Canada votes for Mark Carney as prime minister | Hacker News Reader

Canada votes for Mark Carney as prime minister

npr.org

33 pointsnithinj18 comments

One of the cool things about how Canada conducts its elections is that it's still hand-counted paper ballots. Other levels of government sometimes use machines to lower costs, but federal elections remain old-school. Votes are physical objects that can be counted and re-counted as needed, reducing the risk of fraud. The count is still done quickly, with a government declared before the day is done. At the time of writing, only a few seats remain up in the air.

This is true. I would love to read more about the mechanics of the vote count ... it could do a lot perhaps to reduce the anger over discussions of vote counting in that other country ... one of the things Canada gets right.

That other country also has paper ballots. A bunch of people decided to count the ones in Arizona by hand after 2020. They found that the machines were accurate. The only reason people got angry was because one candidate decided to be the sorest loser of all time. I don't see how counting by hand would have made a difference. It was never about facts.

It's basically old school double entry book keeping, except you've got ballots and votes cast instead of inventory and $.

You start with empty ballots and the electoral list. You record every ballot that's used (or damaged) and every voter that shows up and casts a vote. You end up with a paper trail of everything that happened as well as every ballot.

Every bit of the process is done by two employees+a polling station supervisor+party representatives (volunteers) making sure everything is done by the book. Everything should balance if there hasn't been fraud or mistakes. Counted ballots go in respective envelopes (for box 57 you'll have a liberal party, conservative party, green party, npd, invalid ballot, etc. envelop) allowing for swift recounting and making sure valid ballots for the right party are in every envelop.

I got the watch this happen in real time while scrutineering at one of the polling stations. It game me a lot more confidence on the safety of our elections, which is a blessing in this day and age.

Elections Canada is simply amazing!

Funny story from last night: the Conservative leader’s own riding had the longest ballot in Canadian history — 90 candidates! Even though it was one of the earlier ridings to close, the results weren’t confirmed until this morning. I’m guessing the sheer size of the ballot had something to do with the delay.

Recent update:

> Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has lost his seat in Carleton, Ontario, according to projections by CBC/Radio-Canada, after his party lost the general election.

At least post the CBC link: Results: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2025/resul...

YouTube Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SATBOqyYODU

The results achieved by the policies of the liberal party of Canada have been disastrous in the past decade. I can’t imagine people voted for them again. It’s counterintuitive.

What’s the reason people vote for those outcomes?

I know trump played a role, but it’s hard to believe that he reversed the outcome so drastically.

I think the conservatives in Canada don’t have strong leaders. You couldn’t have a better hand.

The problem is conservative policy makes those same problems worse.

No, the curves were good until the end of the last conservative government. They went down around 2014.

Lower oil prices might have contributed, but only to an extent.

Conservatives leadership in Canada is weak. PP is just not sufficiently smart and capable for this position, listening to some of his speeches.

I can believe Trump changed it this drastically.

He was talking about annexing the country! His post on election day was full on syphillitic mad-king stuff, asking Canada to vote for him!

I could go on, a long list of stuff that would have been considered implausible in a comic book satire only a few years ago.

I don't follow Canadian politics, but it's pretty obvious it's Trump and aggressive rhetoric that followed. It was reported very quickly after that that the tide is beginning to turn.

Liberals will increase the damage caused by Trump. Carney is escalating the rhetorics for political gain at cost to Canada, and is taking an antagonist position with respect to the Trump administration.

It seems illogical that people vote for liberals in response to Trump’s remarks. That will worsen the situation. A more politically aligned government might better manage it.

You clearly aren't Canadian, We are no fans of the elected liberal party but we have zero tolerance for the hate filled, anti-trans, anti-woke, anti-indigenous, anti-Palestinian bullshit spewed by the conservative leader. I could go on... So, while I wouldn't say I'm excited about the results I'll will - today at least - feel slightly more at ease.

It's so interesting how few Americans are bothered by his talk of annexing allies like Canada or Greenland. Do people here think that the tariffs on Canada are about fentanyl? or Greenland is essential for "national security"?

They overfit to kicking Trudeau out, and were essentially successful, he left in complete humiliation. But then they didn't have much to fall back on. The liberals adopted much of the conservatives policies and / or there was no difference between them anyway.

In some sense the conservatives were effective at changing the narrative, they just weren't rewarded for it with the opportunity to form government.

National Sovereignty? I know a lot of Canadians who were lifelong liberals who were planning on voting conservative this election... until trump opened his mouth.

I wanted change—but the choice was between someone who ignores the cost of living crisis and someone who would actively make everything worse. Poilievre couldn’t even pass a security clearance. I didn’t support all of Trudeau’s policies, but Carney isn’t Trudeau—and pretending they’re interchangeable is just lazy politics.

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