CBC has just blacked out its election night coverage for those of us on the West Coast, due to some archaic laws that prevent federal election results from eastern Canada being revealed before the polls close in Western Canada.
The prohibition has always struck me as odd and odder still these days when I go to a site like Technorati and do a search for, say, “Canadian election” and choose from one of several links to see if there is, for instance, an American blogger with an interest in the Canadian election who is posting the “early” returns. (Sorry if that seems a little nudge-nudge, wink-wink, but if I gave you the URI I’m using, I would be in breach of the law.)
Also related to the election: some of my students are out tonight covering local candidates and will be posting their stories to an election night blog. We don’t have a lot of technology to throw at them, so the pace of their filings will rely on what they can find on the ground in terms of internet access. Should be an interesting experiment.
UPDATE: Interestingly enough, right now (6:53 p.m. PST), three of the top five searches listed on the front page of Technorati are related to the Canadian election.
TAGS: ELECTIONS, CANADA, INTERNET
That’s the most practical idea I can think of (especially given my election fatigue)… But beware the libertarian complaint about how much elections already cost.
It’s worth noting, though, that the SCC decision about that section of the act regarded the question of the law’s enforceability as having little weight. In essence, the court said that doing the Right Thing (not polluting West Coast voters with results before they’ve had a chance to vote) was more important than the law’s practical aspects. I have some sympathy for this view; I think that all voters should have an equal amount of information heading into the polls.
Now, I’d prefer a simple change of rules that would avoid all this hand-wringing: seal the ballot boxes in Central and Atlantic Canada until all the polls are closed. This would cost the treasury a little bit more (you gotta pay those poll workers to stay around for a few hours and possibly pay for a take-out meal for each worker) but I think that it’s worth the cost. It eliminates asymmetrical information and ethical wringle-wrangles, which is surely of some value.
The issue isn’t the idea behind the law, it’s the application of the law. I find value in the idea behind keeping the vote secret (this extends from the individual outward toward the nation). I sure wouldn’t want to increase the rapture between any of the solitudes because we have a time advantage out here in Lotusland.
Blogs, websites, etc… Well who woulda thunk it? Notwithstanding the fact that much law making (updating) moves at the speed of ice, they’ve nontheless had a decade to deal with this question.
What actually strikes me as odd is that private communication isn’t covered under the Act.