The Liberal Party of Canada says it has set up a team to respond to continuing voter-verification issues that have cropped up during its leadership race, which is set to conclude on the weekend.
Before registered Liberal members receive a ballot, they must be verified either using a Canada Post app or in person at a Canada Post location. Several people told The Globe and Mail last week that they were having issues being verified.
“When someone does not make it through the verification process, the party is alerted, and we have a team working to solve these cases,” party spokesperson Parker Lund said in a statement Monday.
Mr. Lund didn’t respond when asked how many people were working on that team or how many cases the party had been notified about. In the vast majority of cases, he said, the issue is that information on a person’s ID doesn’t match the information on their voting file.
If the fix is straightforward, such as someone’s voting file going by “Rob” while their ID says “Robert,” the issue is typically resolved within the same day, Mr. Lund said. But if it’s something more complicated, such as the address on their ID doesn’t match the party’s file, it may take “more time to resolve.”
Address verification is significant to the voting process because each riding is assigned 100 points, which are distributed among the leadership candidates based on the percentage of support they have in any given riding.
The verification window opened on Feb. 20 and closes on Friday – two days before voting ends and the leader is chosen on Sunday. The voting period overall is 11 days long, said Mr. Lund, and the party has been clear about the gap between end of the verification and voting periods.
Among the voters facing verification issues are Helen Dundass and Norm Ovenden, two married snowbirds living in Oceanside, Calif. While Ms. Dundass says she became verified on the third attempt using the app and has voted for candidate Mark Carney, she said Mr. Ovenden is still waiting to be verified. There was an issue scanning his passport, she said.
Overall, she added the process is complicated and can be confusing. She said she contacted the Liberal Party for assistance during her verification process but never heard back.
Jodie Wilson, who lives in Vancouver, seemed to be stuck in a cycle where the system did not recognize her as verified, even though she had completed the process on the Canada Post app, she said. After contacting the party several times for assistance over a few days, she said the party sent her an e-mail Monday telling her to go in person to a Canada Post location.
She went later that evening, saying the process was easy. She received the e-mail confirming she had been verified immediately and expects to receive her ballot soon.
As of Monday, 100,000 people have been verified, and more than 80,000 people have voted, according to a post on the Liberal Party’s X account.
Justine McIntyre, a spokesperson for candidate Frank Baylis, said in a statement that the campaign is hearing from a lot of members about verification issues. She said she could not be more specific, as the campaign is not tracking them and the messages are coming in various ways to several campaign members.
The Globe did not hear back from the campaigns of candidates Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould by deadline. Liam Roche, a spokesperson for Mr. Carney, said that questions regarding the voting process should be directed to the Liberal Party.