2025 NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR ELECTION: SPECIAL BALLOTS
The Curious Case of the Special Ballot
It seems as the number of folks who are interested in Canadian politics, election modelling, and election blogging has substantially increased over the past few years. Consequently, there may be a lot of fresh eyes watching the results of the Newfoundland & Labrador provincial election who have never otherwise followed our province's elections before. Even if this isn't your first NL rodeo, it may be your first "normal" election, as the COVID-19 pandemic completely derailed the 2021 campaign, resulting in a delayed election conducted solely by mail-in ballots, where the final results were dumped at noon hour for everyone to view.
Tuesday signals a return to normalcy, an election conducted as one would expect, with poll-level data we can analyze, over-analyze, and over-react to (which may be available during election night as the results roll in, though I am not 100% certain that Elections NL provides this info for general elections...though it did for the most recent by-elections). But for those who will be watching election coverage, or just refreshing Elections NL's website, you will be met with quite an early election night surprise.
Whereas in pretty much every other Canadian election, where we sit around patiently waiting for districts to report, sometimes waiting 15+ minutes for the first numbers from the first district to flash upon our screens, people paying attention Tuesday night may be surprised to see that within minutes of the polls closing, seat counts and votes for ALL 40 districts will be available. How is that possible?
The special ballot.
Essentially equivalent to the mail-in ballot, these are requested by voters and sent by Elections NL. Anyone can avail of these, but they are commonly used by folks who will not be in their districts on election day, or during advanced voting. In a province with a large workforce commuting to Alberta for weeks or months on end, you can imagine these are heavily used.
Not that this is unique, I'm certain that every province has an equivalent special/mail in ballot. What IS unique though, is that these votes are counted and tabulated before polls close, and the results of the special ballots are available AND reported almost immediately. So, we will have barely any time to get cozy and tune in to our favourite election coverage before a seat count flashes before our eyes.
The Lack of Suspense
So, we won't have to sit down and watch the seat counter slowly tick upwards all night long. Within minutes of polls closing, we will likely have an idea of how this election will end. In a way, it takes away that intrigue and mystery of not knowing what will happen, and slowly watching vote share and seat counts tick upwards. We can't over-react to a lone poll box showing Burgeo - La Poile flipping to the Progressive Conservatives by 40 points.
But It's Only One Poll Result
Which is completely true. The special ballots can sometimes yield funny results. For example, in 2019 the special ballots had the PC's ahead in Harbour Grace and Mount Scio, both of which were easily won by the Liberals at the end of the night. Likewise, the special ballots had the Liberals 35 points ahead of the PC's in Placentia West-Bellevue, a district the PC's ended up winning by 11 points.
However, unlike watching individual polling boxes roll in from different corners of the districts, the special ballot is a collection of votes from everywhere in the district, which is often more reflective of how the district is going to vote as a whole more than any one polling box from a specific town. So the special ballots are more likely than not to actually predict the winner of the district.
Special Ballot Voting Patterns Versus E-Day
That being said, we know that different methods of voting do tend to favour one party over another. For example, Liberals tend to do well in advanced polling whereas the PC's and Conservatives in general tend to do better in election day voting. But what about special ballots?
An Analysis: Special Ballot Voting in 2015 and 2019
So, how exactly do the special ballots hold up to the final results? I did a deep dive into the 2015 and 2019 elections to see exactly how things unfolded throughout the night. The results were certainly interesting.
2015:
It seems as the number of folks who are interested in Canadian politics, election modelling, and election blogging has substantially increased over the past few years. Consequently, there may be a lot of fresh eyes watching the results of the Newfoundland & Labrador provincial election who have never otherwise followed our province's elections before. Even if this isn't your first NL rodeo, it may be your first "normal" election, as the COVID-19 pandemic completely derailed the 2021 campaign, resulting in a delayed election conducted solely by mail-in ballots, where the final results were dumped at noon hour for everyone to view.
Tuesday signals a return to normalcy, an election conducted as one would expect, with poll-level data we can analyze, over-analyze, and over-react to (which may be available during election night as the results roll in, though I am not 100% certain that Elections NL provides this info for general elections...though it did for the most recent by-elections). But for those who will be watching election coverage, or just refreshing Elections NL's website, you will be met with quite an early election night surprise.
Whereas in pretty much every other Canadian election, where we sit around patiently waiting for districts to report, sometimes waiting 15+ minutes for the first numbers from the first district to flash upon our screens, people paying attention Tuesday night may be surprised to see that within minutes of the polls closing, seat counts and votes for ALL 40 districts will be available. How is that possible?
The special ballot.
Essentially equivalent to the mail-in ballot, these are requested by voters and sent by Elections NL. Anyone can avail of these, but they are commonly used by folks who will not be in their districts on election day, or during advanced voting. In a province with a large workforce commuting to Alberta for weeks or months on end, you can imagine these are heavily used.
Not that this is unique, I'm certain that every province has an equivalent special/mail in ballot. What IS unique though, is that these votes are counted and tabulated before polls close, and the results of the special ballots are available AND reported almost immediately. So, we will have barely any time to get cozy and tune in to our favourite election coverage before a seat count flashes before our eyes.
The Lack of Suspense
So, we won't have to sit down and watch the seat counter slowly tick upwards all night long. Within minutes of polls closing, we will likely have an idea of how this election will end. In a way, it takes away that intrigue and mystery of not knowing what will happen, and slowly watching vote share and seat counts tick upwards. We can't over-react to a lone poll box showing Burgeo - La Poile flipping to the Progressive Conservatives by 40 points.
But It's Only One Poll Result
Which is completely true. The special ballots can sometimes yield funny results. For example, in 2019 the special ballots had the PC's ahead in Harbour Grace and Mount Scio, both of which were easily won by the Liberals at the end of the night. Likewise, the special ballots had the Liberals 35 points ahead of the PC's in Placentia West-Bellevue, a district the PC's ended up winning by 11 points.
However, unlike watching individual polling boxes roll in from different corners of the districts, the special ballot is a collection of votes from everywhere in the district, which is often more reflective of how the district is going to vote as a whole more than any one polling box from a specific town. So the special ballots are more likely than not to actually predict the winner of the district.
Special Ballot Voting Patterns Versus E-Day
That being said, we know that different methods of voting do tend to favour one party over another. For example, Liberals tend to do well in advanced polling whereas the PC's and Conservatives in general tend to do better in election day voting. But what about special ballots?
An Analysis: Special Ballot Voting in 2015 and 2019
So, how exactly do the special ballots hold up to the final results? I did a deep dive into the 2015 and 2019 elections to see exactly how things unfolded throughout the night. The results were certainly interesting.
2015:
| PARTY | SPECIAL BALLOT VOTE SHARE |
FINAL VOTE SHARE |
CHANGE IN VOTE SHARE |
SPECIAL BALLOT SEAT COUNT |
FINAL SEAT COUNT |
CHANGE IN SEAT COUNT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LIBERAL | 61.9 % | 57.2 % | -4.7 | 33 | 31 | -2 |
| P.C. | 28.7 % | 30.1 % | +1.4 | 7 | 7 | N/C |
| NDP | 9.0 % | 12.0 % | +3.0 | 0 | 2 | +2 |
The special ballot was especially favourable to the Liberals, who saw their vote share drop by nearly 5 points throughout the night as election day and advanced poll numbers rolled in.
The NDP were a great beneficiary of the election day vote, as the districts of St. John's Centre and St. John's East - Quidi Vidi flipped from Liberal wins on the special ballot to NDP holds. The PC vote remained incredibly steady throughout the night, and the number of seats they won did not change from special ballot to last vote counted. That's not to say the map remained static, the special ballot had the PC's winning Baie Verte - Green Bay, and the Liberals winning Conception Bay South, both of which ended up not happening as the Liberals gained Baie Verte and the PC's held CBS at the end of the night.
2019:
| PARTY | SPECIAL BALLOT VOTE SHARE |
FINAL VOTE SHARE |
CHANGE IN VOTE SHARE |
SPECIAL BALLOT SEAT COUNT |
FINAL SEAT COUNT |
CHANGE IN SEAT COUNT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LIBERAL | 49.6 % | 44.0 % | -5.6 | 23 | 20 | -3 |
| P.C. | 40.5 % | 42.6 % | +2.1 | 14 | 15 | +1 |
| NDP | 4.3 % | 12.1 % | +7.8 | 1 | 3 | +2 |
Once again, the special ballots were especially good for the Liberals, as their vote share dropped throughout the night. For anyone who remembers watching this election live, much was made of the Liberal seat count slowly ticking downward, and whether a minority or majority would happen came down to the last couple of polling boxes remaining to be counted, in Stephenville and Bonavista.
Unlike in 2015, the map did shift quite a bit throughout the night, as red districts turned blue, and blue districts turned red, however the final seat count for the PCs once again remained near static. Again, the NDP performed much better, as Alison Coffin and Jordan Brown clawed their ways back from early holes to win their districts.
So What Does This Tell Us?
The special ballot will likely tell us the result of the election almost immediately, but that seat count and vote share is likely to drift over the night. So depending on the special ballot vote result, you can determine if you can change the channel or if you need to carefully watch the election day results roll in.
If the Liberals are well in the lead in seat count, there is no precedent for it to reverse enough that they lose. However, if the Liberals are sitting in slim majority territory, it is worth keeping an eye on as we know that the PCs and NDP do much better on election day, so they could be in a situation where they fall into minority territory.
If the special ballot already has the Liberals in minority territory, then it could be a very long night AND an upset could be brewing.
The first few minutes of the election will tell us all we need to know.