Monday, October 16, 2006

Do You Favor Election Blackouts?

The Supreme Court is being asked to hear a case on election blackouts:
OTTAWA — A B.C.software developer says there needs to be a balance between Internet technology and Canadian laws on publication of election results.

Paul Bryan is at the Supreme Court of Canada on Monday, arguing against a section of the Elections Act that prevents people on the West Coast from hearing Eastern election results as polls close.

Mr. Bryan says the law, which forbids the publication of voting results until all federal polls close on election night, is not practical and cannot be enforced.

The Coquitlam resident deliberately broke the ban during the 2000 federal election by posting voting results from Atlantic Canada on his website while polls were still open in British Columbia.

He was convicted in provincial court and fined $1,000.

That conviction was struck down by the B.C. Supreme Court before the 2004 federal election, but later upheld by the B.C. Court of Appeal in the spring of 2005.

In my mind, there are good reasons to keep the blackout in place, although the new technology makes it impractical. All voters should enter the polling booth under the exact same circumstances. I suspect the feelings in the West, that their votes don't matter, would only be heightened if results were known prior to voting. Some people, internally debating whether or not to vote, just prior to the polls closing, might see the results and take a pass.

One option, have all the polls close at the exact same time- possibly open them the night before in the later time zones for complete fairness. In this way, all Canadians could watch the results together and every riding would have the same psychological impact. Eliminate the power of the time zone by whatever means necessary. If an election is on a Tuesday, open the polls Monday evening in the West to give the same access(many countries have multiple day votes).

3 comments:

Robert said...

I do ask myself, could my vote possibly change based on results I heard from Eastern Canada?

No, because I might even expect the results to be different; but then again, I'm pretty much decided already.

I find it fascinating, and a little perplexing that some people could be deciding who to vote for literally as they mark their ballot.

I'm in the air on this one.

UWHabs said...

I like the blackout. I agree that everyone should know at the same time what the results are. With that, they've done well to scatter the times so it's only been about 2 hours from Atlantic polls closing to BC polls closing, which means that they still don't have the vast majority of results by the time BC is done.

Mark Dowling said...

here's a suggestion - make polling times the same in each time zone (to make them equally convenient) but count the votes at the same time.

The US-style fascination with "declaring a victor" is something I've had to get used to over here, as in the UK and Ireland the broadcasters wait for the returning officer's declaration of a total count in each constituency.