As a Canadian-exile living in the US, I don’t really see a problem with the American system of not releasing any election results until the polls close on the west coast*. All the counting happens during the “black-out” period, so you get this awesome moment right at 10pm or whenever when suddenly all the results are in.

*this is not to say that there aren’t other serious problems with the American electoral system it’s just that this one feature seems to work pretty darn well.

I love some of the comments here-@48, for instance, where the poster appears to feel that striking whole regions off the rolls is fine if they vote for a party the poster doesn’t like. One wonders what reception a similar post from an American Republican suggesting that New York State, Illinois, and California ought to have their votes not counted would get from the folks who run this blog. Having elections means that sometimes the party you like won’t win.

Cory, is there any chance you can post about the history of parliamentary government coalitions where the governing coalition needed the support of an avowedly secessionist party to stay in power? It will be a very short post, but it would be an interesting issue for you to cover. I’ve seen writings about it from Canadian Tories-which are pretty overwrought-and I would be interested to read something about it from someone who isn’t a Tory supporter. (I’m not sure whether you support the NDP or the Liberals.)

-Anders Ishsalterton

Even if they were, why should the government deny voters in the West the opportunity to cast their ballots in the most informed way possible?

Wrong question. This isn’t related to the reason for it at all.

The dodgy voting system they use (“first past the post”) means that knowledge of how other people voting lets you cast your vote more effectively. This means that it changes the outcome.

Hence, if any election results are distributed before all polls have closed, then the timing, extent, and mechanism of that distribution has an effect on the outcome and must necessarily become one of the ways in which the election is fought. Rather than dealing with this horrible issue, they banned the whole thing.

Of course, it’s a bad solution. The right thing to do is to keep the ballot boxes sealed and not start counting until all the polls have closed.

Banning Twitter unfortunately is the wrong tactic, as it’s unenforceable and not the real culprit. Something as simple and obvious as CBC not projecting winners with the polls still open for the sake of scooping the papers would be a nice start.

It probably doesn’t hurt its survivability that this system makes the media tons of money as returns trickle in on election night. We should just release results the next morning. This is a democracy, not a sideshow, and maybe we should start acting like it.

Elections Canada DOES do that. Voting hours are staggered so that all polls across the country open and close on or around the same time.

http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=bkg&document=ec90815&lang=e

In Canada our votes are counted by hand, by volunteers, in front of anyone who wants to watch to ensure the count is fair, and using a system that is simple enough for all of that to work. That yields a huge benefit in terms of how much we can trust that our votes were fairly and honestly counted.

In the US, every state seems to use some different, completely weird, unaccountable method for counting the votes – mechanical counting machines that get confused by partially-punched cards; unauditable closed-source computer systems with a terrible security track record made by companies with questionable affiliation to non-partisanship and fairness; a state employee taking disks home to tally on an MS Access database and “find” thousands of votes in the privacy of their own home…

In order to maintain secrecy of vote counts during the “blackout” period, it seems like the US have had to give up on transparency and reliability of their voting systems. To me, that does not constitute “having this sorted out”.

I’ll repeat what I said in the first post – this is easily solvable by not starting to count any votes until every poll is closed. The ballots could be counted in the evening in the West. In the East, they could be guarded overnight and counted in the morning so the counters don’t have to be up all night.

Remember Canada doesn’t elect like the US does, it is a parliamentary system and the skew for control of House of Commons is so heavily driven by what ever Ontario and Quebec [118 out of 305 seats] decide that even if the entire Western part of Canada decided to vote the opposite direction it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

You can’t have the issue like we can in the US where the Congress goes one way the the President goes the other.

It’s effectively winner takes all in Canada. People elect MP in the House of Commons who choose the PM [sort of the GovGen picks based on who they feel has the most confidence which rationally is the majority] and then the PM picks the Senate [well really the GovGen does on advice of the PM]

To get a similar effect in the US image if the the first three states to close and publish were Texas, California, and New York and they controlled 60% of the House. After they are elected then the House got to vote for the President and then the President selected the Senate. That is basically what happens with ONT and QUE in Canada.

I am just hoping that Harper doesn’t make it back in…

However, even with open and transparent balloting with lots of people observing a hand-count, enforcing a ban on publication of _any_ election results until polls close shouldn’t be that hard.

Just sequester the counters/observers (like a jury) for a few hours. Or, make the punishment for leaking election results severe. Don’t give news outlets access to official results until polls close.

It’s in the same vein as your solution, but gets results out faster.

This thing with allowing news outlets to announce results, but only in certain regions at certain times is doomed to failure in an age where the internet exists.

Remember Canada doesn’t elect like the US does, it is a parliamentary system and the skew for control of House of Commons is so heavily driven by what ever Ontario and Quebec [118 out of 305 seats] decide that even if the entire Western part of Canada decided to vote the opposite direction it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

If only Ontario and Quebec were voting, all the last elections would have given Liberal minorities. Harper is Prime Minister because of the western voters.

I won’t defy the ban. I understand the spirit of it – though I think strategic voting is already a bit part of the election process, and things really do seem to be decided by the time Ontario and Quebec are done with their voting.

That, and I really enjoy staying up to watch Peter Mansbridge on election night. He rocks the CBC.

After a number of bloggers pointed out this was highly illegal she was interviewed by the police and ended up with a Caution under the Representation of the People Act.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11621053

There has never been any evidence that voting patterns in the West were, or would be, influenced by results from the East.

In fact, in recent years there hasn’t been any evidence voting patterns in the West are shifted by anything, so long as a Conservative name is on the ballot.

This is a democracy, not a sideshow, and maybe we should start acting like it.

I think you may have got that backwards. Also, that’ll be the day.

Of course the robust way to fix this is to start the count at the same time. That would mean, on the West coast the count would start immediately after the polls close, but on the East coast someone would have to guard empty polling stations for three hours, but not be allowed to start counting anything. Also, vote counters on the East coast would have to stay up very late to get the count done.

It would be frustrating, but it would have the advantage of actually working.

And yes, I share your disdain for this ridiculous, archaic law.

Many people in BC simply do not vote because they figure they don’t matter

Yes, I hear that a lot from family, and it always annoys me. Their federal riding has a population of 91,926. My riding in Toronto Centre has a population of 121,407. You tell me who’s vote matters less.