Good things may come to those who wait, but that will only be the case for one of the two leading candidates vying to represent Sault Ste. Marie in Ottawa after mail-in votes in the a neck-and-neck finish are counted.
Four of the 184 polling stations have yet to report results more than 12 hours after the polls closed in Ontario for Monday’s federal election.
Sault Ste. Marie is one of a number of electoral district across the country where a winner has yet to be declared, said Rejean Grenier, Elections Canada’s regional media advisor for Ontario.
As of 1 p.m. Tuesday incumbent Liberal candidate Terry Sheehan is in a narrow lead with 14,312 total votes, with Conservative challenger Sonny Spina only 41 votes behind.
In the 2019 federal election Sheehan took the riding by 2,732 votes over Spina.
At least one of the polling stations yet to be reported in the Sault for this election is due to the 2,341 mail-in ballots for that riding, said Grenier. Counting those mail-in ballots will take at least two days.
“We have to do verifications for all of these mail-in envelopes before we even open them up and then once we open them up we have to count them,” said Grenier.
It takes an estimated three to four hours to verify about 500 mail-in ballots and another three to four hours to count them, said Grenier.
“In some cases it will be Thursday but we are hoping by the end of tomorrow we will have some results,” he said.
Some polling stations across Canada experienced long lineups and other delays.
“With all of the restrictions the pandemic caused, like social distancing and stuff like that, generally speaking, this election went really well. It could have went sideways a lot more,” said Grenier.
In response to a SooToday question about accessibility issues experienced by one reader at a polling station in the Sault, Grenier said every effort is made to ensure polling stations meet those needs.
Schools were not available to be used as polling stations in the Sault for this election due to COVID-19. That forced alternate locations to be used that may not have been as accessible as a school.
Grenier said Elections Canada uses criteria in determining if a polling station is wheelchair accessible and that is printed on the voter information cards it mails out.
“If we don’t meet the criteria that are needed, that person can call the returning officer and make other arrangements,” said Grenier. “A lot of people don’t know that and don’t bother looking on the website to find out and you can’t imagine how many calls we had from people yesterday who didn’t even look at their voter information card.”
Grenier did not have information on hand about possible delays at polling stations in Sault Ste. Marie during Monday’s election, but said every effort would have been made to ensure those who were eligible to vote in the time allotted could cast their ballot.
“If people were in the lineup by 9:30, an election worker would walk to the end of the line and stop people from coming in and let those people who were already in line at 9:30 vote,” said Grenier.
