Chris Selley: There are easy solutions to the 'longest ballot' problem, so let's end it now

Calgary Herald

4 days ago

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There are many irritating things about the Longest Ballot Committee, the group of self-styled democratic reformers that stacks high-profile ridings with scores of candidates who aren't really running for office, with the aim of creating ludicrously enormous paper ballots. It's completely incoherent, first and foremost.
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The long-balloters want to take electoral-reform decisions like proportional representation out of politicians' hands and give the authority over to some 'citizens' assembly.' They believe politicians ought to 'recuse' themselves from such decisions, because they're in an inherent conflict of interest.
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Even if you agree, which you should not, it escapes me how packing the Battle River—Crowfoot byelection on Aug. 18 with 199 essentially fake candidates says anything about that daft citizens' assembly idea one way or the other. Indeed, among the chief complainants against the longest-balloters are legitimate independent candidates, people who are actually campaigning and trying to make a point, who tend to get lost among scores of other 'fake' candidates who aren't affiliated with a political party. And for what?
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The most annoying thing, though, and a very Canadian thing, is that people have been talking about what to do about this movement since it first became a minor menace at least three years ago … and nothing has been done, despite some pretty obvious solutions sitting there waiting to be adopted.
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Conservative Leader and Battle River—Crowfoot candidate Pierre Poilievre, among others, has suggested not allowing electors to sign the nomination papers of more than one candidate. (The longest-balloters generally use mostly the same collection of signatures for all their fake candidates. You need 100 to qualify to run.) That's an entirely reasonable proposal. The returning officer in each riding is supposed to check that the names and addresses attached to those signatures are above board; it should not be difficult to notice when duplicates come up.
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That alone would make the 'scam,' as Poilievre calls it, much more time-consuming for the scammers — and without jacking up the number of signatures required to run, or requiring candidates to live in the riding in question, or other measures that otherwise might be contentious. Maybe the longest-balloters would adapt and find even more obnoxious methods. Trolls tend to do that. But at the very least, it is worth a try.
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All that said, Elections Canada — which is not always known for excellent decision-making — hatched a very simple and effective solution for the Battle River—Crowfoot byelection: Instead of marking your X on a ballot as long as a beach towel, you will write down your chosen candidate's name. (Elections Canada assures us spelling errors and such will be treated generously.)
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Perhaps it's not ideal to have different ballot procedures in different ridings — though the Longest Ballot Committee generally only targets one riding per election — but it's tough to imagine a serious, cogent objection to this idea. If you can read the candidate's name, you ought to be able to write it down as well. I quite like the idea of driving home to voters that they're voting for individuals who belong to parties, not for the parties themselves.