Canada Police Execute Search Warrant over Election Results

Anonymous Coward writes "According to this article from the Vancouver Sun, a Canadian man's home was raided Friday by police because he posted the results of the Canadian election on his website. What is this world coming to when publishing the truth has become a crime? Is it only a matter of time before laws like this one creep south into the United States?" It's an interesting question. (See previous story.) The government certainly has a strong interest in trying to create a fair elections process, but perhaps this is a bit overzealous. It's worth noting that the news agencies in the United States are withdrawing from the exit-polling association that they formed many years ago to conduct coordinated exit polls after major elections (and embargo the results until the polls close), so the next U.S. election may see a hodge-podge of advance reporting as well.

Comments

Elections Canada is being stupid.

[gwyrdd benyw]

The problem is arising quite simply because the polls close in the eastern provinces a few hours before they close in the west, and the ratings-hungry media insist on publishing the polling data as soon as some polls are closed.

Because there's a 4.5 hour time difference between east and west, it isn't necessarily realistic to expect all the polls to close at once. However, it would be quite simple to prevent the media from publishing *any* polling results until all the polls across the country were closed. We are ending up in a mess because local media in the east is reporting results, but national broadcast of this data is prohibited - obviously difficult to enforce, and also considered censorship, curtailment of liberty, yadda yadda.

So, Elections Canada should simply not release any data regarding the vote count until all the polls are closed. However, the media will still want to use exit polling data in their broadcasts - since this also pretty much counts as "polling results", these should not be published either - but then we get into the same censorship issue. So, we're back to the tradeoffs between individual liberty and the good of the society as a whole...

Can't you read?

[mindstrm]

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society

THat means that, if it serves the interests of democracy and justice, these rights can be changed in certain situations.

You can jail someone. That takes away several of their freedoms... but it serves society and justice.

The law this man broke is there *specifically* to ensure a fair election process. He broke it. What's the problem?

Re:The myth of dangerous information

[alienmole]

What is the legitimate relevance to the public of intermediate election results?

Simple: it allows citizens to make a fully-informed choice about how they vote. After all, unless you also plan to ban polling prior to the election, these days people usually have a pretty good idea of how their countrymen are planning to vote. It's not possible (nor desirable!) to prevent people from planning their vote strategically. Deliberately withholding information either before or during an election is unlikely to be beneficial to the overall process.

This is closely related to your concern about, in effect, the "anonymity" of an entire state or province's vote. The availability of intermediate results would allow people even in the earliest time zones to consider the actions of their fellow citizens when voting. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, the only reason publicizing intermediate results can be considered bad, is if you've chosen to attempt to suppress the overall results. One bad decision leads to another, until the whole package appears somehow inevitable. In fact, it is inevitable: the result of the initial bad decision to try to suppress information.

My concern with suppressing information of this kind is this: by encouraging governments to believe that laws which suppress information are beneficial, and by encouraging citizens to believe that such laws are benign, we create paternalistic governments, governments which don't think twice about hiding information from their citizens, governments that ultimately are dangerous. Election Canada's actions against Paul Bryan, searching his apartment, seizing his hard disks, and forcing him to legally defend his actions, are an example of what I'm talking about.

To justify withholding of information, there has to be a concern of overriding importance being addressed. National security, for example, is used as such a justification. But in the case of elections, there is no such justification. I don't see how it can be argued that knowledge of voting patterns in other areas is such a threat to a nation's integrity, that citizens should have their right to communicate with each other curtailed. As I have briefly argued, I believe the opposite is true: the information is useful to citizens, and should be made available.

I thought the other reply to your message raised an interesting point about the effect of the election on the Canadian dollar. This reminded me of another context in which free information is important: markets. I think one can draw a parallel between voting and economic markets: the value of your vote, and the value of a given candidate, doesn't exist in isolation, but rather is highly dependent on what everyone else is doing. A vote is a resource with value; you want to utilize that resource in the way that does most good. Just as you might choose not to buy shares in a company whose share price is plummeting, you might choose not to vote for a candidate who is losing badly, and instead vote for a candidate you believe has a chance of winning. This is a valid choice, and it is not up to governments to withhold this choice from their citizens.

I think you contradict yourself somewhat when on the one hand you say "The only 'correct' vote is the vote for your conscience, and the only 'wasted' vote is one against it", and on the other hand you say "The very fact that you don't know how other people are voting forces you to consider your vote more carefully". Does one's conscience change because of knowing about other people's votes? Or are you suggesting that knowing about other people's votes is a "temptation" which leads them astray from their consciences? And thus, to the conclusion that people cannot be trusted with the information, which is exactly what disturbs me?