Canada: British Columbia unveils its proposed question for voters in electoral-reform referendum | The Globe and Mail

British Columbians who participate in an electoral-reform referendum this fall would first be asked whether they want to switch to proportional representation, and then to rank three specific PR systems, the province’s Attorney-General said Wednesday. David Eby said the referendum would be conducted by mail-in ballot, with the campaign to begin July 1 and a voting period to run from Oct. 22 to Nov. 30. But opponents were quick to criticize the vote as overly complicated and to seize on what remains unknown, including what the district boundaries would look like under PR. Mr. Eby’s recommendations still must be approved by cabinet, but he said starting the campaign in less than four weeks can be done.

Canada: Liberals nominate Stephane Perreault as next chief electoral officer | CBC

Stéphane Perrault has been nominated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Canada’s next chief electoral officer. But New Democrats are demanding to know why the government put forward a different nominee just three weeks ago. Marc Mayrand, the previous chief electoral officer, announced in June 2016 that he intended to resign at the end of that year. Perreault, Mayrand’s deputy, has been serving as the acting chief electoral officer since Mayrand’s departure. “I am pleased to announce the nomination of Stéphane Perrault as Canada’s new Chief Electoral Officer,” Trudeau said in a statement. “His experience leading the agency for the last year and a half and administering many by-elections across the country make Mr. Perrault an excellent choice to head Elections Canada.”

Canada: British Columbia’s Chief Electoral Officer suggests pre-registering 16-year-olds | Vancouver Sun

A report from the province’s Chief Electoral Officer is calling for 16- and 17-year-olds to be given the right to pre-register to vote, while also pitching a digitization of the voting process. The teens still wouldn’t be eligible to vote until they are 18, but they would be allowed to have their names added automatically to the voters list when they turn 18. Creating a system where voters can vote at any polling station and all votes are counted on election night is also proposed (PDF). The report suggests service to voters would be improved while making for more efficient staffing and close to real-time disclosure of voter participation data.

Canada: Liberal elections bill looks to make voting easier, tighten rules on privacy, spending | National Post

The federal Liberal government wants to make it easier for Canadians to cast a ballot, while making it harder for political parties — or foreign entities — to violate their privacy or persuade them who to vote for using falsehoods or vast sums of money. Treasury Board President Scott Brison introduced a bill Monday meant to address several promises Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made on the campaign trail, including by tackling how much political parties and third-party advocacy groups can spend before and during election campaigns. It is also meant to buttress the Canadian electoral system against new threats to democracy by reining in the proliferation of so-called fake news and barring any organizations, including social media sites, from knowingly selling election advertising bought with foreign funds.

Canada: Federal act would make hacking to interfere with elections a crime | IT World Canada News

Ottawa will make it clear that hacking into a computer during a federal election period is a criminal offence, foreign states will be forbidden from buying advertising during a federal election period and federal political parties will have to create a policy for protecting personal information in their databases if proposed changes to the Elections Act are approved. These are part of a broad piece of legislation updating the laws overseeing federal elections introduced Monday by the Liberals. They hope to have it passed in time for the scheduled October 2019 vote. The proposals in Bill C-76, called the Election Modernization Act, come amidst a U.S. indictment alleging Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, and a NATO researcher who says Canada should assume Russia will attempt to interfere in the 2019 federal election. In 2017 the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s electronic spy agency which is also responsible for securing government networks, warned in a report that it is “highly probable” cyber activity against democratic processes in other countries will be seen here. 

Canada: Trudeau government proposes major changes to elections law | CBC

The Trudeau government is proposing to limit the length of federal election campaigns, restrict the amount of spending allowed in the period immediately before a campaign and introduce new rules to regulate third-party political activity — all part of a new set of reforms to Canada’s elections laws. Political parties also would be required to disclose how and what information they collect from voters. “The changes we are proposing in this legislation will update the Canada Elections Act to better address the realities facing our democratic institutions in the 21st century,” Scott Brison, acting democratic institutions minister, said Monday afternoon after tabling legislation in the House of Commons. “It will make real, tangible improvements to make elections more efficient, inclusive and effective for all Canadians.”

Canada: Elections Canada braces for cyberrisks as new voter-registration technology is prepared for 2019 election | The Globe and Mail

Elections Canada is working closely with Canadian security officials to address the “real risks” of potential hacking as the agency prepares to roll out new electronic voter-registration technology for the 2019 federal election. Elections Canada has secured commitments from its outside contractor that the Apple iPads deployed at some advance polls will have never been used − and will never be used in the future − in countries outside of Canada’s “Five Eyes” security partners. Internal documents reveal the sensitive discussions taking place inside Elections Canada as it prepares for an election campaign in an era when countries around the world are grappling with allegations of foreign interference and hacking in the democratic process.

Canada: Vancouver council pushes province to allow permanent residents right to vote | Vancouver Courier

Vancouver city council unanimously agreed Wednesday to request the provincial government allow permanent residents—estimated at 60,000 in Vancouver­­–the right to vote in the Oct. 20 municipal election. The vote, however, didn’t come without some reservations from NPA Coun. Elizabeth Ball who argued it was “a gift” to vote and a privilege that comes with being and becoming a Canadian citizen. “Coming to Canada and becoming a citizen is highly coveted all around the world,” she told council. “There are reasons why it’s coveted because we are a civilized society with rules, and those rules allow us all to live together in a relatively happy way.”

Canada: Top court hears plea of Canadians abroad who want to vote | iPolitics

Gill Frank and Jamie Duong, Canadian citizens who have lived in the U.S. for several years, asked the Supreme Court of Canada Wednesday for the right to vote in Canadian federal elections. Under Canadian law, anyone living outside Canada loses voting rights after five years. Frank and Duong were born and raised in Canada, and both say they would like to return if they could find suitable jobs, similar, presumably, to their current positions at Princeton and Cornell universities. Duong is a dual citizen and has voted in U.S. elections. He has also taken advantage of Elections Canada’s recent decision to allow long-term ex-pats to vote in Canada if they appear in person at the voting poll

Canada: Elections Canada prepares to fight fake news, foreign influence in 2019 vote | CBC

Elections Canada is erecting multiple lines of defence to fight fake news, cyber-attacks and foreign interference in next year’s federal election campaign. Democracies around the world are grappling with new threats to democracy in the digital age, from foreign actors tampering with voting systems to the viral spread of disinformation through social media. With the U.S., U.K. and various European countries still reeling over the explosion of fake news on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, acting Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said he believes Canadians are better prepared than many others to spot fake political news after the high-profile 2011 “robocalls” scandal and the recent U.S. presidential election. “I think there was a vigilance that emerged from that situation, and that is also, of course, built on the U.S. situation,” he said.

Canada: Russia online ‘troll farm’ that meddled in U.S. election also targeted Trudeau, Canadian pipelines | The Globe and Mail

The same Russian online troll farm that meddled in the American presidential election has also taken swipes at Canadian targets, including oil infrastructure and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Evidence is embedded in data made publicly available through investigations in the United States, where congressional probes have been examining Russian information campaigns following the 2016 presidential election. One report from a Republican-led committee in the House of Representatives released this month said the St. Petersburg troll factory, members of which now face criminal charges in the U.S., posted online about energy roughly half as often as it did about American presidential politics.

Canada: Supreme Court set to decide whether long-term Canadian expats can vote | Toronto Star

Canada’s top court is set to grapple with whether long-term expats should be allowed to vote, an issue that loomed large in the last federal election in which Justin Trudeau and his Liberals took office. Civil liberties groups, which argue current rules barring the expats from voting are unconstitutional, and Quebec, which supports the federal government’s defence of the restrictions, are among interveners in the closely watched case the Supreme Court of Canada is scheduled to hear on Wednesday. Canadians lose the right to vote after living abroad for more than five years under rules on the books since 1993. However, it was only under the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper that Elections Canada began enforcing the laws.

Canada: Doug Ford calls for Ontario PC Party leadership voting to be extended, use of paper ballots | Global News

Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership candidate Doug Ford is calling on the party to extend voting by a week and for the ability for members to vote by paper ballot. “As of right now, close to 100,000 people have not received their PIN number — that’s staggering,” Ford told The Andrew Lawton Show on Global News Radio 980 CFPL Monday afternoon. “I’m calling on the party to make sure that they step up to the plate, and I’m calling the other candidates for them to step up to the plate, and let’s go to the paper ballot for those who haven’t been able to vote.”

Canada: Ex-CIA director says Canada should be concerned about election interference | CTV

The former director of the CIA says Canada should be concerned about potential interference, Russian or otherwise, in the fast-approaching 2019 federal election. “I think any democracy these days needs to be concerned about foreign interference in their elections,” said John Brennan in an exclusive interview with Evan Solomon on CTV’s Question Period. “Canada, like other countries in Europe and throughout the world, need to be mindful that there are individuals in countries out there that are going to try to do them harm, including in their electoral systems,” he said.

Canada: Ontario PC leadership vote opens amid concerns over online process | The Globe and Mail

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives will begin casting their ballots for a new leader on Friday in an online process some candidates are challenging over worries the outcome will be tainted by false memberships and vote-rigging. The campaigns of former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford and political newcomer Caroline Mulroney have flagged concerns with the team running the PC Party’s leadership contest, saying a number of fraudulent memberships could have been purchased in recent weeks with prepaid credit cards. They also say a number of party members are still waiting to receive the paperwork they need to register to vote.

Canada: Why Canada’s low-tech voting system would be hard to sabotage | Globalnews.ca

The basics of what actually happens when Canadians go to vote hasn’t changed in many decades. A human clerk finds the voter on a paper list, crosses her name off with a pen, then gives her a paper ballot to mark by hand. When the polls close, officials count the ballots one by one, tallying them on a sheet of paper, and phone the results in to a returning officer. Voters’ great-great-grandparents would be confused by many aspects of modern life, but not this one. Very little has changed since secret ballots were introduced in 1874. It’s a low-tech 19th-century system that isn’t likely to change anytime soon, in part for 21st-century reasons. The more complex, and electronic, a voting system is, the more vulnerable it is to attack, and the simpler and more paper-based it is, the more secure it is.

Canada: NATO researcher warns of Russian interference in 2019 Canadian election | National Post

A leading NATO researcher says Canada should assume Russia will attempt to interfere in the 2019 federal election because that would serve the Kremlin’s purpose of helping destabilize the military alliance. The allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as well as its attempts to disrupt votes in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, among other countries, makes Canada a natural target, Janis Sarts, the director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence said in an interview. Russia is attracted to Canada because destabilizing it would “undermine the cohesion” of the broader NATO alliance. Moreover, it could serve to undermine Canadian policy in Europe, he said.

Canada: Former MPP says botched online voting system could spell disaster for Ontario PC leadership election | National Post

As if the Ontario Conservatives needed another controversy, a former Tory cabinet minister says glitches with the online voting system for the party’s leadership race could spell disaster, leaving thousands unable to cast a ballot. Frank Klees, a longtime member of provincial parliament who is backing businessman Doug Ford for leader, said Friday that if the problems are not fixed by the time voting starts March 2, the entire party executive should resign. Klees told the National Post he was unable to register to vote online using the secret code sent to him in the mail, and then was told by a party employee that a printing anomaly meant Os appeared as zeroes, Zs as twos and Is as ones.

Canada: P.E.I. Opposition calls for calls for electronic voting, despite security concerns | The Guardian

Opposition Leader James Aylward is calling on government to adopt electronic voting in P.E.I. for the next provincial election, in spite of concerns raised by a panel of independent auditors about the potential for serious security breaches. Aylward issued the call earlier this week via press release, saying electronic voting could be a way to revolutionize democratic accessibility and increase voter engagement. “It’s the way of the future,” he told The Guardian Thursday. … P.E.I.’s 2016 plebiscite on electoral reform was the first province-wide electronic vote ever held in Canada. Because this introduced possible new risks, an independent audit of the results was required by the province’s Plebiscites Act.

Canada: Government stands by its campaign finance law | Toronto Star

The Liberal government is standing by its campaign finance law, which the Working Families coalition of unions is challenging in court as unconstitutional. As first disclosed by the Star, the unions feel the spending limits on election advertising are a violation of “the fundamental right to free expression guaranteed under section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” But Attorney General Yasir Naqvi is confident the law that passed unanimously a little more than a year ago can survive a constitutional challenge. “We believe our rules have achieved that balance and comply with the Charter,” said Naqvi’s press secretary Andrew Rudyk.

Canada: Could Canada fall prey to an election cyberattack? | Macleans

As the potential for cyberattacks to undermine the democratic process becomes alarmingly clear, Canadians can take some comfort in the fact that national elections in this country are still conducted the old-fashioned way. Canada is not immune to cybermischief aimed at suppressing the number of people who vote or manipulating how they vote. But once ballots are cast, not even the most sophisticated cyberattack could tamper with the results. That’s because Canada still relies on paper ballots, hand-marked by voters and hand-counted by officials in some 25,000 different polling stations across the country, under the watchful eye of scrutineers from each of the major political parties.

Canada: Paper ballots protect against hacks, but other election cyberthreats loom | CP24

As the potential for cyberattacks to undermine the democratic process becomes alarmingly clear, Canadians can take some comfort in the fact that national elections in this country are still conducted the old-fashioned way. Canada is not immune to cybermischief aimed at suppressing the number of people who vote or manipulating how they vote. But once ballots are cast, not even the most sophisticated cyberattack could tamper with the results. That’s because Canada still relies on paper ballots, hand-marked by voters and hand-counted by officials in some 25,000 different polling stations across the country, under the watchful eye of scrutineers from each of the major political parties. “It’s highly decentralized and it’s paper-based so documents can be verified easily afterwards,” says Marc Mayrand, Canada’s chief electoral officer until his retirement just over a year ago.

Canada: Democracy Watch pushes Elections Ontario to give voters more info on refusing ballots | Toronto Star

With more Ontarians than ever flexing their non-voting rights, a national democracy watchdog is fighting to get those choosing “none of the above” to the polls this spring. In a letter penned to Elections Ontario this week, Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher threatened to launch a court challenge over allegations that information about declining a ballot was buried on the provincial agency’s website. Citizens who aren’t inspired by any of the choices on the ticket in the June 7 election have the right to formally forfeit their vote, and Elections Ontario will count it separately in the final voter turnout tally.

Canada: Vote tabulators may be used for Calgary 2021 municipal election | Metro Calgary

Calgary could see 2021 voting relief in the form of tabulators, electronic poll books and voter assist terminals after October’s civic election debacle. A report coming to council Monday outlines some of the challenges, including ballot shortages, a crashed website and results that trickled – all leaving citizens frustrated, politicos sweating and the media cursing. Calgary’s returning officer and city clerk, Laura Kennedy, is pushing for a deeper look into modernizing Calgary election system, recommending that her department be tasked with creating a four-year plan leading up to the next civic election.

Canada: Head of NATO tells Canada to gear itself up for Russian cyber threats in 2019 federal election | CBC News

Canada and other NATO countries must do more to counter Russia’s growing and ever-evolving cyber threats, says the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. ​”This is a constantly evolving threat, and we have to constantly adapt,” NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg told CBC Radio’s The House at the Halifax International Security Forum. Stoltenberg says the digital threats come in many forms, and can target anybody. “In some ways, every country is a neighbour of Russia because [a] cyber [threat] recognizes no borders, so you might also say that Canada is a neighbour of Russia,” Estonia’s Defence Minister Jüri Luik told The House in Halifax. That digital proximity, Luik argued, means Canada should not be surprised if Russia attempts to interfere in the 2019 federal election.

Canada: Facebook to launch hotline for hacked Canadian politicians | The Globe and Mail

Facebook Inc. is launching an initiative to help Canadian politicians and parties protect their accounts in the lead-up to the next federal election, while acknowledging the difficulties of policing fake news and misleading ads on its platform. The social-media company will launch a Canadian “election integrity initiative” on Thursday, Kevin Chan, Facebook Canada’s head of public policy, said in an interview. The changes will include an emergency e-mail address politicians and parties can contact to have Facebook staff shut down and restore accounts that have been hacked. In addition, Mr. Chan said, Facebook will issue a cyberhygiene guide they can use to secure their pages, and launch a partnership with a non-profit group called MediaSmarts to educate voters on the dangers of fake news.

Canada: Ontario e-registration voting tool targeted towards students | The Journal

Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa believes voting in the province has taken a major step towards modernizing with the introduction of an e-registration system. The Ontario Election’s website has implemented an online registration process that incorporates five identity verification steps that will take the user less than 10 minutes to complete. It also features a video tutorial for registering to vote in the general election next spring, as well as registration for individuals  age 16 and 17 interested in being voters in the future. “In just a few easy steps, Ontarians can verify or add their information to the voters list,” Essensa told The Journal via email.  

Canada: Government ‘fell short’ in protecting privacy during electoral reform consultation, privacy commissioner finds | National Post

The government “fell short” and “should have been more prudent” in preventing users’ personal information from being shared with third parties as they interacted with a much-maligned online electoral reform survey, Canada’s privacy commissioner has found. MyDemocracy.ca employed third-party scripts that could disclose users’ personal information to Facebook without their consent as soon as they loaded the website, according to the commissioner’s investigation. The responsible Privy Council Office also never conducted a privacy impact assessment related to the initiative. About 360,000 people had participated in the survey in December and January. An investigation from the privacy commissioner’s office says information retrieved about individuals could lead to “a fairly accurate picture of one’s personal activities, views, opinions, and lifestyle” and “be quite revealing about an individual’s Internet-based activities.”

Canada: Facebook to launch ‘election integrity initiative’ to prevent meddling of votes, ahead of Canadian elections | Reuters

Facebook Inc, under pressure over its role in possible Russian meddling in last year’s US presidential election, said it plans an election integrity initiative to protect Canada’s next vote from cyberthreats. Karina Gould, Canada’s minister of democratic institutions, will speak at a launch event next week, Facebook said Thursday in a statement announcing the project. A company spokeswoman declined to discuss details of the project, which follows a warning by Canada’s electronic spy agency in June that hackers will “very likely” try to influence Canada’s 2019 elections. The agency said it is advising all political parties on how to guard against cyberthreats.

Canada: Limit to election campaign lengths, new third-party rules likely coming in fall, Liberal minister says | National Post

The minister responsible for elections reform says she is aiming to introduce legislation this fall that could impose a time limit on election campaigns. In an interview, Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould outlined changes her office is considering — including how to deal with foreign “actors” who she said are “getting ever more creative.” A House of Commons committee recommended in June that a maximum election writ period be set at 43 days, more than a month shorter than the unprecedented 78-day campaign in 2015.