Etobicoke Riding Election Results

Keepitsimple · July 11, 2012

Perhaps I missed something but I haven't heard or seen much play on this. Certainly all the articles leading up to the imminent Supreme Court decision don't mention it. Seems most of the disqualified votes were valid after all and probably fall into the category of people moving in or out of the riding - which is going to happen in any election. Point is, they are Canadians and voted with the best of intentions.

Elections Canada has made a last-minute motion to file new evidence to the Supreme Court of Canada in Conservative MP Ted Opitz's appeal of an April court decision that overturned the federal election result in Etobicoke Centre.......
Elections Canada has found that 44 of the voters who were disqualified in the court hearing are in fact on the National Register of Electors, a permanent and constantly updated list of all 24 million potential voters in Canada......

Elections Canada has filed a chart with the Supreme Court, showing that 44 of the 52 people whose ballots were discarded due to missing registration certificates are on the National Register of Electors, which means they are Canadian citizens and qualified to vote.

Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/07/05/pol-etobicoke-centre-opitz-wzresnewskyj-elections-canada.html

cybercoma · July 11, 2012

It doesn't matter, imo. The procedural rules are in place and must be followed by Elections Canada officials to maintain and ensure the integrity and fairness of the electoral process. They may have shown up with the best intentions and were not fraudulent voters, but the fact that paid employees of Elections Canada did not follow the proper procedures to such an extent that the number of improperly handled cases could have affected the outcome means that the integrity of the process has been compromised. This also opens the door for fraudulent activity to occur in closely contested ridings under the guise of "minor procedural inaccuracies." For the integrity of the electoral process a new vote needs to be called. Personally, I reject the claim that this disenfranchises voters, as they will have the opportunity to return to the polls and vote again.

punked · July 11, 2012

Count every vote. That is my opinion. I know it isn't popular with the left but count every vote. It wasn't these voters fault and it sucks for the Liberals and is awesome for the Cons but we have understand people make mistakes and let these votes count.

cybercoma · July 11, 2012

Count every vote. That is my opinion. I know it isn't popular with the left but count every vote. It wasn't these voters fault and it sucks for the Liberals and is awesome for the Cons but we have understand people make mistakes and let these votes count.

The problem is that if you allow these sorts of "procedural discrepancies" to go ignored, it opens the door for manipulation of the voting process vis-a-vis those discrepancies. This will shake people's confidence in the system. At the same time, you're right. If the votes are thrown out, people can be disenfranchised by a lazy or incompetent employee of Elections Canada and it will shake people's confidence in the system.

This is not an easy case. The SCC has its hands full. I believe they have to allow for some discrepancies, so people's votes won't be ruined by someone not doing their job properly. However, the ruling needs to be tight enough that these kinds of incompetencies will not alter the outcome of an election, so people can maintain their confidence in the system. The threshold, in my opinion of course, should probably set at a point where inconsistencies are allowed, so long as those inconsistencies do not amount to a number of votes that could alter the outcome of the election. If the number of inconsistencies found could potentially alter the result (not necessarily that they would because we can't hunt people down and ask how they would vote), the outcome must be overturned and byelection called for the sake of fairness and integrity.

punked · July 11, 2012

The problem is that if you allow these sorts of "procedural discrepancies" to go ignored, it opens the door for manipulation of the voting process vis-a-vis those discrepancies. This will shake people's confidence in the system. At the same time, you're right. If the votes are thrown out, people can be disenfranchised by a lazy or incompetent employee of Elections Canada and it will shake people's confidence in the system.

This is not an easy case. The SCC has its hands full. I believe they have to allow for some discrepancies, so people's votes won't be ruined by someone not doing their job properly. However, the ruling needs to be tight enough that these kinds of incompetencies will not alter the outcome of an election, so people can maintain their confidence in the system. The threshold, in my opinion of course, should probably set at a point where inconsistencies are allowed, so long as those inconsistencies do not amount to a number of votes that could alter the outcome of the election. If the number of inconsistencies found could potentially alter the result (not necessarily that they would because we can't hunt people down and ask how they would vote), the outcome must be overturned and byelection called for the sake of fairness and integrity.

I think by tightening voting procedure you run the problem of disenfranchising people on the other end of the spectrum. EC tells us now at least 40 of the 70 some odd votes were from people who lived in the ridding and were Canadian Citizens. If that means only 30 votes are questioned I am willing to take those Canadians at their word that they live in the ridding and are citizens. Count their votes, I will take 30 mistakes in an election where millions of votes are cast if that means more Canadians can vote, will vote, and it will be easy to vote. I know it is a shitty trade off but it is a trade off to promote voting. I was pissed when they changed the voting rules to tighten procedure when the Cons first came to power. I will not give them an excuse to make it harder for people to vote. That is just me.

cybercoma · July 11, 2012

I'm not actually advocating for a "tightening" of procedure. The letter of the law says that their votes do not count if the paperwork was filled out improperly. That's as tight as it possibly can be. What I'm saying is that there needs to be room for discrepancies. However, not so much room that an election can be manipulated, but hidden as "minor procedural errors." It's about finding a balance, imo.

Keepitsimple · July 12, 2012

Since it's obvious that there was nothing sneaky going on - and everyone seems to have had the right intentions, it would seem the proper way to proceed is to acknowledge that Elections Canada has some work to do to tighten the process - and for them to make some adjustments and do better the next time.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Keepitsimple

wyly · July 13, 2012

I'm not actually advocating for a "tightening" of procedure. The letter of the law says that their votes do not count if the paperwork was filled out improperly. That's as tight as it possibly can be. What I'm saying is that there needs to be room for discrepancies. However, not so much room that an election can be manipulated, but hidden as "minor procedural errors." It's about finding a balance, imo.

without fair electoral process we're no better than a third world country with rigged elections, there is no acceptable "balance" only legitimate or illegitimate...