Slashdot Mirror
Defying Canada's Internet Election Gag Law
Snocone writes: "On Sept. 11 Canada had two byelections for Parliament on opposite sides of the country. Elections Canada banned the posting of the Nova Scotia results on the Internet until the polls closed in British Columbia. AppleLinks has the story of how a retired schoolteacher who defied the law by posting to a Web site in Scotland had his computer seized by the RCMP and how a B.C. developer has now published a site to provide realtime results of the Nov. 27 general elections. However, being a Canadian resident, he risks having his equipment seized in advance of the election. Any non-Canadian residents out there want to volunteer their Webmastering services to Fight the Power? Massive Canadian media coverage guaranteed! :)"
because there is a legitimate reason for the gag law!!! you see, in Canadian elections, when the polls close in Eastern Canada, they are still open in Western Canada. In fact, the time difference means that votes are already being counted in one part of the country before the polls even close in another part. the gag law prevents the results which are known in eastern canada from being transmitted to the west where they could possibly undermine voters' decision making process. the gag law is in effect so as not to undermine democracy!! i am a canadian geek too.... the fact that there is this web designer who thinks he's fighting for his online rights does not understand the issue here. in fact, publishing results before the polls close is not a good idea. from one geek to another dude, don't publish the results until all the polls have closed.
-- This sig is.
...election judges or whatever you call them up there should simply withold the results until *all* the polls are closed. That way there's no need for a gag law, no need for the expense of enforcement and they still don't influence the voters in later time zones.
Duh.
Another alternative would be to simply open and close the polls AT THE SAME TIME all across the country.
Duh.
Ah...but both of those choices require brains capable of logical thought and a little bit of common sense which are features rarely found in the brains of political types. Or is it lacking in Canadians altogether?
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
The swing states are all in EST or CST (Wis, Michigan, Penn, Florida), so assuming that by 8pm CST, all polls in these states have been closed and the votes counted, and assuming no surprises in CA or OR, then the next president could have already been determined, thus effectively nullifying any west coast voted that tries to vote after 6pm their time. Yet we have CA which has moved from Gore to somewhat swinging, and OR where Nader's got hugh forces, and if the race is close, these states could adjust their voting plans to win the race, based on the poll results in the east (Namely, if Bush looks like he's winning, Nader supporters might swing to Gore).
There's no way to effectively have the polls open all at the same time and be fair to all the Americans (most open before 7am and close after 6pm local times to allow commuters to vote), so the better solution would be to keep all broadcasting of election results (both airwaves and internet) to nil until the last polling station in Hawaii is closed - which yes, you won't know the night of election day who won, but this would be fair for all voters across the nation.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I guess the point of announcing the results after the poll is closed is to satisfy the publics anxiety as to who the 'winner' is (someone can correct me if I'm wrong or if it is more complicated than this).
All this fellow in B.C. is doing is spreading these results faster and more convieniently than if they were to travel by other means. I agree that this kind of puts a kink in the democratic process but why should it be illegal to do it in one fashion as opposed to another? If the government wanted to remedy this situation properly it could either decide to make all of the vote counting results available the day after the election or else it could announce them at the same time after all the polls have closed across the country (running the polls at the same time everywhere is unreasonable in that there is a 3.5 hour time difference across Canada and this would make it more difficult to vote in one region as opposed to another - everything needs to be uniform to ensure fairness). As per financial reasons and whatnot I do not really see there being that much at stake if the votes are announced the next morning as most financial institutions are closed by the time the polls close anyways. It's not like we'd need to know that candidate X was going to win so that we could flee the country in time before his regime oppressed us.
UBU
It's already been stated several times that the gag law is important for a country who passes through 5 timezones, and has major logistical problems for getting results up in the sparsely populated North.
Someone has repeatedly suggested closing the polls at the same, arbitrary time after a 24 hour interval, but I don't think that's financially feasible for a country who requires some huge number of polling stations to cover the geographic area, but less than 30 million people. I don't have the stats, but I have a hunch that the per-capita numbers of doing this works out to be more money than enforcing the 3.5 hour gag order.
The federal election is complicated in Canada due to the current 5 party system. Compare to the US: Let's say I lived in California and was for Nader. The East Coast results come before I vote, and I discover that Nader has no hope in hell, and so I change my vote to the lesser of the two evils. But frankly, in the US, it'll be one of the two evils anyway -- 3rd party candidates seldom have a chance.
But in Canada we have 5 federal parties. So vote changing can have a dramatic effect on the election results -- like going Canadian Alliance because the Tories aren't getting seats. <shiver of revulsion>
So why doesn't the Elections Canada defer releasing all the results? My guess is this: up here, we don't vote for the Prime Minister directly: we vote for our local federal representative, and the leader whichever party gets the most seats becomes the PM. It's not the same as the States, where (to my knowledge) you're locally represented in the Federal Government by 2 elected officials (Senator and Rep), and you chose your president separately. Here you vote federally once, and your local rep affects who your PM will be.
So while most of us here seem to agree that it's unfair to let the East Coast results affect the West Coast votes, I also think it's unfair to force the East Coast to wait for the West Coast to finish voting before they can find out who their local federal representative is.
The gag order is a compromise between the local need to know as sooner, and the federal need to know as later.
I can spell. I just can't type.
...but consider me a naive American, at least where Canada is concerned. I don't know any Canadians. The gag order seems to be completely idiotic. Look, here is the data, but you can't report it until later. Huh? Why not just deliver the data later rather than make a law against it and/or trust someone who has an interest in reporting it ASAP? The Canadians(some, perhaps most) seem to accept it as reasonable. Some other news that manages to trickle down here supports this. So...what else am I to think? At least I asked about it.
.sig
BTW, like your
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Except its worse. For various historic reasons, several European countries have a single day of the week that elections may take place (In England it's only on a Thursday. Most countries choose Saturday). This means that for European MP elections, some countries have to wait several days for a result to be published.
I don't see this as a major problem. The results will be published. We know when they will be published. A few days doesn't hurt. A few hours certainly wouldn't.
When I rule there will be no more of this because we will take over Canada first, before moving on to the rest of the world.
Please hurry. As a Canadian, my country affords me endless opportunities for international humiliation with its ill-conceived and protectionist policies.
Wanna see another recent Slashdot article on the erosion of free speech in Canada? Click here.
Anyone know any good American immigration lawyers who'll want to be a part of the massive publicity of a Canadian driving across the border at Niagara Falls and promptly claiming refugee status?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
That belief also explains why the distrust towards the system is not as prevalent in Canadian society compared to the US, where more people think the system is too broken to be fixed.
Oh puh-leease.
Canada, same as the US, never has a party that is representative of any rational person's viewpoint.
Sure, there's the Canadian Alliance (Reform) Party, which is the Christian Right's party. While they'd probably balance the budget, they'd also turn Canada into a religious state. (Wanna live in a religious state? I understand Iran is really nice this time of the year.) Further, I'm not entirely sure that I want a party running the country with their name, the "Canadian Reform Alliance Party". Hmmmm... What are their initials? Didn't they check that name with any marketing focus groups?
The Progressive Conservative party is a vote thrown away: we may be stupid, but we're not stupid enough to have forgotten Mulroney. Besides, they're just the predecessor to the Canadian Alliance.
The Liberal Party racks up the debt, have proven themselves to be thoroughly ineffective, and pushes ill-conceived ideas that are divisive to national unity - things like multiculturalism. If someone immigrates here, I damned well want them to integrate into Canadian society, not to divide it. Refugees coming to Canada should be proudly stickering their 1987 Honda Accords with Canadian flags, not reflective gold "I love Uganda" bumper stickers.
And speaking of dividing Canadian society, we have the Bloc Quebecois. If General Lee were a contemporary Canadian, this would be his party.
Finally, we have the New Democratic Party. They're actually a little left of the small but vocal Socialist Party. The NDP pushes unions to the point where Canadian industry buckles under the strain. Why would you do business in Canada when an NDP government can turn labor laws around so that unskilled Toronto municipal parking attendants make $21/hr?
The situation here is every bit as bad as in the US. In the US, you have 2 channels and nothing on. In Canada, we got the fully-loaded cable-box of politics; like the song goes, "57 channels and nothing on".
All I want is a party of social liberals and fiscal conservatives. People who believe in capitalism, low taxes, freedom of speech, separation of church and state, equal civil rights for everyone. I can't believe I'm the only one who wants that.
At least in the US, there's unity, and a little better balance. Anyone wanna get a Canuck a Green Card? Check out my user bio.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.