Elections Canada signage is seen at an advance polling location, in Toronto, April 18.Laura Proctor/The Canadian Press
Leonard Belsher is his 87-year-old mother’s primary caretaker. When the federal election was called on short notice, they had already made travel plans for election day. Worried about his mother waiting in long lines at advance polls, which ended up seeing a record-breaking 7.3 million voters, he began seeking information on how they could vote by mail.
Mr. Belsher, of Shawville, Que., is one of many Canadians who opted for a mail-in ballot.
Elections Canada has received 1,007,569 special ballots from voters thus far, and is quickly approaching the record 1.17 million ballots received in the 2021 federal election. There are still 248,000 ballots yet to be returned, leaving an opportunity for this election to break the pandemic-era high.
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Amra Durakovic, spokesperson for Flight Centre Canada, said that the average Canadian traveller books their trips about 48 days ahead of time.
“The election was called just over a month ago, most trips were already locked in before voting dates were announced,” she said.
With only 36 days in the election cycle, that means election day fell within many Canadians’ existing travel plans.
A eligible voter holds a voter information card after it arrived in the mail in Carleton Place, Ont., April 11.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Graham Hallward of Toronto also voted by mail. It was his only option since he expected to be away from his riding for both advance polls and election day. He had never voted by mail, and was worried he hadn’t done so correctly. He also wasn’t sure if Canada Post would deliver his ballot on time.
“I think I’d rather actually go in person and know that I have completed the process,” Mr. Hallward said. “I’d have full confidence if I do it in person.”
He does not plan to vote by mail again.
The short election cycle that has more Canadians voting by mail before travelling might also be leaving the ballots of Canadians living abroad in danger of going uncounted.
A record-breaking 101,694 voting kits have been sent out to Canadians living abroad in this election, nearly double the 55,000 ballots that were sent out in both 2019 and 2021. About 20,000 of those new international voters currently reside in the U.S.
Eric Merkley is the director of the Policy, Elections, and Representation Lab at the University of Toronto. He thinks this spike in registrations shows that Canadians abroad see the stakes of this election as higher than usual, “probably because of the role of Trump and tariffs.”
As of Saturday, only one-third of the issued international ballots have been returned to Elections Canada – thousands fewer votes than were received in the previous two elections, despite having issued twice as many.
Canadians living abroad who have voted by mail previously are automatically registered. However, the snap election puts those voting for the first time on a tight deadline. It takes an average of 17 days for new international voters to get their package, fill out their ballots, and mail them back. That’s half of the entire election campaign – not including the time it takes for the ballot to travel back to Canada, or the time it takes for an application to be filled out and accepted.
Thirty per cent of the total number of international ballots returned to Elections Canada in 2021 arrived too late to be counted.
Election signage promoting candidates from leading political parties in the Toronto Centre Ward, are displayed, on April 23.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
A spokesperson for Elections Canada said, “We do our best to sort of remind folks that if they want to vote this way, they really should try to plan ahead, and they’ve got to allow a time for their ballot to get to them and then come back to us.”
They did not say whether there was enough time for the 45,000 new international voters to have applied and have their vote arrive within the time frame of the snap election.
These ballots can have an impact on election results in ridings. In a federal byelection last year, the Conservatives took the Liberal stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul riding by 633 votes. The riding had 676 registered international voters at the time. In the Vancouver-Granville riding, 824 international voters were registered in the 2021 federal election. The riding was decided by a margin of 431 votes.
Holly-Ann Garnett is an associate professor of political science at Queen’s University. She says mail-in ballots are an incredibly important measure for voter representation.
Ms. Garnett is currently in the U.S. and would not have been able to vote in this election without the option. But even as a published academic on the topic, she still faced questions about the process that ticked down the clock for her ballot to arrive on time.
“It was a little tricky, right? I study this for a living, and I was like, do I need to put a stamp on this or not?”
Ms. Garnett, as of yet, does not know if her ballot has been received by Elections Canada.