Election night results to be posted as they come in

Jeff Green | Oct 25, 2014

Election results – check back here on Monday night.

We will be capping off our comprehensive election race coverage with results on Monday night. Since all of the townships we covered in depth (North, South and Central Frontenac and Addington Highlands) and most of the other townships in the vicinity are using the services of Intellivote this time around, we expect final results to be released somewhere between 8:10 and 8:30 in all of the townships.

The results will come out in one complete set, rather than a series of partial results as in the past, so the evening will not go late. In the past the candidates gathered at a central location to watch the results come in, and that may be the case this time around, and we will confirm the locations on Monday.

On Monday evening, the post at this web location will be updated regular with results and comments from candidates.

We will have reporters available to talk to the winners and the losers.

In the meantime voting continues.

In Central Frontenac 1722 votes had been cast as of Friday, October 24 at 4:30 pm. That represents 23.4% of eligible voters.

In North Frontenac, just under 20% (19.9%) of voter had cast their ballots as of Friday at 4:30 pm. Voting figures were not available from the other townships.

As part of the Intellivote service, candidates have daily access to voting statistics, including a breakdown of which of the eligible voters have already voted. This could mean a busy weekend for candidates, who will be combing those lists looking for the names of voters they are expecting support from, ensuring they have voted, and calling them if they have not.

Anyone who logs in to vote, either by phone or internet, by 8:00 on Monday Night, will be able to complete their ballot and have it counted.

Once all votes are cast, there is a process that a designated staff person at each township will complete, before Intellivote, a Nova Scotia based company, makes the tabulations and releases the results back to the township designate for release to the public.

A study is being undertaken by a researcher from the University of Toronto, Nicole Goodman, into the impact of electronic voting on voter turnout and access in general. (Electronic voting study article)

The local townships are all participating in that study.

Anecdotally, the two townships that we cover who were early adopters of e-voting, South Frontenac and Addington Highlands, did not see an increase in participation rates between 2003 and 2006, the first time they used tbe new system. Turnout dropped in both cases. Whether this had to do with the voting system or not has yet to be determined. Given the high percentage of seasonal residents in all of the local townships, e-voting would seem to offer a better opportunity than the mail-in ballot, which needed to be sent 10 days before election day for the vote to be guaranteed.

In the coming days we will look at the turnout in 2014 and seek further insight from Nicole Goodman as she looks at results from across rural Ontario.