Disastrous. Inadequate. Secretive. Those were just a few of terms Manitobans used to describe the performance of Elections Manitoba in that province’s last general election. So it was a bit of a surprise Wednesday to see the head of the beleaguered Manitoba’s agency abruptly named the new CEO of Elections BC.
The appointment of Shipra Verma came after an all-party committee of B.C. MLAs recommended her to the legislature to replace previous Elections BC CEO Anton Boergman, whose fixed term ended this fall. The recommending committee included representatives from the BC NDP, Conservatives, Greens and OneBC.
“During her more than two decades of service with Elections Manitoba, she demonstrated the ability to administer successful electoral events while maintaining electoral integrity,” NDP MLA and committee chair Janet Routledge said.
“She successfully led the implementation of Manitoba’s vote anywhere model, which included establishing a provincewide voter registration system, provincial address database and the use of new technology at the polls.”
Sounds great. Especially considering the problems Elections BC faced in the 2024 election, which included missing ballot boxes, counting mistakes and long delays.
Elections BC’s mistakes severely damaged its credibility in an election the BC NDP only won by 22 votes in a single riding. There’s still one court case outstanding. And the Opposition BC Conservatives accused the agency of failing British Columbians.
Unfortunately for B.C. voters, it looks like Manitoba did even worse.
‘Do better next election, please’
The 2023 election in Manitoba was a mess. New electronic tabulators malfunctioned. The live results website went down. There were missed votes, double counted votes and lengthy delays.
“These were not just a few technical glitches. By Canadian electoral standards, the system breakdown bordered on disastrous,” wrote the Winnipeg Free Press in an editorial titled ‘Do better next election, please.’
Perhaps most concerning was that when faced with the many problems, Verma disappeared. It took her 10 days to address the public after the provincial election, leading to much criticism that she was missing in action at a time voters (prone to allegations of ‘rigged’ elections stemming from other countries) needed reassurance by their top election official.
“Making herself available and being totally up-front about the events on election night is the bare minimum of accountability that should be acceptable from a high-ranking public servant in a critically important institution,” Free Press columnist Dan Lett wrote in the days following the election.
Verma did release an annual report a year later with recommendations aimed at strengthening election integrity, but in the immediate aftermath of the election issued only vague statements that promised reviews.
“A chief electoral officer who cannot make herself available to explain what happened on election night, and who continues to offer vagaries when precise details are needed, may not be the best person to assess the job her agency has done,” wrote Lett.
When Verma finally emerged, she proclaimed the election results valid and accurate. Part of the problem was a storm that occurred on election night, which messed up some of the systems, she said. She didn’t want to speak publicly, she said, because she wanted to get all the answers about what went happened first.
The ink was barely dry on her comments before the Free Press was contacted by numerous front-line elections workers who disputed Verma’s characterization and said they were poorly trained, under-resourced and disorganized.
New Elections BC CEO criticized for previous job performance
All of this information is still sitting online via the series of tubes that constitutes the internet. But it’s not clear if any of the eight B.C. MLAs who recommended Verma on Wednesday bothered to look it up.
“We are confident that her experience will contribute to the effective administration of B.C.’s elections, ensuring continued public confidence in Elections B.C.,” said Conservative MLA Linda Hepner.
Public confidence? Not exactly a lasting legacy from Manitoba.
“Perhaps the most egregious aspect of the problems that dogged Elections Manitoba was the reluctance of the agency’s head, chief electoral officer Shipra Verma, to immediately address them publicly,” wrote the Free Press editorial in its election post-mortem.
“Verma says she did not want to immediately answer questions about what went wrong on election day because she did not have all the answers. That’s a cop-out. Manitobans were not demanding all the answers right away. They did, however, deserve a preliminary update on what went wrong and an assurance that the integrity of the results was not compromised.
“Failure to address those issues quickly and without reservation gave the appearance that election officials had something to hide.”
That’s the last thing British Columbia needs after its own election problems last year.