Canada’s chief electoral officer says his agency will work to stop ballot boxes from going missing after hundreds of votes were misplaced in the April 28 election. Blacklock's Reporter says Stéphane Perrault told MPs on the House affairs committee the loss of 822 mail-in ballots in Coquitlam, B.C., was the result of employee error.“We will and we have begun to look at all the controls that can be implemented to make sure these kind of errors are picked up immediately,” Perrault said. Conservative MP Tako Van Popta called the mistake “inexplicable” and asked how Elections Canada could lose an entire box of ballots. “It matters. Every vote counts,” he said.Elections Canada admitted the 822 ballots had no impact on riding outcomes, but Perrault conceded some contests were close enough that the losses could have affected recounts. .He said confusion among staff who had also worked provincially contributed to the error.A September 15 report later disclosed 467 more misplaced ballots in two ridings in Nova Scotia and Ontario. The same report detailed further irregularities, including problems with mail-in voting in Quebec where a Liberal candidate won by a single vote, and polling stations in Nunavik that never opened, leaving electors in two hamlets without the ability to cast ballots.Bloc Québécois MP Christine Normandin said bad weather and missing supplies prevented some polls from opening in northern Quebec. .Perrault admitted sending workers into remote communities at the last minute was “a risky proposition.”Conservative MP Michael Kram also raised concerns over Elections Canada’s website, which crashed after 7 p.m. Eastern on election night, leaving thousands of voters without access to polling information. Perrault blamed a firewall failure by a private contractor and promised tighter monitoring in future elections.
