Some Tory leadership ballots may not count
OTTAWA • Less than two weeks before it elects a new leader, the Conservative Party has confirmed some voters have submitted their mail-in ballots incorrectly, which could result in their votes not being counted.
Front-runner Maxime Bernier’s campaign claims as many as one-fifth of ballots received by the party are at risk of being disqualified.
The biggest issue is ballots must be accompanied by a signed declaration and photocopy of a form of personal identification that includes a name, photo and a home address matching the one to which a voter’s party membership is registered.
Campaigns are allowed to have scrutineers in place at a Toronto office of the audit firm Deloitte, where envelopes received by the party are being opened to verify voters’ supporting documents (though the votes are not yet being counted). Each envelope is supposed to include the declaration, the copy of the identification and a sealed packet containing the ballot.
Bernier’s scrutineers have noticed “just about one in five,” about 20 per cent, of the sealed packets containing the ballots were being set aside in a pile for review, spokesman Maxime Hupé said Tuesday.
Scrutineers for Erin O’Toole, another top-tier candidate, reported similar figures, O’Toole spokeswoman Melanie Paradis said.
“We haven’t seen a hard number, so I couldn’t confirm the 20-per-cent figure. But it is very high. It is significant,” she said.
The party believes many voters will turn out to have simply put the supporting documents into the smaller packet with their ballots, rather than in the main envelope. The ballot-packets will not be opened until closer to the election, when scrutineers will confirm whether they contain the supporting documents.
If they do, the ballot will still be processed and counted, party spokesman Cory Hann said.
“This is an issue that affects everyone probably equally. I don’t think it places any one candidate at an advantage or at a disadvantage,” Paradis said. “It’s just unfortunate. For democratic purposes, people want their votes to count. I know that the party is committed to ensuring that, and that’s why the scrutineers will be there. They’re going to make as many count as possible.”
The party wouldn’t confirm the Bernier campaign’s 20-per-cent estimate, saying it doesn’t have a firm number of envelopes being set aside. It doesn’t have a total number of ballots received, either — the focus, right now, is on verifying rather than counting.
“At this time, we don’t have an official count of how many have been verified and how many have been set aside but it would appear the majority are being verified without issue,” Hann said.
Hamish Marshall, campaign manager for another leading candidate, Andrew Scheer, said in the past few days they’ve received “hundreds” of emails from supporters concerned about how they mailed in their ballot. And those are just people “aware they might have made some kind of mistake,” he said.
Paradis said the O’Toole campaign has likewise received “hundreds” of emails, maybe “more than hundreds,” from people who are concerned about whether or not they voted correctly.
As the race draws to a close, envelope concerns aren’t the only ones dogging campaigns. One campaign source said there are worries about students being able to vote. New party members who put a campus address on their membership applications may not have received their ballots, since school is out — or the permanent addresses on their IDs may not match temporary addresses given to the party, violating a requirement.
Members who want to request a new ballot for any reason had to do so by the end of Tuesday. Ballots must be received by 5 p.m. Friday, May 26, to count. The new leader will be announced at a convention in Toronto the following day.