SCC ruling on Blackout
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the blackout law, which means on election day one cannot transmit results from one part of the country where the polls are open to where they are closed. Obviously as a blogger this is a disappointment, that being said the SCC was put in a tough position since they could only uphold or stike down the law, not re-write some compromise, which probably explains why it split 5-4.
In this day and age with the internet, I don't think it is realistic to ban the transmission of results from one part of the country to another. The cost of going after every blogger who breaks the rule is too expensive and never mind one in the United States or some foreign country can get around it completely. At the same token I don't believe it is fair for people in Central Canada and Western Canada to be influenced by early results in Atlantic Canada in how they vote. So a better solution is to do one of three things:
1. Hold off on the count until all polls are closed nationwide
2. Stagger voting hours so polls open and close at the same time in all parts of the country
3. Require scrutineers to swear an oath that they won't release the results until all polls close and also Elections Canada would be prohibited from releasing the results of the count until all polls close. This means only the election officials, Elections Canada, and the scrutineers would know the results.
On election day, I will follow the rules and not broadcast any early results although I do plan to find out the results from other sources myself. Considering how difficult it will be to police this, the government should consider making one of the above changes, thereby repealing this outdated law, but at the same time not allowing voters in BC to be influenced by results elsewhere.
In this day and age with the internet, I don't think it is realistic to ban the transmission of results from one part of the country to another. The cost of going after every blogger who breaks the rule is too expensive and never mind one in the United States or some foreign country can get around it completely. At the same token I don't believe it is fair for people in Central Canada and Western Canada to be influenced by early results in Atlantic Canada in how they vote. So a better solution is to do one of three things:
1. Hold off on the count until all polls are closed nationwide
2. Stagger voting hours so polls open and close at the same time in all parts of the country
3. Require scrutineers to swear an oath that they won't release the results until all polls close and also Elections Canada would be prohibited from releasing the results of the count until all polls close. This means only the election officials, Elections Canada, and the scrutineers would know the results.
On election day, I will follow the rules and not broadcast any early results although I do plan to find out the results from other sources myself. Considering how difficult it will be to police this, the government should consider making one of the above changes, thereby repealing this outdated law, but at the same time not allowing voters in BC to be influenced by results elsewhere.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 2:29 PM
2 Comments:
They've tried 2, but it's too hard with us spanning 4 1/2 timezones. The current staggered pattern they've used gives us about an hour from Atlantic to eastern and another hour or so to the West (basically making them end earlier).
I'd say the best bet is to keep the staggered pattern and just only release results when everything closes. I mean, not like the fact that people have to wait until 10pm ET to get early election results vs. getting them slowly roll in from 8 until 10 really makes a difference.
uwhabs - I think your idea of only releasing results once all are counted works. What I don't support is allowing the results to be released in some parts of Canada, but not others as controlling this information is next to impossible with the internet today.
Staggered voting hours still could work with Atlantic Canada voting 2 hours before everyone else, while Ontario and Quebec would close at the same time as BC (they are only 30 minutes later in BC). Since Atlantic Canada has only 32 seats, I don't think that is likely to influence how people will vote in BC. What matters is that people in BC don't know how Central Canada has voted since it contains over half of the seats.
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