By Eric Stern
April 29th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Election Scrutineering 101
I’ve always voted and paid attention to our political process. For last night’s election, I decided to go a step further. I volunteered as a scrutineer for the Conservative Party.
Training involved a trip to Emily Brown’s campaign office and 15 minutes. One of the other volunteers commented that he was there to understand the election process. Donald Trump has thrown into question the integrity of elections. Scrutineering gave me a unique opportunity to look behind the curtain.
One of the first things I learned was what constitutes a spoiled ballot. I’ve always carefully marked my X, making sure the lines stayed inside the circle. Elections Canada wants to determine voter intent. You don’t have to use an X. As I saw during the counting, people filled in the circle, people drew in stars or squiggles. As long as the intent was clear, the vote was counted.
An optional activity, from 7:30 am to 9:00 am, was to wave signs at Appleby and Fairview.
They called them waves – they were held at many of the main intersections in the city.
Typically, I dread this type of activity, but I have to admit it was fun. People honked as they drove by, people waved, people stared straight ahead and did their best to ignore us, and about one car in fifty waved their swear finger at all of us. Are we losing our civility? Is it time to have a law that says political parties can only talk about their platform, not disparage the other candidates? Justin “he’s just not ready” comes to mind, but so does this ad:
After a quick trip to the polling station in the morning, to sign forms and show my ID, I returned to the station at 9:10 pm. The doors were locked at 9:30 pm, and the counting process started. Ballot boxes were immediately sealed. Tables were cleared, and scrutineers from the various parties moved to their assigned tables.
Once the Elections Canada officials were ready to count ballots, the ballot boxes were opened, and the counting began. Each ballot was held up for the scrutineers to review and placed in a pile for the intended candidate. One official held up the ballots, a second kept a tally. There was only one spoiled ballot, someone had clearly voted for both the Liberal and Conservative candidates. Will Carney partner with Poilievre to form the next government?
The race was so close, there would be two in a row for Karina, followed by three for Emily, then five for Karina, then four for Emily, and almost no votes for the other parties.
After all the ballots had been counted, approximately 150 per poll, the count was double-checked. Multiple teams of officials and scrutineers completed this process concurrently. By 11 pm, the count for the polling station was complete.
Everyone, officials and party representatives, was respectful, friendly, and dedicated to the integrity of the process.
The integrity of our elections relies on all of us. Please consider working for Elections Canada or volunteering as a scrutineer.
Ditto on scrutineering,and how great our system is, however I was the only party rep in attendance. I also fielded a call at a campaign office, from someone concerned over the use of pencils (not an issue with our system).
Other countries, one very close to us, may benefit by copying the Canadian approach.
If you have never served as a scrutineer, your party could use your help.
I volunteered as a scrutineer for the last federal election in Burlington and was very pleased how professional and accurate the counting of ballots was. The CPC man and myself were shown each spoiled ballot and we nodded our agreement that it should not count- and there were spoiled ballots for both the CPC and Liberals. I have respect and confidence in our electoral system and the counting of ballots.
I volunteeed for the Coservative party and was driving around Bulington hanging ‘reminder to vote signs’ on door knobs; Dark House Numbers on Dark Backgrounds and miniscule signs are not helpfull people; I was out the whole day, visited neighborhoods I never knew existed, and met some great people; I didn’t know who’d one until the Tuesday morning and even as I’m posting this I’m still not 100% sure and wouldn’t be able to swear on a Bible if we have a majority government or not, but I think i’m safe in saying a sincere Congratulations to Mark Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada and to all the Liberal supporters for the win in this Federal election.
Editor’s note: Do want to remind you of your April 21st comment: I don’t know why but I’m going to jump off the fence here and say that the Conservatives will win by a majority.
You asked me for a statement regarding my ‘Berlin Wall’ Comment, and I have happily made one with sincerity. I do realize, however, that acceptance is always entirely optional.
Editor’s note Ahh – you didn’t have the courage of your convictions. You were wrong – fess up and let the dance music continue.
I did the same for the Liberals but for the 30000 plus in the advance poll count. It started at 7.30 and I left at 1.30 am. The count was still being conducted and was a tough and long job that I am sure continued for a few hours longer.
Like many other volunteers we went door to door, made phone calls, put poll location stickers on door hangers and solicited friends and neighbours to display lawn signs etc.
This was my 3rd or 4th campaign, it is great opportunity to hone your speaking skills, listen to the perspectives of others and participate in the all important democratic process.