Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
April 9, 2014

Media Advisory: Reporting Election Night Results

Technology today, particularly social media, allows election results to be communicated rapidly, but in an unofficial capacity. Elections Newfoundland and Labrador (ENL) is ultimately accountable for reporting accurate election results and, therefore, applies due diligence and control over election procedures to ensure the integrity of our reporting processes. ENL would like to provide the media with information regarding the way election results are collected and reported after the polls close at 8:00 p.m.

The process of collecting election results begins once the polls have closed.  At 8:00 p.m. the polling location doors are locked and any electors remaining in line to vote must be permitted to do so. Only once all electors have left the premises are election officials permitted to commence the election paperwork and counting. Candidates in an election are permitted to have scrutineers attend the counting at each individual poll.

Once the ballots have been counted, ENL officials at each poll are required to complete specific forms which help to verify and ensure the election counts and accuracy of the results. Once the counts have been confirmed at each polling station, the results are then called in to the district Returning Officer. For this process, ENL employs a verification system to ensure the validity of the information transmitted. For the Virginia Waters by-election, the district Returning Officer will receive a total of 39 calls, one from each of the polls being counted for the district.

The Returning Officer is the only person who reports these results to ENL’s head office. A cumulative order system is used for reporting: the first poll is reported to ENL, and then groups of five polls are reported at a time (in order of receipt) until information for each of the 39 polls has been received. The result of the Special Ballot vote, which is a separate poll (the 40th poll in this case), is added on to the end of the Returning Officer’s election night count to give a final, preliminary total of votes for the by-election.

These results are updated on the ENL website as they are received from the Returning Officer. Once all results have been collected, the final count is updated on the ENL website and a press release is issued.

Election night results are still considered “preliminary” until the Official Addition of the Votes is completed which, as required by legislation, occurs three days following election day. In this case, the Official Addition will take place on Saturday, April 12, 2014. Once the election counts have been verified at the Official Addition, the count is considered official, a candidate is declared ‘elected’ and another press release is issued.

It should be noted that there are no restrictions on candidate scrutineers who attend the count at the polling stations with regard to the release of election results once they have left the voting premises. It is therefore possible that the candidates’ campaign headquarters will have received information on counts at particular polls before ENL has verified the same results during the reporting process (as witnessed in the recent Carbonear - Harbour Grace by-election).

Please feel free to contact ENL for more information on this matter using the information below.

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Media contacts:

2014 04 09            5:15 p.m.