Digital voter rolls, tabulators ready for B.C. election [Video]

Elections BC is going high-tech, streamlining the upcoming election with technology it says will make voting faster and vote-counting much faster.

“(This technology) will provide better service to voters in British Columbia,” said Anton Boegman, the province’s chief electoral officer.

The system – first tested in byelections in 2022 – will be rolled out for the first time in a general election on Oct. 19.

It involves the use of laptops to check people in, comparing their ID to digital – rather than paper – voter rolls. Elections BC says maximum wait times will be five minutes.

Not only will the new system make voting faster, it’s also going to make counting the ballots a lot faster, thanks to electronic tabulators that count ballots automatically, storing the data and removing the step of hand-counting after polls close.

With a few exceptions – primarily some mail-in ballots – Elections BC predicts …