Referendum’s $14.5-million price higher than 2011 vote

Elections B.C. will spend $6.5 million more for this year’s voting-systems referendum than it did for the last provincewide referendum, held in 2011 on sales tax.

The hike was due to several factors, according to B.C.’s chief electoral officer, including a mandate that the agency educate voters on the different voting systems and also fund the Yes and No sides to the tune of $500,000 each.

The total budget for the voting-systems referendum will be $14.5 million, up from $8 million for the HST referendum in 2011.

Anton Boegman told the legislative standing committee on finance earlier this year that the $6.5 million hike in expenses was also due to skyrocketing postal costs, higher labour costs, the increase in population — meaning more ballots had to be sent out — and a new counting system.

The “new (education) mandate is significant and will require considerable effort to design content” and communication channels, said Boegman, according to Hansard records of the hearing.

He said Elections B.C. had not been required to educate voters about their options for past referendum votes, including the previous two on electoral reform, in 2005 and 2009. For the 2011 referendum, Elections B.C. spent $500,000 informing voters on when and how to vote.

It has budgeted $2.8 million to inform voters on when and how to vote and to educate them about the voting systems, on top of the $1-million grant to the Yes and No sides.

Attorney General David Eby didn’t respond to a request for an interview, but his staff provided an emailed statement.

“The government asked Elections B.C. to take on the role of providing independent information to voters in order to ensure the neutrality of referendum materials offered to voters was assured,” it said.

SFU political science Assoc. Prof. Eline Rooji said she detected no bias from the “trustworthy” Elections B.C.