Elections Ontario says early technical issues are resolved

OTTAWA- May 19, 2022 --
Elections Ontario vote signs at polling stations in Ottawa, May 19, 2022.  Assignment 137567
Jean Levac/Ottawa Citizen
Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia

Elections Ontario said that it had resolved technological issues at polling stations on Thursday, without saying specifically what the problems were or how many polling stations were affected.

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“The connectivity issue has been resolved and strike-off data is now being updated automatically,” said an official in an email.

“Elections Ontario worked diligently with our telecommunications provider to resolve this issue promptly.”

The Canadian Press reported the main issue involved voter information data flowing to political parties for much of Thursday morning after polls opened.

The issue did not affect polling stations for voters, but rather the information that flows to parties to let them know who has or has not voted, which is known as “strike-off data.”

That data is used by parties to figure out who they need to try to get out to polling stations.

Several parties told The Canadian Press they received one update Thursday morning, but there were supposed to be batches of voter information sent automatically every 15 minutes.

That data did not begin flowing until shortly after 2 p.m.

Parties were still able to gather that information by hand at polling stations.

“It didn’t really affect us,” said Liberal Party spokeswoman Beckie Codd-Downey.

The Green Party of Ontario said they also pivoted to picking up polling data in person.

-With files from The Canadian Press

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