Site MenuElections Canada Advisory Board – Semi-Annual Meeting – October 2, 2014
1. Update from the Chief Electoral Officer
Presentation
The Advisory Board meeting was the first in a series of three this fall as Elections Canada (EC) prepares for the 2015 general election. These meetings and discussions help the agency to adjust its approach to key initiatives prior to the general election. A second meeting took place on October 6–7, 2014, with the Advisory Committee of Political Parties (ACPP). The CEO was also seeking a meeting with the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to share his plans for the 2015 general election.
The agency is currently finalizing its plans for the next general election. A large part of this work involves organizing EC's efforts in making the voting process as efficient and seamless as possible for electors. Additional investments are being made in staffing and procedures to ensure greater compliance at the polls and to minimize errors.
Past experience shows that most errors are caused by exceptional procedures, which occur in serving electors who cannot produce proper identification or are not registered when they arrive at the polls. In an effort to try to minimize the occurrence of these exceptional procedures, the agency will invest more resources in informing electors of the requirements to vote before they arrive at the polls.
As a result of Bill C-23, the agency has also updated its Voter Identification Policy and expanded the list of authorized pieces of identification. The policy sets criteria for determining authorized identification, lists the pieces of authorized identification, and provides guidance to ensure the consistent application of identification requirements. One of the new features of the identification policy is to allow electors to present documents in an electronic format. In advance of the election, electors will be informed about the identification requirements and authorized pieces of identification.
The agency is also reviewing the accessibility of polling stations following a number of human rights cases involving the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal. In order to fulfill its human rights obligations, EC is currently implementing and assessing 25,000 potential sites across the country against 35 accessibility criteria. The results of this work will be shared with electors with disabilities through EC's website. These activities will also entail significant costs.
In addition to efforts to ensure accessible polling stations, EC will pilot a project in the next election to provide a more convenient voting experience for youth and urban Aboriginal electors. This will include voting at satellite offices on 39 campuses, 18 Friendship Centres and 3 YMCAs across the country.
Also new for the 2015 election, EC is required by Bill C-23 to issue written opinions, guidelines and interpretation notes (OGIs) on the application of the Canada Elections Act (CEA) to political entities. These OGIs can be triggered in two ways: political parties can ask EC to issue an opinion, or can ask for guidelines and interpretations of the Act; or the CEO can trigger issuance of guidelines and interpretation notes. One issue of concern for the agency is that there is no filtering mechanism to allow EC to refuse to issue a note on a particular topic. The agency is concerned about an overload of requests and that it may be faced with some frivolous requests. EC is establishing a process to ensure transparency for all comments received from political parties, such as posting these comments on the agency's website. The CEO also intends to establish a steering committee composed of chief agents of political parties (or their representatives) to participate in this process.
Discussion
Members discussed the type of training that is provided to poll officials in the lead up to an election and queried whether the 3.5 hours of in-class training in addition to manuals and online tutorials is sufficient to bring down the level of errors. Members noted that the electoral process is becoming more complicated and, considering that most poll officials are on short-term assignment, it is difficult to avoid errors. Additionally, members were concerned that those electoral officers who may be less familiar with technology could experience difficulty with accepting identification documents in an electronic format. The CEO explained to members that training of election workers starts the week prior to advance polls and that each Returning Officer trains about 800 people. In addition, it is difficult to have full-day scheduled training with people who may work full or part-time and it is increasingly difficult to find people to do the jobs as the tasks become more complicated. Turnover is high; about half of the workers at each election are new and have never worked at an election before. In addition, the Canada Elections Act does not allow for specialization of tasks, which would be much more efficient than training election workers as generalists.
Members discussed EC's cost estimates and supported the CEO's intention to share this information with parliamentarians, as costs for the upcoming general election will increase.
Members discussed EC's approach to its information program for electors, especially using social media. A number of participants felt EC should use social media as a means to communicate and respond to questions from electors that relate to EC's mandate or to have a more youth-friendly website where youth could access information about registration, voting, and identification requirements. Members also urged EC to identify its limits and use caution before embarking into social media.