Canada: Expatriates’ Voting Rights Decision To Be Appealed By Tories | Canadian Press

A court decision that handed the right to vote to more than one million Canadians who have lived outside the country for more than five years will be appealed, the Conservative government said Monday. In addition, Ottawa said it would seek a stay of the ruling, dashing hopes some expatriates might have had of voting in the byelections scheduled for the end of the month. “Non-residents should have a direct and meaningful connection to Canada and to their ridings in order to vote in federal elections,” Pierre Poilievre, minister of state responsible for democratic reform, said in a statement. “For over two decades, Canada’s policy has limited to five years the length of time someone can be abroad and still vote. That is fair and reasonable.”

Canada: Switch to e-voting still an issue in Brockton | The Post

Some Brockton residents are upset with council’s decision to go with electronic voting in the municipal election this fall. Council has approved a contract with Dominion Voting to provide telephone and Internet voting at a cost of $1.70 for each 7,600 potential voters. Pauline Gay and Barb Klages left last Monday’s council meeting critical of council’s decision. They want the municipality to stick with paper ballots. “I’m disappointed because they don’t seem to consider the security of my computer if I choose to vote with it . . . and there is no way to do a valid recount with an electronic vote,” said Klages. During the meeting council heard from former IBM employee and computer scientist Barbara Simons, who addressed council by teleconference from California. She cited cost, lack of security and the inability to have a recount in a close election as reasons to reject electronic voting. She also said Internet voting doesn’t increase voter participation.

Canada: Both sides claim victory as Fair Elections Act clears the Commons | Montreal Gazette

Late Tuesday, MPs stood in the House of Commons to vote on third reading of Bill C-23, sending it to the Senate, which is expected to speedily pass it, leaving only the formality of royal assent. On Thursday, when the government brought in time allocation to limit debate on the bill, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre declared victory. “The Canadian people widely support this bill,” he said. “It is a very popular piece of legislation. We won the debate on it and now we will pass it into law.” On Monday, the NDP said they won the debate, rallying opposition to C-23, forcing the government to accept changes. “What was at the beginning a very bad bill is simply today only a bad bill,” NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said. Either way, the long, strange process by which the Fair Elections Act — or Unfair Elections Act, as the opposition calls it — is coming to an end, and the most significant piece of legislation in this session is about to be law, not quite as either side intended.

Canada: Controversial election bill expected to pass Tuesday | Ottawa Citizen

The House of Commons is poised to pass contentious legislation Tuesday that will overhaul Canada’s election law — a move the governing Conservatives defend as sensible but which the opposition says is designed to keep the Tories from being caught cheating in the 2015 election. The so-called Fair Elections Act is certain to pass third reading in the Commons because Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories hold a majority in the chamber. MPs were expected to spend much of Monday voting on proposed amendments, including 45 from the government itself, after experts and the opposition heavily criticized the original bill. After the House passes it, the bill will go to the Senate, where the Conservatives also hold a majority, and where it is expected to be given a relatively quick review before being approved. But the political consequences for Harper could be long-lasting, as his critics continued on Monday to allege that the Tories are trying to rig the electoral system in their favour.

Canada: Conservative Senators to support amended elections overhaul bill | Hill Times

Conservative Senators plan to support the government’s recent amendments to the Fair Elections Act when it reaches the Senate later this week for what is likely to be a swift passage of the controversial electoral reform legislation. Conservative Senate Whip Elizabeth Marshall told The Hill Times that there were concerns within the Conservative Senate caucus before the bill was amended by the Procedure and House Affairs Committee earlier this month, but she’s hearing a lot less dissent over the legislation now that it’s headed for the Upper Chamber. “The Senators were talking before the hearings, but compared to what I heard before the report, and what I heard after… it’s subsided now with the [Senate] report, but I would expect that when the bill comes if there are any other issues or concerns they’ll be raised, because the Senators do tend to speak quite freely amongst ourselves if we have concerns,” Sen. Marshall said in an interview.

Canada: Federal lawyers tell Supreme Court that existing voter ID laws are effective | The Globe and Mail

A previous round of Conservative voter identification rules enacted in 2007 effectively met Parliament’s need for electoral integrity without being too strict, federal lawyers argue in a brief to the Supreme Court. The attorney general’s submission to the country’s top court comes as the Harper government moves to further tighten voting restrictions under its controversial Fair Elections Act. The legislation – also known as Bill C-23 – marks the second time the Conservatives have moved on what they perceive to be an issue of voter fraud, and it comes while their first round of reforms is still being legally contested.

Canada: Long-term expat Canadians win voting rights | The Canadian Press

More than one million Canadians living abroad are now eligible to cast ballots in the next federal election after a court struck down a law stripping them of their voting rights. While mass murderers have the right to vote, long-term expats “who care deeply about Canada” do not have the right, Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Penny said in his decision. Penny found part of the Canada Elections Act, which bars expatriates who have lived abroad for more than five years from voting, is unconstitutional. “The (government) essentially argues that allowing non-residents to vote is unfair to resident Canadians because resident Canadians live here and are, on a day-to-day basis, subject to Canada’s laws and live with the consequences of Parliament’s decisions.”

Canada: Fair Elections Act back on fast track after 45 amendments submitted | The Globe and Mail

The divisive Fair Elections Act has resumed its fast-track passage through Parliament, after the federal government submitted 45 changes in a bid to quell opposition to the bill. The amendments were submitted to the committee and obtained by The Globe as MPs returned Monday from a two-week break, and are among roughly 275 presented by MPs of all parties. They all must be considered and voted on by Thursday evening – a short window that all but guarantees only cursory consideration of many changes. The government’s 45 proposed amendments include backing down on both the elimination of vouching and a proposed campaign-finance change that critics said would have opened loophole. They also include elements that raise new questions – strengthening a new limit on the Chief Electoral Officer’s term, by saying no CEO can be reappointed after a 10-year term, and making no mention of a previous promise to back down on expanding partisan appointments of poll workers.

Canada: Limited Internet & telephone voting available for Toronto municipal election | 680News

Limited Internet and telephone voting will be available for Toronto’s upcoming municipal election, but only for residents with disabilities. The city said Thursday that the service will be available during advance voting from Oct. 14-19. “We are very excited to be conducting this pilot project,” city clerk Ulli Watkiss said in a statement. “It is important that our electoral services are accessible and create positive voting experiences for all. By providing greater choices we are working to make voting more accessible to persons with disabilities.”

Canada: Elections watchdog halts robocalls probe | Toronto Star

The federal Conservative Party says it stands vindicated by Canada’s top elections watchdog after a three-year probe failed to produce evidence of a deliberate or widespread conspiracy to suppress votes through the use of automated or live robocalls in May 2011. However opposition critics say Yves Côté’s conclusion does not clear the governing party and only highlights the need for more investigative powers for the Commissioner of Canada Elections. Côté released a report Thursday after an exhaustive investigation into “deceptive communications,” or robocalls, that occurred across Canada in the last federal election and directed voters to the wrong poll station. The commissioner said that beyond the riding of Guelph — where a separate investigation is ongoing and one Conservative staffer, Michael Sona, has been charged — the complaints were “thinly scattered” across the country and no pattern or deliberate attempt to mislead voters could be determined.

Canada: Tories open to amending elections bill, except for voter ID requirement | The Globe and Mail

The final version of the government’s electoral reform bill will require all voters to show identification before they vote, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre pledged, adding the Conservatives are nonetheless open to other changes. Speaking to an Economic Club of Canada audience in Ottawa on Thursday, the minister addressed one of the most hotly debated aspects of the proposed Fair Elections Act, saying average Canadians believe it is “common sense” to require that voters present ID – essentially, that vouching isn’t good for democracy. “We are open to improvements to this bill, and very soon the government will make clear which amendments it will support,” Mr. Poilievre told the luncheon guests. “But let me be clear on this point: The Fair Elections Act, in its final form, will require every single voter produce ID showing who they are before they vote.”

Canada: Fair Elections Act: Vouching is ‘problematic,’ Conservative Senator Linda Frum says | CTV News

A Conservative senator on the committee recommending changes to the controversial Fair Elections Act says she is convinced that vouching is “problematic,” and that alternatives to proof of identification must be found. A Senate committee made up primarily of Conservative members earlier this week recommended nine changes to the Harper government’s Fair Elections Act — an electoral reform bill proposed by Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre. But the committee did not recommend changes to one of Bill C-23’s most-controversial provisions, which would eliminate the practice of vouching — where one person can vouch for another if they don’t have proper ID — and the use of voter cards as a way for voters to prove their identity. “In our Senate report, we didn’t touch those provisions; we stood by them, we agree,” Senator Linda Frum told CTV’s Question Period. Frum said it is “reasonable” to ask voters to produce identification and proof of residence. “I’ve heard all the statements about how that can be difficult in some instances, but frankly, I think for most Canadians, it’s not problematic.”

Canada: Brockton Review for Internet Voting | Bayshore Broadcasting

Councillor Chris Peabody is concerned about the safety of internet voting. Peabody says he has been in contact with two computer specialists from M.I.T and Yale who feel the same way. After reviewing Brockton’s yet to be signed contract with Dominion Voting, Peabody says these experts have identified a number of concerns — including the fact Dominion Voting does not allow a third party to challenge the system.

Canada: Senators recommend nine major changes to controversial elections bill | Vancouver Sun

The Harper government is getting some serious push-back from Conservative senators on its controversial overhaul of elections laws, with a Senate committee unanimously recommending nine major changes to the legislation. In an interim report to be tabled Tuesday, the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee recommends that the government drop provisions to muzzle the chief electoral officer and the elections commissioner, The Canadian Press has learned. It also recommends removing another provision which electoral experts have said would give an unfair, potentially huge, financial advantage to established parties — particularly the ruling Conservatives — during election campaigns.

Canada: Senate panel sets up confrontation with Harper on Elections Act | The Globe and Mail

In a rare exercise of power, a Senate committee is pushing back against Stephen Harper’s Conservative government by unanimously recommending changes to the Fair Elections Act, an overhaul of electoral law that is fiercely opposed by other parties. The Senate report, which will be made public this week, amounts to a warning shot from the embattled Senate. The move is not binding, but it raises the threat of the Senate changing the bill itself if the House of Commons ignores its recommendations before passing Bill C-23. The Senate committee, two-thirds of whose members are Conservatives appointed by Mr. Harper, heard from a broad range of experts last week, the vast majority of whom called for substantial changes to the deeply divisive bill. Now the senators are set to recommend, unanimously, specific amendments.

Canada: Pierre Poilievre attacks head of Elections Canada | Toronto Star

As criticism of the Conservatives’ electoral reform bill continues to mount, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre launched an attack on Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.
Poilievre said Tuesday that Mayrand, the independent head of Elections Canada appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is criticizing the so-called Fair Elections Act out of a desire for more power. “The reality is that regardless of amendments and improvements that the bill potentially will have included, the CEO will not ultimately approve it,” Poilievre said.
“(Mayrand’s) recommendations really boil down to three broad requirements for him: he wants more power, a bigger budget, and less accountability.” Poilievre also accused Mayrand of “grasping at straws” and making “astounding” claims about Bill C-23 in an attempt to scuttle the legislation. Poilievre was asked to take back his comments in the House of Commons Tuesday. He declined, saying he stood by his testimony.

Canada: Elections bill ‘exacerbates’ lack of privacy, political parties micro-target voters more | Hill Times

MPs may be federal law-makers, but there are no laws restricting how political parties can collect or use personal information about voters in Canada, and with the development of micro-targeting techniques, information is more important than ever in politics, however, parties aren’t working to close this legislative gap out of “self-interest,” say experts. “It’s in parties’ self-interest to not be covered by these particular rules and regulations [privacy laws]. They want to be able to collect information and not have to worry about abiding by rules and standards … there’s no reason whatsoever that political parties shouldn’t play by the same rules as businesses and government institutions,” said Jonathon Penney, an associate law professor at Dalhousie University with a focus on intellectual property and information security issues, in an interview last week with The Hill Times. “There’s a real incentive I think for parties to collect more information, because the richer the information, the better your analytics will be, the more you can micro-target, the more you can segment your voter base and shape an individual message to target specific voters for specific reasons, and your electoral strategies and your voter messaging is going to be that much better the richer and deeper and more detailed your information is about the electorate,” he said.

Canada: Governments wary of going digital with elections | Montreal Gazette

We use the Internet for just about everything these days. … The concept of e-voting — whether it be casting a ballot via the phone or Internet or using electronic vote-counters at a polling station — is hardly novel. Officials across Canada began experimenting with this kind of technology when computers still weighed 30 pounds and took up most of the space on your desk. But early and repeated failures have made many jurisdictions — including Quebec — wary of handing control of any part of the democratic process over to a machine. “We’re not anywhere near (introducing any form of e-voting) for the moment,” Elections Quebec spokesperson Stephanie Isabel told The Gazette on Friday. “There’s an internal committee here that is doing analysis and studying this, but there is no project envisioned.” The trepidation is perhaps understandable. Even as technology has improved in recent years, the foul-ups have continued. The most recent example came during the NDP’s national leadership convention in 2012, when the Internet-based voting process was marred by allegations of a possible denial-of-service attack, in which a hacker overwhelms a server with requests and causes it to crash.

Canada: Court battle begins over McGill students’ voting rights | CBC

The case of five McGill University students who were refused the right to vote in the Quebec election went before the court Thursday morning and should be decided on by Friday. Constitutional lawyer Julius Grey requested an emergency injunction to allow the students to vote because Thursday was the last day to make revisions to the list of electors before Quebecers go to the polls on Monday. Because the students will only find out after the revision deadline whether they can vote or not, a legal mechanism could be used to permit them to vote in the event that the judge rules in their favour. But the lawyer for the director general of elections argued that the revisors have some judicial and authoritative powers, and ruling against them could call into question the entire voter registration system.

Canada: Blind voters could also be disenfranchised under feds’ elections law overhaul | The Hill Times

Advocates for the blind and marginalized Canadians with a range of disabilities warned MPs Tuesday the government’s plan to legislate an end to vouching in federal elections would prevent many of the people they represent from being able to vote. Leaders from the Canadian Institute of the Blind, which lends support and volunteer services to tens of thousands of blind or partially sighted citizens, and an advocate with People First called on the Conservative government to amend key sections of controversial election legislation they said would heighten ballot box hurdles that their members and clients already face. The testimony came as a House of Commons committee hearing witnesses on Bill C-23 began a rush to jam in as many witnesses as possible in the two weeks remaining before a government-imposed May 1 deadline for the committee to complete its business and send the bill back to the House for final passage.

Canada: Elections changes impact half million voters | The Canadian Press

The Harper government’s overhaul of federal election rules could make it difficult for more than half a million voters to exercise their constitutional right to a ballot, says the author of a report that’s been used to justify the crackdown. “Either amend it or pull it,” Harry Neufeld said of Bill C-23 — dubbed the Fair Elections Act — after appearing before a parliamentary committee Thursday. Neufeld, the former British Columbia chief electoral officer, was just one of five non-partisan experts in electoral process to tell MPs the legislation requires some major fixes. In fact all five witnesses said the bill, as written, would do more harm than good to Canadian democracy.

Canada: Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Election bill puts right to vote at risk | CBC

A change proposed by the Conservatives in their new election bill would “directly affect” some Canadians’ right to vote, former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley said Tuesday. Abolishing the process of vouching, which serves as proof of a voter’s identification, “will impact very negatively on the values of participation, impartiality and transparency,” Kingsley told a committee of MPs. “This will directly affect the constitutional right to vote of a significant number of Canadians without justification.” “Please. Please do not get rid of it,” he said.

Canada: No irregular activity or vote stealing says Quebec’s Chief Electoral Officer | Global News

The elections office in Quebec is throwing cold water on a theory put forward by the Parti Quebecois on Sunday that students from elsewhere in Canada could be trying to steal the provincial election. The PQ expressed concern about media reports that an influx of English-speakers and other non-francophones from outside the province were trying to vote in the April 7 election. By late afternoon, however, the province’s chief electoral officer brought forward numbers showing there were no signs of an irregular increase in voter registration.

Canada: Faltering Parti Québécois fears voters from outside province are trying to steal election | The Globe and Mail

The Parti Québécois is trying to bolster a faltering campaign with a new wedge issue on Quebec identity, accusing Ontarians and other Canadians from outside Quebec of trying to steal the provincial election. PQ Leader Pauline Marois went to a sugar shack and left the main campaign spotlight to three of her candidates Sunday. They held a news conference at PQ headquarters to demand an investigation over an influx of voters – frequently young anglophone university students – who are trying to register for the April 7 vote. “Will the Quebec election be stolen by people from Ontario and the rest of Canada?” said Bertrand St-Arnaud, the Justice Minister and PQ candidate in Chambly. “The coming week is crucial for democracy.”

Canada: Director General debunks Parti Quebecois complaint, says voter registration requests are down | CTV

Quebec election officials are debunking the notion that voter registration requests are up since the 2012 election, as Denis Dion, a spokesman for the electoral office, told CTV Montreal that only one of five ridings cited by the Parti Quebecois has seen a rise in demands to vote. One of the five ridings had 56 more requests over this time in the last election, while the others were significantly down. The Parti Quebecois had asked the Director General of Elections to take action concerning reports of unusual voter registration requests in three Montreal-area ridings and two others in the Eastern Townships. Justice Minister Bertrand Saint-Arnaud, MNA Leo Bureau-Blouin and Families Minister Nicole Leger demanded stricter supervision and training for election officials determining voter eligibility, daily reports on voter registration and a post-revision report.

Canada: Glitches in electronic voting system concern mayor | Gananoque Reporter

Mayor Frank Kinsella said he was ready to endorse electronic voting for the next election in the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands until a couple of Sundays ago. That’s when the mayor tried to vote for Prescott to be named “Hockeyville” in the national competition run by Kraft. Kinsella said he went through the prompts on the telephone, but at the end, the computer cut him off without recording his vote. If a computer system run by the multinational Kraft has glitches and cannot record votes properly, then how can we trust a small company to run the municipal vote in the TLTI, Kinsella wondered at last week’s council meeting. Clerk Vanessa Latimer recommended that the township contract Intelivote at a cost of about $28,000 to run telephone and electronic voting for the next municipal election on Oct. 27. Intelivote is the company selected by a number of towns and townships in Leeds and Grenville, including Gananoque, which sent out a joint tender call. But Intelivote is also the company that ran electronic voting for the TLTI for the 2010 election, which was plagued by bugs and glitches in the system.

Canada: Neufeld says more than 100,000 to be disenfranchised under feds’ election bill, will testify at House Affairs Committee next week | Hill Times

The opposition parties have former B.C. elections chief Harry Neufeld at the top of their witness lists for testimony on proposed Conservative election law after he warned that “well over 100,000” electors will be denied their right to vote if the government goes ahead with plans to prohibit voter vouching for electors with no official ID. Mr. Neufeld, who conducted an exhaustive review of electoral law and rule compliance in the 2011 election, has challenged the government’s position that widespread irregularities he found in the way vouching was administered on election day were indicative of potential fraud, as well as the government claim that an Elections Canada voter information card is too unreliable to be also used by voters who have insufficient ID to prove their residence. Elimination of the two voter identification methods are among the most controversial aspects of Bill C-23, and are also on a list of measures in the legislation that the opposition says could benefit the Conservative party the most because electors who generally use either vouching or the information cards—which Elections Canada had planned to approve as official residence ID for the next election—have tended to support parties other than the Conservatives.

Canada: St. John’s to ask Newfoundland to allow Internet voting | The Telegram

The City of St. John’s will ask the province to allow online voting in municipal elections. At Tuesday’s regular meeting, city council approved a recommendation from its audit and accountability committee to ask the provincial government to amend the Municipal Elections Act to allow Internet voting. The recommendation grew out of a broader review of the municipal elections process. “The recommendation of the committee was that we would seek support, or guidance, or permission from the provincial government to allow us to look at Internet voting,” said Deputy Mayor Ron Ellsworth. City clerk Neil Martin explained that an amendment to provincial legislation would be necessary to allow a community to permit online voting, much like one was required to allow voting by mail. …  Two councillors — Art Puddister and Wally Collins — said the potential risks of online voting are too great to ask the provincial government for the legislative amendment.

Canada: Scholars denounce Conservatives’ proposed Fair Elections Act | The Globe and Mail

The Conservative government’s Fair Elections Act threatens Canada’s global reputation as a “guardian of democracy and human rights,” a group of international researchers says. The open letter, provided to The Globe and Mail, comes from 19 professors from universities in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and Ireland. The letter lays out objections to the government bill to overhaul Canada’s electoral laws. “We believe that this Act would prove [to] be deeply damaging for electoral integrity within Canada, as well as providing an example which, if emulated elsewhere, may potentially harm international standards of electoral rights,” the scholars write in the letter. In particular, the changes would “undermine the integrity of the Canadian electoral process, diminish the effectiveness of Elections Canada, reduce voting rights, expand the role of money in politics and foster partisan bias in election administration,” they write.

Canada: Author of elections report cited by Poilievre contradicts minister on voter fraud | CBC

The author of a report cited repeatedly to justify cracking down on potential voter fraud says the Harper government is misrepresenting his report and ignoring his recommendations. Indeed, Harry Neufeld says there’s not a shred of evidence that there have been more than “a handful” of cases of deliberate voter fraud in either federal or provincial elections. “I never said there was voter fraud,” Neufeld said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “Nor did the Supreme Court, who looked at this extremely carefully.” Neufeld said the government’s efforts to prevent voter fraud are aimed at a non-existent problem. And he predicted they’ll wind up disenfranchising thousands of voters and resulting in a rash of court challenges.