Polling station staff contradict Elections Manitoba claim they were adequately trained

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This article was published 17/10/2023 (719 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three Elections Manitoba workers have told the Free Press they did not feel sufficiently trained before ballots were cast in the provincial election, disputing a claim by the head of the independent agency.

The temporary workers, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, disagreed with chief electoral officer Shipra Verma’s comment that staff were given enough training for their roles and to operate new technology, including laptop computers used to cross names off the voting list.

“In all the elections I’ve worked, this was the most disorganized and I felt so poorly trained,” said a woman who worked at a polling station in Winnipeg. “It doesn’t lead to any confidence in what you’re doing.”

In Saturday’s Free Press, Verma defended her agency after the Oct. 3 election suffered some technical problems during advance polling and on voting day.

The anonymous election worker agreed with Verma that there was a learning curve associated with technology that was used for the first time in a Manitoba general election, including electronic vote-counting machines, also known as tabulators.

The woman claimed online training modules were not sent to her before her job started, while an in-person session with hands-on training was inadequate.

She did not get an opportunity to practise using the voter list software program because the computers at the session were not set to training mode, she said.

She claimed the trainer did not go over all potential problem scenarios, leaving her to rely on a manual if certain things went wrong.

“If you have people who haven’t had an opportunity to do much for training and all they have is a book to look at, it’s not very helpful,” she said.

At the polling station she was assigned to, staff could not get the computers working properly on the first day of advance voting, forcing them to do manual balloting for part of the day, the woman said.

“It was very distressing for everybody there, including the voters,” said the woman, who was one of about 7,000 election workers.

She estimated it took about four days for staff at her workplace to get up to speed with the new voting process.

On election day, the tabulator experienced a glitch of some kind and staff had difficulty printing summary results after polls closed, she said.

Despite the issues, the employee described the new technology as a “very efficient” system. She agreed with Verma that the integrity of the election was not compromised.

A woman who worked at a polling station located just outside of Winnipeg said she wasn’t satisfied with the training she received.

She claimed staff were largely expected to rely on online modules or hard copies of manuals, rather than in-person instruction.

“There wasn’t one of us who felt the training was sufficient for the jobs that we were doing,” she said. “I’ve been involved in a number of elections at various levels. They really do need to give you hands-on training.”

A third employee said most of the information in the modules had nothing to do with her role on election day, leaving her feeling overwhelmed.

A subsequent in-person session was mostly three hours of a trainer reading from a manual, with barely any hands-on training for the computer software, she said.

“This is a pop-up. You’ve got to get your people trained as best as you can and get out and we didn’t do that,” said the woman.

Most people available to work during an election period are retirees, she noted. She believes most are not that computer savvy and would benefit from greater hands-on training.

Elections Manitoba spokesman Mike Ambrose said a vast majority of employees did not experience any issues.

“Training consists of in-person sessions with hands-on training on the technology the voting official will be using, online training that could be revisited as needed and printed guides and other training materials,” he wrote in an email.

“Employees who felt that they did not have enough training had the opportunity to address this with their local election office.”

The third employee said temporary staff were given the opportunity to shadow workers at an advance polling station in the Winnipeg constituency she was assigned to if they wanted additional training.

“If I go on my own time, I’m not getting paid for it,” she said. “If the training had been adequate, we wouldn’t have had to shadow.”

Additional employees emailed the Free Press with claims of insufficient training.

Elections Manitoba’s review of the election includes staff interviews and a public survey.

Voting continued uninterrupted despite technical issues, Verma said. She described the final results as complete and accurate.

Verma also said she was satisfied with the performance of staff and tabulators, which were not connected to the internet.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @chriskitching