Chaotic 2021 N.L. election saw votes cast using sticky notes, people sending selfies to get ballots

Votes were cast using sticky notes, people tried registering for ballot kits using selfies as ID and more than 500,000 envelopes had to be ordered at the 11th hour as officials in Newfoundland and Labrador scrambled to switch to a provincewide mail-in election following a COVID-19 outbreak in 2021.

That's according to more than 900 pages of court documents obtained by CBC/Radio-Canada, which reveal confusion at Elections Newfoundland and Labrador as what should have been the shortest campaign allowed by law stretched into the longest and most chaotic in the province's history.

The filings — part of an election challenge launched in 2021 but settled last month on the eve of  trial — show no fewer than four outages brought down Elections N.L.'s online voter registration system as people frantically tried to sign up for special ballots.

The first shutdown struck on Feb. 12, in the hours after public health officials decided to move the entire province to the maximum COVID-19 alert level and Elections N.L. suspended voting in all 40 electoral districts. On that day, Elections N.L. fielded six gigabytes of emails — per hour.

Two more outages happened on Feb. 19, the last day to register to vote by mail, with one period of "intermittent" failures occurring during the final half-hour before the 8 p.m. deadline. 

According to interview transcripts from elections personnel, verifying voters' identity became less and less of a priority for Elections N.L. as staff became inundated with more than 100,000 unexpected applications for special ballot kits.

Kim Petley, acting supervisor of special ballots for part of the election, said in one transcript that if someone called to register for a mail-in ballot but wasn't on the voters' list, "We took you on your word and we issued the ballot."

Petley said in "normal circumstances … that would not have been acceptable, but the intent here was to get ballots out to people who were requesting them."

Some applications came with a selfie or a photo of the voter in front of their house, intended to confirm their address. Some voters and candidates used what staff called the "shotgun method," emailing questions to the full list of Elections N.L. staff directly, further clogging inboxes. Others sent "50 or 60 applications all in one fax," according to an interview transcript of then-chief electoral officer Bruce Chaulk.

Meanwhile, phone lines were blocked. 

"The calls were overwhelming", said Travis Wooley, then second-in-command at Elections N.L., who was stuck home on COVID-19 lockdown during the first hours after in-person voting was suspended.

Wooley is now the top official at the agency. The province is set to go to the polls again within months.

Emails show electors and candidates frantically seeking help from Elections N.L. In one case, after the deadline to vote by mail was postponed, a Liberal staffer asked whether a constituent who'd just turned 18 years old was suddenly eligible to vote. 

Woolley didn't know and replied he'd need to "discuss [it] in the a.m." with Chaulk.