Canada Police Execute Search Warrant over Election Results 31
Anonymous Coward writes "According to this article from the Vancouver Sun, a Canadian man's home was raided Friday by police because he posted the results of the Canadian election on his website. What is this world coming to when publishing the truth has become a crime? Is it only a matter of time before laws like this one creep south into the United States?" It's an interesting question. (See previous story.) The government certainly has a strong interest in trying to create a fair elections process, but perhaps this is a bit overzealous. It's worth noting that the news agencies in the United States are withdrawing from the exit-polling association that they formed many years ago to conduct coordinated exit polls after major elections (and embargo the results until the polls close), so the next U.S. election may see a hodge-podge of advance reporting as well.
Re:The myth of dangerous information (Score:1)
The reason I don't see it as a tremendous stretch is that the very process of the anonymous vote prevents people's opinions being swayed by previous voting. The very fact that you don't know how other people are voting forces you to consider your vote more carefully. In my opinion, this leads people to vote with their conscience, which is the very foundation of democracy.
Condiser for a minute that in Canada, having your Member of Parliament as a member of a majority government, or better yet, a Minister can have huge advantages for your riding. So, if you live in BC, and it is clear that the Liberal Party will form a majority government, many people could be swayed to vote for the Liberals. Is this fair to the people of BC? Perhaps an argument could be made that it is. Is this fair to people in Newfoundland? Clearly not. They voted without prior knowledge of who would form the government, and so are more likely be caught out of the loop. In a sense, the anonymity of the vote is comprimised. Sure, it is an aggregate statistic, and no individual person's privacy is violated. However, as a province, their votes are laid bare for the rest of Canada, and perhaps stripping them of the chance to fairly partake in the voting process. Similarly, people in BC would have a significant advantage in knowing, through intermediate results in other time zones, that a particular party was destined for power.
I have to disagree with some of your points. What is the legitimate relevance to the public of intermediate election results, aside from trying to boost ratings for the election media coverage? I am not disagreeing with your comment, simply its applicability in this context. You give no reasons at all why this constitutes legitimate relevance to the public. I am interested in being enlightened in this regard. Obviously, the final result is of extreme importance to the public, but the intermediate results? You also imply that I am claiming that the "public can't be trusted to respond 'correctly'", but I am not suggesting anything of the kind. The only 'correct' vote is the vote for your conscience, and the only 'wasted' vote is one against it.
Re: Elections Canada is not Stupid (Score:1)
Deferring the release of results is not censorship.
You seem to have missed the point. Results are released at different times in different parts of the country for the benefit of the people.
Now in the interst of allowing everyone to receive the results simultaneously across the country, there are essentially two choices:
Either of these situations is simply less desirable than gagging the media for a few hours. Only an absolutist would think that the benefit of releasing local results to Newfoundland before 1:30 AM, and the befenit of allowing the BC polls to close after working hours so everyone has the opportunity to vote is less desireable than gagging the reporting of results until after polls close.
But then again, Americans are all about putting their own self-interest first and foremost. Sometimes rights conflict, such as your right to free speech, and my right to fair democractic election. Or the rights of the Newfoundlanders to see the results of their local elections and the importance of keeping the election results unbiased by foreknowledge of the results.
This law can easily be broken or circumvented, but it's main goal to to prevent widespread corruption of the political process without sacrificing timely results to the east coast. With the exception of a few people who can't stop and think before they do something, most people think it's entirely reasonable. After all if it is consistent violated, the end result will simply be the gagging of all results until after the polls are closed, thus everybody looses.
If you can't see that, then you're blind.
Unenforceble laws (Score:2)
non-Canadian webserver.
Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms
1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
Fundamental Freedoms
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
I'm not a legal expert, by any stretch of the imagination. As a Canadian citizen, however, my understanding of the above excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [mcmaster.ca] says that the Elections Act gag law preventing the "transmission to the public" of the results from a closed poll violates the Charter.
I say good luck, I hope he wins and they repeal the law, in favor of something that makes a little more sense, and doesn't infringe on our freedoms.
Derek Lewis
Questions... (Score:2)
So my question is, how did he get the information? And how can you charge someone with posting non-copyrighted/confidential/classified information in any media publication? Rights of the press and all that?
Re:Questions... (Score:2)
The Elections Act orders the public to keep quiet about election results in the East (where the polls have closed) while those in the West are still voting. It's designed to keep the vote from being affected.
Canada doesn't have the same protections for the press and speech as the United States does. Canada does have a constitution, but its protections can be limited if such limitations are "demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society".
It's possible the Government of Canada will try to justify this censorship as a justifable one. If so, I think it will be a dark day for Canadians.
I remember reading somewhere that the State of California was considering a law similar to the Canadian one. If so, America may be on its way to a similar regime of censorship.
Re:Ever heard of having a "FAIR" election? (Score:1)
I don't expect to get everything I want. I do, however, expect to keep the freedoms I've been granted and guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That's what it's there for. If you read my earlier posts, you'll see what the Charter says, and the condition it may be suspended under, which I do not believe have been met.
I think it's admirable that he's pointing out a law that, in the age of the internet, is not only unenforceable, but violates the Charter.
Derek Lewis
It's perfectly fine. (Score:2)
This law is designed to protect democracy. If you knew the probable outcome of the election before you voted, wouldn't you take that into consideration when casting your ballot, or when deciding whether to vote at all? This is a very intelligent law, which exists to maintain the integrity of the electoral process.
This law was not written with the internet in mind -- it was designed to prevent television and radio stations from prematurely broadcasting results from more easterly time zones. Since the internet will become more of an issue as each year passes, the law will probably cease to become effective. If this happens, the simple solution would be to keep ballot boxes closed across the country until polls close on the west coast.
We could do that right now. It would certainly eliminate any "free speech" concerns. Fortunately, Canadians are willing to look at the big picture, instead of seeing laws only in black and white.
Election Results (Score:1)
Re:Ever heard of having a "FAIR" election? (Score:1)
Personally, I disagree with you on this one. I too am a Canadian, but I don't see this as a breach of the Charter. The big problem as I see it is that Elections Canada seems to think it is necessary to put out the results in the East first, but there is a media blackout enforced at the same time. To me that seems damn close to entrapment, since someone will publish the results if they are available. My feeling on the matter is that Elections Canada should withold results for, say, 24 hours after the last polling station closes. Then everyone finds out at the same time, and you don't have to worry about people breaking the law or trying to subvert the process.
Don't forget that the person in the story was warned several times to cease and desist on election night, but chose to ignore the warnings. I think that he will have a very tough battle ahead of him.
I also don't see it as being unenforcable. After all, he appears to be having it enforced upon him.
Elections Canada is being stupid. (Score:3)
Because there's a 4.5 hour time difference between east and west, it isn't necessarily realistic to expect all the polls to close at once. However, it would be quite simple to prevent the media from publishing *any* polling results until all the polls across the country were closed. We are ending up in a mess because local media in the east is reporting results, but national broadcast of this data is prohibited - obviously difficult to enforce, and also considered censorship, curtailment of liberty, yadda yadda.
So, Elections Canada should simply not release any data regarding the vote count until all the polls are closed. However, the media will still want to use exit polling data in their broadcasts - since this also pretty much counts as "polling results", these should not be published either - but then we get into the same censorship issue. So, we're back to the tradeoffs between individual liberty and the good of the society as a whole...
Re:The myth of dangerous information (Score:1)
As usual in situations where the desire to censor information exists, the underlying flaw in the logic is the assumption that the information should be restricted in the first place.
Great idea. Why not have the vote simply a public raise your hand for so-and-so extravaganza? Now that would be a fair election! NOT!!!
There is a reason that polling is private and anonymous, and it isn't a large stretch to extend this from individual votes to intermediate results. It ensures that the vote is fair for all voters, all candidates and all parties.
Can't you read? (Score:3)
THat means that, if it serves the interests of democracy and justice, these rights can be changed in certain situations.
You can jail someone. That takes away several of their freedoms... but it serves society and justice.
The law this man broke is there *specifically* to ensure a fair election process. He broke it. What's the problem?
Re:Election Results (Score:1)
'Course, it helps speed the process when one party completely whupped the other four and almost no recounts were necessary...
Re:The myth of dangerous information (Score:1)
Your assertion that the "anonymity of the vote is compromised" is difficult for me to accept. In the end, you're going to know how Newfoundland voted, in aggregate form, and in some broad sense they will not be protected by anonymity.
I agree that if the polls close in one province before another, and the results from the first province are released to the second, that the people voting in the second province might have some advantage during the vote.
But how is this different than hearing relevant news about a party during this time between poll closures? Someone in Newfoundland might have been stuck with a party or candidate he or she no longer wants, while someone in British Columbia can use such new information to assess for whom he or she will vote?
Your point about intermediate results does make some sense -- ultimately the final results are the ones that matter. But, news is news. Should intermediate results be suppressed until someone deems the "final" results are in?
In the case of a plane crash, should results of whether any passengers are alright be suppressed until the "final results are in", or would you rather hear news as it develops and as it is discovered?
The authorities often suppress the names of those who didn't survive in plane crashes until their next of kin have been contacted. However, this is not a suppression of press or speech because the information hasn't been released. The media aren't kept from interviewing survivors or taking pictures of the crash.
In the case of an election, results in Canada aren't final until they are "validated", which was scheduled for December 11th. Should the results be suppressed until they are "validated" and official, or should the media give us some glimpse into the situation as it develops?
Finally, if I may address your question about what the relevance is of intermediate results to the public: the public uses information in ways we cannot predict.
When the monetary markets realized the Liberals were going to have a majority, the Canadian Dollar started driving above the 65 cent American mark. People in the East knew why because they had the results, while people in the West were left in the dark to guess why the market was behaving in this way.
Finally, I strongly agree that the only correct vote is the one of your conscience. Your reason you choose to vote a particular way, is yours and yours alone. It is nobody's business but your own.
Re:News blackouts are good (Score:1)
This is far different than the scenario in Canada where results are released to the public, then the public are ordered, through Section 329, to keep their mouths shut. Canada can "protect democracy" and retain our rights by simply deferring the release of results until all the polls have closed.
I don't know what rights are written into law in the European Union, or the United Kingdom, for that matter. However, in Canada, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is designed to protect our rights, including our rights to a free press and freedom of speech.
Under the Charter, rights can only be limited if such limitations can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. I assert that such restrictions cannot be justified when other alternatives solve this perceived problem without infringing on any of our rights. That is why this law is being challenged.
In this day and age, when an individual can communicate his message to thousands, even millions of people with the click of a mouse or the tap of a stylus, our countries must craft laws that acknowledge what technology its citizens have access to.
Furthermore, a country must acknowledge, through its laws, over what it can legitimately assert its jurisdiction. ElectionResultsCanada.com was hosted on a server by Rackspace, in Texas. Does the Canadian government have jurisdiction over this server and what it publishes?
Anyone in the world can publish a web site. Perhaps Canadians will be forced into submission by the government on this issue - it still remains to be seen. However, anyone outside of Canada will be free to post results (or purported results) of the Canadian Election without fear of any legal repercussion. This only places Canadians at a severe disadvantage.
Finally, as a point of note, when the monetary markets (a 24x7 operation now) received word that the Liberals were going to hold a majority government, the Canadian dollar jumped above 65 cents U.S. People in the Eastern provinces knew why, and could react accordingly. People in the West were kept in the dark, under this publication ban, only to guess why the dollar fluctuated, and try their best to make decisions based on little or no information.
There's no way to predict in this day and age how information will be used. Releasing public, facutal information to some Canadians and barring access to others is simply unacceptable in this day and age.
In kindergarten, I learned that if I wanted to keep a secret, I shouldn't tell anyone. Our government appears to need to learn the same lesson. If it wants to protect the democratic process, then it shouldn't release information to the public until all polls across Canada have closed.
Ever heard of having a "FAIR" election? (Score:1)
This isn't a freedom of speech issue. This isn't, he's not allowed to post the election results period. This is NO relaying of the election results in any other part of the country until poll have closed. Period! The major news networks have to abide by this why not him?
There's nothing big brother about this at all, if anything maybe the US networks should have the sense to impose this as well. perhaps even the government. No one should "have the right" to corrupt the election process, by revealing the results prior to polls closing since it does have the potential to corrupt the process.
Since when did EVERY one get the right to everything they want. As if this is some inalienanble right. Like most I fear the bug brother type stuff as well ( especially the british monitoring all phone, net, fax, etc communications for 7 years ) but sometime I think people just get a little to wacked out crazy about these things.
For sale: one cabin in Montana....
Re:Elections Canada is being stupid. (Score:1)
So, Elections Canada should simply not release any data regarding the vote count until all the polls are closed.
First off, I want to say that I agree with you. This incident only highlights the futility of the whole "rolling blackout" idea.
However, the media will still want to use exit polling data in their broadcasts - since this also pretty much counts as "polling results", these should not be published either...
Actually, the Canadian media do not use exit polls in their election reporting. They use real results. The CBC took several opportunities to mention this (rather smugly, IMO).
As such, I don't think the taking and publishing of exit polls is as much of an issue in this country. (Of course, if you enforce a ban on all publication of real results, the media might start using exit poll results instead...)
My theory on the rolling blackout is that television stations get such dynamite ratings by having continuous coverage, that they've managed to exert some kind of influence with Elections Canada, to allow them to do so.
I say, have all polls open simultaneously, and all polls close simultaneously. Sure, you'd have to run longer hours, and it might cost a bit more, and in some places, you might have polls closing at 2AM, while in others, you might have them opening at 5AM, but who cares?
(Your idea is probably better.)
--
Re:The myth of dangerous information (Score:2)
Actually I think that is a large stretch - care to explain why you think otherwise?
Reporting how voting is going, whether based on exit polls or actual counts in some other district, is completely unrelated to the issue of privacy or anonymity. The only way privacy would be compromised is if a live vote count were displayed above each polling booth, or something like that, and that's a big stretch.
You did put your finger on something important, though, which is that privacy does involve restriction of information. There are some unique features about this, though: the information that an individual has a right to keep private is information that affects only that individual, his family & friends etc. As soon as information has legitimate relevance to the public, however, the right to privacy often has to give way to the "public's right to know". In the case of an election, there are clear and obvious reasons why privacy and anonymity are important; but that has nothing to do with the dissemination of aggregate information, as long as that is done without compromising privacy.
Restriction of information on the grounds that "the public can't be trusted to respond 'correctly' " is not the way to achieve a fair society. It smacks of a kind of elitism that might have had some justification a couple of hundred years ago, when the electorate wasn't as well educated, but we would do well to reexamine such assumptions today.
Balancing fairness (Score:1)
A more logical solution would be to make sure the polls were open over the same 24 hour period, or to just slow down the counting.
Re:Can't you read? (Score:1)
Re:Can't you read? (Score:1)
The clause you quoted states that our rights can be suspended if it is "demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". In a free society, I do not believe it is justifiable to suspend a citizens rights if there is another option. The results can be kept entirely secret, and not made public until all polls across the country are closed. With this option available, I do not think it is "demonstrably justified" that our Charter be cast aside for the convenience of eastern voters. If Canada is truly a "free and democratic society", we should create laws that do not take away our freedoms.
Derek Lewis
News blackouts are good (Score:2)
It is illegal to publish results until all countries have finished polling, so we don't know the results of our vote until several days later.
But we don't regard this as an erosion of our right to free speech. We regard it as a fundamental democratic safeguard. Maybe some other countries could learn something from this.
Re:Questions... (Score:1)
Re:Election Results (Score:1)
Re:Can't you read? (Score:1)
Re:It's perfectly fine. (Score:2)
Does being "willing to look at the big picture" also require a willingness to make sweeping generalizations, both explicit and implied?
3. (Score:1)
Re:News blackouts are good (Score:2)
Re:The myth of dangerous information (Score:3)
Simple: it allows citizens to make a fully-informed choice about how they vote. After all, unless you also plan to ban polling prior to the election, these days people usually have a pretty good idea of how their countrymen are planning to vote. It's not possible (nor desirable!) to prevent people from planning their vote strategically. Deliberately withholding information either before or during an election is unlikely to be beneficial to the overall process.
This is closely related to your concern about, in effect, the "anonymity" of an entire state or province's vote. The availability of intermediate results would allow people even in the earliest time zones to consider the actions of their fellow citizens when voting. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, the only reason publicizing intermediate results can be considered bad, is if you've chosen to attempt to suppress the overall results. One bad decision leads to another, until the whole package appears somehow inevitable. In fact, it is inevitable: the result of the initial bad decision to try to suppress information.
My concern with suppressing information of this kind is this: by encouraging governments to believe that laws which suppress information are beneficial, and by encouraging citizens to believe that such laws are benign, we create paternalistic governments, governments which don't think twice about hiding information from their citizens, governments that ultimately are dangerous. Election Canada's actions against Paul Bryan, searching his apartment, seizing his hard disks, and forcing him to legally defend his actions, are an example of what I'm talking about.
To justify withholding of information, there has to be a concern of overriding importance being addressed. National security, for example, is used as such a justification. But in the case of elections, there is no such justification. I don't see how it can be argued that knowledge of voting patterns in other areas is such a threat to a nation's integrity, that citizens should have their right to communicate with each other curtailed. As I have briefly argued, I believe the opposite is true: the information is useful to citizens, and should be made available.
I thought the other reply to your message raised an interesting point about the effect of the election on the Canadian dollar. This reminded me of another context in which free information is important: markets. I think one can draw a parallel between voting and economic markets: the value of your vote, and the value of a given candidate, doesn't exist in isolation, but rather is highly dependent on what everyone else is doing. A vote is a resource with value; you want to utilize that resource in the way that does most good. Just as you might choose not to buy shares in a company whose share price is plummeting, you might choose not to vote for a candidate who is losing badly, and instead vote for a candidate you believe has a chance of winning. This is a valid choice, and it is not up to governments to withhold this choice from their citizens.
I think you contradict yourself somewhat when on the one hand you say "The only 'correct' vote is the vote for your conscience, and the only 'wasted' vote is one against it", and on the other hand you say "The very fact that you don't know how other people are voting forces you to consider your vote more carefully". Does one's conscience change because of knowing about other people's votes? Or are you suggesting that knowing about other people's votes is a "temptation" which leads them astray from their consciences? And thus, to the conclusion that people cannot be trusted with the information, which is exactly what disturbs me?
The myth of dangerous information (Score:2)
This attitude is a largely unexamined hangover from a long, long time ago. When media first started making it possible to communicate election information across countries in short amounts of time, this worried politicians and citizens who were just more comfortable with the way it used to be.
The concern is the alleged danger of people changing their vote, or not voting, as a result of hearing results from somewhere else. However, if a citizen truly has an interest in the government and politics of their country, they are likely to vote anyway, since their are all sort of other reasons to vote than simply to cause the selection of a particular favored politician.
An educated populace should understand this, and vote accordingly, regardless of what they may hear about other parts of the country.
True, the majority of the population in most democratic nations probably don't understand this, but that is either their own fault, or the fault of education. The latter can be corrected by better education about these matters, while the former is easily addressed: I believe it was Michael Moore who, instead of cajoling people to go out and vote, said on TV just prior to the election "If you haven't figured out why it's important to vote yet, please DON'T VOTE!"
As usual in situations where the desire to censor information exists, the underlying flaw in the logic is the assumption that the information should be restricted in the first place.
Re: Elections Canada is not Stupid (Score:1)
Does anyone else find it funny, that the proposed solution to Elections Canada's censorship is more censorship?
I mean, they publish the results in Eastern Canada so the people living there can see the local results before they go to bed.
Elections Canada could prevent that publication, but instead they trust Canadians not to spread the information. For shame, that our government might trust the people, and punish those who break that trust.
It's sad that so many people think that because there is a pot, they *have* to piss in it.