ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The province’s Chief Electoral Officer says a “fluid” situation means his office will be re-evaluating announced deadlines for mail-in ballots to ensure as many people as possible are assisted in voting in a much-altered provincial general election.
In a news release Saturday, Bruce Chaulk acknowledged there was “significant anxiety among the electorate regarding the application process to obtain a special ballot in order to vote in this election.”
Originally, in-person voting throughout the province was to have taken place Saturday, but the first change in that plan came Thursday when Chaulk announced an election postponement for 18 districts on the Avalon Peninsula because of the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak in the St. John’s metro area earlier in the week.
Regular, planned balloting was set to happen in the 22 remaining districts on Saturday.
But on Friday night, after it was announced the entire province was being placed in Alert Level 5 lockdown — this because the outbreak was confirmed to have involved a highly contagious variant of the virus — Chaulk cancelled in-person voting completely, saying all remaining votes would have to be done by special ballot/mail-in process.
Chaulk’s office immediately began promoting the mail-in process, but almost as quickly, that effort hit a major pothole.
On Saturday morning, people phoning the toll-free and direct-line numbers to arrange for mail-in ballots encountered phone message mailboxes that were full.
It turns out the cause of the problem was COVID-related, too.
“We are in the process of having a deep clean completed and we are restructuring our working environment to separate staff members,” said Chaulk early Saturday, explaining the "delay in communication."
The phone issue seemed to have been resolved just a couple of hours later, but even then, Chaulk was encouraging would-be-voters to use the alternate online method of applying for a ballot.
Update: a team of operators is fielding phone calls now, but volumes remain high.
— Elections NL (@NLElections) February 13, 2021
Statement from the Chief Electoral Officer, February 13, 2021.#nlpoli #nlvotes pic.twitter.com/JyBWx55dWv
“It is a simple process,” said the release. “Complete the digital form directly on our website and upload a photo of some form of identification that shows your name and current address.
“Elections NL does not require photo ID.
“We are also hearing the concerns of people all throughout Newfoundland and Labrador regarding accessibility to computers and internet and the inability to provide identification digitally… If you are able, please call Elections NL on the phone. If we can verify that you are on the voters' list, we will issue you a voting kit.”
Still, social media sites are full of people expressing concern they will not be able to apply for a mail-in ballot before the current application deadline, which is 8 p.m. Monday, or even return it in time for the deadline for receipt by Elections NL, which is March 1.
They are among the hundreds of thousands of people left to engage in the mail-in application process one way or the other.
Well over 60,000 people have voted either in advance polls, through special polling sites at district offices or with early mail-in ballots. However, with nearly 370,000 eligible voters in the province, the vast majority still haven’t cast a ballot. And while 20,000 of them had engaged in the mail-in process in the two days after Thursday’s initial announcement, that won’t compare to the flood of applications resulting from Friday’s announcements.
That anticipated deluge of requests almost certainly contributed to the closing lines in Chaulk’s Saturday news release.
“This situation remains fluid. We will be re-evaluating the deadlines announced to ensure that we are able to assist as many people as possible,” it concluded.
