Toxicity and tight race fuel BC election doubters, says professor

A British Columbia political scientist says questioning the integrity of the provincial election on social media is an “inevitable” result of political “toxicity” and a tight race.

University of British Columbia professor emeritus Richard Johnston says questions about mail-in voting and ballot handling also reflect conditions south of the border.

He said other factors include the use of more complicated voting equipment and social media platforms where anyone can post doubts.

“There is a correlation between the closeness of the results and the toxicity of the commentary surrounding them,” Johnston said.

“I mean, we’re almost exactly describing the situation in the US, right? Basically a 50/50 outcome, so close that either side can have suspicions about the other.”

British Columbia’s election came down to absentee ballots on Monday after neither Prime Minister David Eby’s NDP nor BC Conservatives, led by John Rustad, won a majority.

After a count of mail-in votes over the weekend raised the prospects of an NDP victory, online posts questioned the number of mail-in and absentee votes, the origin of the ballots, the wait between first and last counting, and how the votes were handled at that time.

In a written response, Elections BC spokesperson Andrew Watson said the voting authority “has observed online misinformation about the election process” and urged voters to go to its website for accurate information.

“The first count will take place on election night,” Watson said. “The final count takes place a week later and lasts three days. This timing is set out in the Electoral Act and has been the process in BC for a long time

“At the end of each advance voting day, cast ballots are kept in a ballot box that is sealed and signed by election officials and tellers,” he said. “All election officials swear an oath of office to faithfully implement the provisions of the Elections Act.”

Watson said any election official convicted of a violation could face a fine of up to $10,000 and a prison sentence of up to one year.

BC Conservatives chair Aisha Estey said in a post on social media platform

“BC elections staff have worked tirelessly and done their best within the confines of the legislation that governs their work,” Estey said in her post.

“Would we have liked to see mail-ins counted closer to E-Day? Certainly. But I didn’t see anything that concerned me.’

PM and BC’s new Democratic leader David Eby also went to X on Sunday to voice his support for Elections BC staff “to ensure every vote is counted.”

Johnston said Elections BC’s efforts to make voting more accessible and counting more efficient had actually fueled questions about its integrity.

He said the increased use of advance voting, mail-in and absentee ballots, as well as digital vote tabulations, were being compared unfavorably by some to the more basic ballot and hand-counting systems used in the past.

“Basically the whole voting process was easier,” Johnston said. “You had to show up on election day. You had to have a reason to vote in advance… and you actually had to make a declaration that you were either going to have a surgical procedure or you couldn’t avoid being left out of the election. constituency on election day.

“Counting can take a long time on Election Day if it gets particularly close,” he said. “But… there is a sense in which all the players who were on the ballot were in a position that could easily be interpreted as verifying the facts. Everyone had an interest in defending their side, and the outcome would be accurate and fair in some sense. “

Dominion Voting Systems, which manufactured the electronic tabulators used in the BC elections, referred questions to its website page dedicated to misinformation about the company and its technology. It addresses concerns about disinformation that emerged following the 2020 US presidential election.

Fox News agreed last year to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to avoid a lawsuit in the company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the election.

“All Dominion systems rely on voter-verifiable paper ballots or paper documents for auditing,” the company said on its web page. “Dominion systems meet all requirements for system updates and election data retention.”

Johnston also said that the very idea of ​​making voting more accessible could create a “backdrop for paranoia” as doubters questioned the nature and origins of people who otherwise would not have been able to vote.

“Historically, paranoia about the conduct of elections is hardly characteristic of the right wing of the political landscape,” he said. “It is also a characteristic of the left. It kind of depends on who wins and who loses.

“If you were to go back 20 years and look ahead, I think many on the left would be shocked if it were people on the left defending the integrity of the establishment, so to speak.”

A major difference from the discourse in the United States, Johnston said, was that British Columbia party leaders like Estey had not yet engaged in “delegitimization tactics.”

Whether those changes are something to watch, he said.

“It will be interesting to see if there is a backlash from the margins of the Conservative Party against the party’s own leadership,” he said.

He added: “Let’s see if there is any momentum within the Conservative Party in the coming days that makes John Rustad concerned that the party chairman’s acceptance of the process may have been premature from a political point of view.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2024.