(Photo credit: Elections BC)

By Pete McIntyre

Record mail-in ballot

Election costs up 30 per cent due to pandemic

Jul 27, 2021 | 1:52 PM

The final price tag on British Columbia’s 2020 election was $51.9 million, up 30 per cent over the cost of the 2017 provincial vote.

The figure was part of a report by Elections BC’s chief electoral officer into last year’s election on Oct. 24, the province’s 42nd general election.

The cost of administering the election was $51.6 million, or $14.64 per registered voter. The 2017 election cost $39.5 million, or $12.15 per registered voter. The increase reflects the cost of procuring pandemic supplies, including personal protective equipment such as masks, hand sanitizer and acrylic barriers, increasing capacity for vote-by-mail, increased rental costs for voting places and district electoral offices, and wage increases for election officials. (Elections BC report into 2020 B.C. election)

The report highlights how voting places were adapted to ensure safe voting during COVID-19.

A record 596,287 voters cast their ballot by mail in 2020, a massive increase from the 6,517 voters who voted by mail in 2017. Of the 724,279 registered voters who requested a vote-by-mail package, 91.1 per cent returned their voting package by the close of voting, or voted at another voting opportunity instead.

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Voting in person was markedly different from past elections as well. Elections BC encouraged voters to vote at advance voting, to reduce crowds and lineups at voting places and help ensure physical distancing. For the first time, more voters voted before election day than on election day. Voter turnout by voting opportunity broke down as follows:

• 35.4 per cent voted at advance voting
• 31.4 per cent voted by mail
• 28.8 per cent voted at their assigned voting place on general voting day
• 4.4 per cent voted at other absentee voting opportunities

In total, 1,898,553 voters voted in the election — the second highest number of voters in B.C.’s electoral history, representing 53.9% of registered voters. In 2017, 1,986,374 voters voted, representing 61.2% of registered voters.

The incumbent New Democratic Party won a majority government with 57 seats, making John Horgan the first leader in the history of the BC NDP to win a second consecutive term as premier.

Click here to view the voting results by voting area (on DataBC).