Elections P.E.I. mock results page accidentally made public for an hour
Simulated results were available for just over an hour before being taken down
Elections P.E.I. has taken down a results page using mock numbers after a test was accidentally made public.
The agency said it was testing its systems for delivering live up-to-date results to the CBC and the Guardian newspaper on election night.
Tim Garrity, chief electoral officer for Elections P.E.I., said a mistake meant those mock results were available online for just over an hour Thursday morning.
IT staff were supposed to turn on a password setting before doing the testing, but "when the site was activated this morning for testing the password was not in place," he said in an email to CBC.
The testing was on load capacity to make sure the system wouldn't crash due to high usage on election night, said Garrity.
He said the results were only accessible through Google search, and not on the Elections P.E.I. web page.
"These were fictitious numbers just to simulate what will be posted on election night," Garrity said.
"There has been no counting done of any ballots and the count will not begin until 7 p.m. on election night once the polls close."
Elections P.E.I. is administering elections in four municipalities — Charlottetown, Summerside, Stratford and Cornwall — on Nov. 5.