Electoral reform | The longest election committee is delighted with the result of the elections

(Ottawa) A group that tries to encourage an electoral reform by creating very long voting ballots shouts victory in the face of this week’s elections, even if its detractors accuse it of engaging in maneuvers that weaken democracy.

“It’s a success,” celebrated Mark Moutter, one of the dozens of protest candidates who presented themselves in the district of Carleton, in Ottawa.

“I have never seen anyone considering electoral reform with so much optimism. »»

The “longest ballot committee” began to target the constituencies in 2021 by appointing several people as candidates, some of whom live in other provinces, in order to guarantee extremely long ballots.

The declared objective of the committee is to arouse a national debate on electoral reform. He says he wants a citizen assembly to be responsible for developing a new electoral system and maintains that political parties hesitate to make the government more representative of a diversified electorate. During the general elections on Monday, the Committee targeted the district of Carleton, previously held by the conservative chief Pierre Hairyvre, and presented 85 of the 91 candidates registered on the ballot.

Elections Canada has printed voting bulletins almost 97 centimeters long, comprising two columns of names. He also had to start an early counting of anticipation ballots in order to reduce delays in the constituency, which recorded an impressive participation rate of almost 82 %.

The organization had indicated before the election that the counting of these huge bulletins could take three times more time and require more ballotens than conventional ballots.

“Striping a bulletin like the one we saw in Carleton actually takes more time,” wrote Matthew McKenna, Canada Elections spokesperson.

The organization did not specify Wednesday the impact of long bulletins on the counting in the constituency, which continued until the first hours on Tuesday. The constituency associations of the three main parties did not provide any of their scrutiners for an interview.

Tomas Szuchewycz, spokesperson for the longest election committee, said they also intended to appoint several candidates in the neighboring district where Liberal chief Mark Carney was seeking the votes. He explained that they had “lacked time” because he was not clear at the start who would win the leadership of the Liberal Party or where they would present themselves.

“This unique campaign was very funny and we would like to thank again all the volunteers, candidates and sympathizers who allowed the longest election of this year,” Szuchewycz wrote in a press release, saying that the committee’s efforts stimulated the interest in the electoral reform.

Not all perceived as positive

Politicologist Jon Pammett, from Carleton University and supporter of the electoral reform, said doubt that the long ballots strengthen support for the cause.

“It’s a bit annoying. It’s annoying, he explained. We can draw people’s attention this way. But how to move from there to discussions on electoral reform is a more complex aspect. »»

Mr. Pammett expects that Élections Canada offers measures to make the accumulation of ballots more difficult with so many candidates.

In 2017, the Trudeau government chose not to challenge a decision of an Alberta court which declared unconstitutional to demand candidates for a federal seat which they first file a deposit – worth $ 1,000 at the time. The complainant in this case was Mr. Szuchewycz’s brother, Kieran.

The longest election committee carried out a campaign during a by -election in Montreal last September, under the direction of the chief of the satirical Rhinoceros. The ballot for Lasalle – Émard – Verdun included 91 names, including 79 partners in the committee.

Last June, the results of a by -election in Toronto – ST. Paul’s Paul’s polling stations were blocked for hours after the registration of 84 candidates, including 77 linked to the longest committee.

The director general of elections, Stéphane Perrault, took the committee for target last November. He told a committee of the House of Commons that extremely long voting ballots delay the count and suggested that the persons signing several candidacy declarations are sanctioned.

Mr. Perrault added that long ballots also pose problems for certain disabled people and may require smaller fonts, “further aggravating accessibility problems”.

Monday’s major voting bulletin was noticed on social media and inspired conspiracy theories saying that the project had been financed by the opponents of Mr. Hairyvre.

The Committee said it had suffered similar criticism from liberal supporters when it presented several candidates for the Winnipeg-Center-Sud of 2023.

Electoral reform

Mr. Moutter’s group explained that he was trying to make the electoral reform better known, because the project did not experience any real advance in Parliament.

He stressed that the constituencies where the count took the most time were not targeted by his group. According to Mr. Moutter, the absence of preferential elections during the general elections is what makes elections tightly difficult to predict. “The current system, against which we fight, is what extends the elections currently,” he said.

Mr. Pammett has adopted an opposite point of view, claiming that the electoral systems that supporters of electoral reform consider more democratic tend to cause much longer votes accounts.

He said it is possible to modify the electoral systems by referendum, such as the 1993 New Zealand plebiscite.

But Mr. Pammett, who sat in the assembly of citizens of Ontario on electoral reform in 2006, said that it takes years of concerted efforts to arouse sufficient public interest to organize a referendum, such as the plebiscite of 2018 in British Columbia, which only recorded 39 % support for the transition to proportional representation.

The public often needs a striking example of failure of an electoral system, such as the absence of a siege of a popular party, to constitute a critical mass of opinions in favor of electoral reform, he argued.

Mr. Moutter said he had presented himself in the Montreal by last fall in last fall – the first federal election at which he was the age of voting – after having heard of advocacy actions carried out elsewhere by the longest election committee.

“This is the possibility of getting involved for the first time and talking about an electoral reform that motivated me,” he said. This is something that really fascinates me, and I hope to improve democracy. »»