It's not a surprise if it was advertised months ago

At about the time I was preparing to move to Ottawa (February 18th, to be precise) my father sent me a job ad for a job at elections Canada.  The basic ad included in the paper made it sound as though I might be at least semi-qualified for the position.  Of course, when I read the full job description on the Elections Canada site I was pretty sure I was nowhere near qualified to become the Commissioner of Elections Canada.

Now, about three months after the job was posted, the successful candidate has been announced (and because I've signed up for Elections Canada's news updates I received an email hours ago).

Just recently the Ottawa Citizen's story on the appointment was released.  I was quite surprised by one of their early paragraphs.

But in a surprise announcement Thursday, Elections Canada said Corbett had retired and been replaced by Yves Côté, the former associate deputy minister of Justice.

 At least to me it seemed hardly surprising that such an announcement was made given the months that have passed since the post was advertised.  Maybe they were using the word 'surprise' to refer to the successful candidate?

Despite the fact that I don't think that the early part of the story makes it clear that their 'surprise' relates to the appointee rather than the existence of an announcement, they do go on to paint a rather uninspiring picture of successful applicant.  In their profile a picture is painted of an individual disinclined to challenge the powers that be.

Anyway, whatever the case may be as far as the Citizen's use of the word 'surprise' may be this new Commissioner is going to have his hands full with the sizeable investigations currently underway by his office.

There are no dead voters in Newfoundland!

For the past few days I've been thinking quite a bit about the enforcement of electoral law at the federal level in Canada.  Consequently I've been reading about the offences that have been investigated/prosecuted over the past 20 years.

While after every election we tend to find that there are a handful of financing/advertising related cases, I was pretty shocked to see that duplicate voting seems to be one of the most common offences (and even as one of the most common offences there are only, at most, a handful of cases dealt with by Elections Canada after each general election).

Finally today, and I really don't know why it took me this long to make it here, I decided to see if provincial electoral laws had similar conviction/infraction patterns.  Not surprisingly, I decided to start my investigation in Newfoundland.

After quickly skimming Newfoundland's Elections Act and finding the relevant sections I made my way over to CanLII to see if any of the relevant sections have been cited in any cases in their database (I had to use this imperfect approach because unlike Elections Canada, Elections Newfoundland and Labrador does not have a section of its website that includes such information).

Anyway, the CanLII information was quite revealing.  Apparently there are no cases that cite the passage about duplicate voting (which I feel I must include here for its humour value)

193. (1) A person is guilty of an offence who, at an election,(a)  applies for a ballot in the name of some other person, whether that name is that of a person living or dead, or of a fictitious person;(b)  having voted once at that election, applies at the same election, for another ballot; (c)  votes in more than 1 electoral district; or(d)  aids, abets, counsels, procures or endeavours to procure the commission by a person of an act described in paragraph (a), (b) or (c). 

As it turns out, there weren’t even any cases citing s. 194:

194. A person is guilty of an offence who, at an election, votes or attempts to vote knowing he or she is disqualified from voting or not qualified to vote at that election.

I thought it was also noteworthy that while one of the offences common at the federal level (the failure include a statement from the official agent authorizing the publication of election material) is also against the law in Newfoundland (s. 198) it seems that that section has not been cited in any cases included in the CanLII database.  Overspending expense limits is another potential violation that has come up from time to time federally but not once provincially.

I can’t help but wonder if it is really the case that those involved in the electoral process in Newfoundland are really more law-abiding than those involved in the analogous processes federally?

Or, maybe, it’s not that the case that these infractions aren’t taking place, but that they aren’t necessarily being investigated to the same extent.  If one takes a look at the organizational chart for Elections Newfoundland and Labrador there it isn’t obvious that any of the positions mentioned would conduct investigations into such matters after an election’s results had been made official (though the Elections Act does confer such an investigatory power upon the Chief Electoral Officer, at least in relation to the examination of records relating to party or candidate finances).  And I hope I’m mistaken, but I did not see anything in the act that would conclusively give the Chief Electoral Officer the authority to investigate potential infractions committed by individuals or entities other than parties or candidates (ex. voting for a dead person).

And in case you’re curious, if you ever are found guilty of voting for a dead or fictious person the punishment can be severe. 

208. A person who is guilty of an offence under section 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198 or 199 is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both a fine and imprisonment. 209. A person who is guilty of an offence under this Part that is not an offence referred to in section 208 and for which no other penalty is specifically provided, is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months, or to both a fine and imprisonment.

So I’m not really sure where all of this gets us, but I do feel it’s at least something to know that there isn’t much evidence of Elections Newfoundland and Labrador going after people in the courts for election finance violations, advertising violations, or voting violations.

I am no longer with Ballot

Earlier this evening I finally got around to placing my completed special ballot in the mail. Hopefully it will arrive in Ottawa in the next few days.

I am glad that my special ballot wasn't caught up in the same kind of stink that some special at the University of Guelph were earlier today. Later in the day Elections Canada confirmed that the votes that had been cast through the contested process will stand and that similar practices will be discontinued for the duration of the election.

Big change to the special ballot application page at Elections Canada

As some of you may recall, a few days ago I pointed out that Elections Canada's special ballot application webpage was less than fully accessible. Most notably, to access the special ballot application one first had to use a clunky Java tool to enter basic information about one's home riding.

Not long after making my post I wrote to Elections Canada to draw their attention to the issue as I feared that the problem had the potential to deter quite a number of voters.

Much to my surprise, this evening I received a response from Elections Canada about the issue. An while they didn't quite acknowledge all of the problems that existed, they do have seem to have made a few changes that move things in the right directly. Most importantly, they have made the Java tool optional and offered an HTML only option that provides quick access to the PDF form.

I like to interpret the following quote in such a way that suggests they made the changes because of my email, though this may be reading a little too much into it.

To help both PC and Mac users online, we have incorporated, over the last days, one additional message and link at the bottom of each screen to offer the elector, as you suggested, the ability to access a basic HTML version of the application

Though they didn't admit it in their email, I think that they also fixed some compatibility issues relating to their Java tool, which now works on my computer. I guess the important thing is that they made the changes that make the form more accessible, anything else wouldn't be anything more than an ego boost.

A Few Quick Notes 526

-After several hours of overcast skies this morning we have finally made the transition to rain/snow and high winds. Though we don't yet have a storm warning, other parts of the Maritimes have been warned about a snowstorm that is due to hit this weekend. So even if we don't get 30 cm of snow, it does look as though we will be getting something unpleasant this weekend.

-On a related note, it seems that there is an Ultimate tournament taking place this weekend that should be made pretty unfun by this weather. Actually, the likelihood of similar weather was exactly why I chose not to play in the same tournament last year. Anyway, I really hope that things aren't too unpleasant for those playing.

-After a little dilly-dallying this morning I finally got around to sending an email to Elections Canada about their less than function special ballot application webpage. Of course after sending the email I was taken to a page where it was suggested that I shouldn't expect a particularly prompt response. I guess I just hope that they change their system before too many people are discouraged from voting.

-As I was walking to an appointment this morning I came across this car.

I guess it must be an April Fool's day joke but I really don't get it.

-At first I thought a story from St. John's about the Village Mall booting Metrobus from their parking lot was an April Fool's Day joke as well, but this one seems to be real. This is definitely going to be a bummer for a number of bus riders and will again hit the people who can least afford to be hit.

My favourite part of the story was the part at the end when they talked about decreasing ridership. I wonder if the decreasing ridership might have anything to do with a decreasing quality of the service? My experience with Metrobus over the years has been that they have consistently made bus routes less useful and changed route structures so that trips to and from the same places take longer than they used to. No wonder fewer people ride the bus under these circumstances.

How many voters will be turned away?

A few days go, when I first tried to download a special ballot application, I noticed that Elections Canada had changed it's website. It seems that no longer can one just download a straight PDF of the special ballot application, a somewhat more complicated process has now been implemented.

First off, one needs to have a recent version of Adobe Reader and not just a generic PDF reader. Then, it seems, one also has to have Java capability. Not surprisingly, even after I downloaded the Elections Canada linked-to version of Adobe Reader I was unable to access the application.

After a few failed attempts I finally got around to calling Elections Canada to ask how I might go about getting a copy of the special ballot application. The answer I basically got was that I could go to a local Elections Canada office and pick up a hard copy of the form. While explaining my problems with the form I was told that "people are having problems with it," suggesting that the problem is much more wide spread than just me. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to ask the employee exactly how widespread the problem is.

But I do wonder how many 'people' are having problems with the form and how many of these 'people' might decided to just forgo voting instead of figuring how to get a copy of the application? Given the time of year that it is, and that many students, in particular, might be discouraged by the more-complicated-than-necessary process I wonder what kind of impact this change will have? Given the low rate of voter turnout that Canada already has we can hardly afford to turn even more people away because of technological constraints.

Oh, and the best part is that this more complicated process just leads one back to a pretty straightforward PDF (maybe the same one I downloaded in 2008?) that has to be manually completed and then printed. Most the the Java based data submission is for naught and could be just as easily completed by the applicant on the final application.

What an incredibly frustrating process this has been, and all I wanted to do was download a PDF.

Voter Turnout in Canada

This afternoon I have been doing some reading about parliamentary reform and the 'democratic deficit.' One of the authors drew attention to the declining rates of voter turnout that we have been witnessing in recent years throughout much of the Western world since WWII.

While it is pretty clear that we have seen something of a drop in voter turnout in Canada over the past few elections. But I was curious what the picture looked like if we went back to to 1867, would the decline look as significant?

Source: Elections Canada.

So if we go back to 1867 and look at turnout from this point forward it looks as though the drop is not quite as significant as if we decide to start looking at turnout in 1950s. Maybe instead of just looking at the decline we have seen from the all-time high era we might also consider trying to figure out why we saw an increase in this era.

Score
Cameron 35
Neil 0