Vote tabulators may have affected election results, expert says

A dramatic collapse in the number of rejected ballots cast during last month’s provincial election has some questioning whether Elections New Brunswick tabulators might have affected provincewide vote results after all.

Election day figures show just 1,611 rejected ballots were cast in the province's 49 ridings. That's half the number of the 2010 election and 1,000 less than the previous low recorded in 1987.

People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin said he feels Elections New Brunswick likely caused the decline by "outing" people who were intending to spoil their ballots at the polls.

"When you look at the amount of spoiled ballots in previous elections versus this election its very, very clear that privacy was infringed on," said Austin.

The collapse in rejected ballots follows a controversial decision by Elections New Brunswick to program its polling station tabulators to reject bad ballots with a beep so election workers could question voters if spoiling their vote was their true intention.

Critics panned the idea before the election as an invasion of ballot secrecy and with results now showing an election day evaporation of those casting rejected ballots, some think the policy may have changed people's behaviour and even have affected close races.

There's no doubt in my mind some of those people felt bullied or peer pressured.- David Moscrop

David Moscrop, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia, has written extensively on voters who spoil their ballots on purpose to protest their choices of candidates and parties.

He said having tabulators flag spoiled ballots either scared off protest voters or led them to vote for candidates they did not support to avoid detection.

"To me it should be a scandal," said Moscrop.  

"There's no doubt in my mind some of those people felt bullied or peer pressured."

Voters upset at lack of privacy

Wayne Anderson, a Sackville resident, said he agrees with Moscrop’s opinion. 

He spoiled his ballot on purpose after finding no candidate to support and said it was unsettling to be questioned about it by a poll worker.

"I said this is supposed to be private," said Anderson. 

"It's very, very intimidating. It's not right."

Anderson was given the option to revote for a candidate and declined, but suspects others likely did.

Susan Beattie, a long-time Progressive Conservative supporter in Fredericton, who didn't like the Alward government, also spoiled her ballot. She said she is still fuming about having to explain herself. 

"I don't think it is any of the business of the people manning the machines how I voted," she said.

Beattie also turned down an offer to revote.

Moscrop said many protest voters, who would not be expecting their spoiled ballot to be exposed and questioned, likely did opt to pretend to have made a mistake and revote.

"There's sort of a stigma attached to a 'none of the above' vote." said Moscrop.

"It wouldn't surprise me if people felt pressure to signal to everyone else that they were doing what everyone else did — they were picking a legitimate candidate. 

"This is why we have a secret ballot because even having a few people cast a vote they wouldn't otherwise cast because of intimidation or peer pressure runs exactly against what we're trying to do with elections and really no amount is acceptable."

Significant drop in spoiled ballots

Until this year, the number of rejected votes recorded in New Brunswick has remained consistent for 11 elections over four decades, always between 2,600 and 3,700.

​Moscrop said for the number to suddenly fall to 1,611 this year suggests hundreds of people likely changed their normal voting behaviour.

And with a number of election races decided by a few dozen votes or less, that could have had a significant impact.

Austin, who lost his riding by 26 votes, said he has no doubt spoiled ballot voters in his area changed course to avoid being identified. 

"To have those machines publicly demonstrate that they spoiled their ballot was a privacy invasion," said Austin.

Elections New Brunswick would not agree to an interview about what might have caused the decline in rejected ballots, instead forwarding a seven-year-old legal decision involving tabulators from Ontario.

In that case a judicial recount in a 2007 municipal election in the city of Vaughn turned up 96 valid votes that tabulators had rejected because people made markings too faint or small for the machines to recognize. 

The judge in the case, Justice P.H. Howden, criticized election officials for not activating the tabulators to alert poll workers when they could not read a ballot, but concluded a simple recount of the rejected ballots "would suffice to remedy the problem."

Paul Harpelle, a spokesperson for Elections New Brunswick, indicated that case convinced Elections New Brunswick it needed to flag problem votes in last month's election, although a request to see any legal opinions it obtained to confirm that position went unanswered.