen circumstance."

In the Toronto–St. Paul's byelection, the ballot featured two columns of candidates listed side-by-side, with voting circles on both the right and left margins, deviating from the traditional layout.

Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University, believes the Act provides Elections Canada with enough flexibility to adapt to the oversized ballot in the byelection. She added that while the agency’s experience from the June byelection should help speed up the process in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, the counting may still take longer than usual due to the large number of candidates.

Corriveau mentioned that when his group canvassed for signatures to get candidates on the ballot, they found widespread support for changing the voting system, even if it’s not a top concern for most Canadians.

Despite breaking records for the longest ballot in Toronto and now Montreal, Turnbull suggested that the movement may not be gaining enough traction to create the desired change. She described it as more of an annoyance for Elections Canada and the candidates rather than a significant threat to the electoral process.

Advance polls in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun are scheduled to open on Friday.