Latest news with #Longest Ballot Committee
National Post
11-08-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Michael Taube: The Longest Ballot Committee is annoying, but that doesn't mean it's undemocratic
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is running in a federal by-election in the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot. Advance voting begins on Friday, and he should win quite comfortably on Aug. 18. Article content Article content The Longest Ballot Committee has attempted to flood ballots in seven targeted federal ridings (and one Ontario riding) since 2019. This activist movement is critical of Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system, and has signed up candidates to defend a single issue: why Canada should shift to a more fair and balanced political model of proportional representation. Article content Article content Has this campaign worked? They claim it has. In reality, its impact bas been negligible at best. Article content The Longest Ballot Committee, through its association with the now-defunct Rhinoceros Party, attempted to set a Guinness World Record during the 2019 election with the 'longest ballot papers in history.' They targeted then-Conservative leader Andrew Scheer's riding of Regina-Qu'Appelle. It was a failure: Scheer earned over 63 per cent of the vote, and only two of the eight candidates were aligned with them. Article content The Longest Ballot Committee had 15 of the 21 candidates running in St. Boniface-St. Vital (2021 election), 33 of 40 candidates in Mississauga-Lakeshore (2022 by-election) and 42 of 48 candidates in Winnipeg South Centre (2023 by-election), but the Liberals held all three seats. It also flooded two 2024 by-elections in Toronto-St. Paul's (77 of 84 candidates) and LaSalle-Émard-Verdun (79 of 91 candidates). The voters shifted to a Conservative and Bloc Quebecois candidate, respectively, for reasons that had nothing to do with proportional representation, however. Article content Article content Nevertheless, this movement has suggested it played a pivotal role in Poilievre losing his seat in Carleton in this year's election. 'This one-of-a-kind campaign has been a whole lot of fun and we want to thank again all of the volunteers, candidates, and supporters who made this year's longest ballot possible,' spokesman Tomas Szuchewycz told the Canadian Press on April 30. 'It's been a success,' said one candidate, Mark Moutter, who went off on a tangent and remarked, 'I've never seen people looking more optimistically at electoral reform, ever.' Article content
CBC
18-07-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Upcoming Alberta byelection set to break record for most candidates on single ballot
Next month's byelection in Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot will break the record for the most candidates on a federal ballot in Canadian history. As of Friday, 102 candidates — mostly associated with a group of electoral reform advocates known as the Long Ballot Committee — have registered to run for the seat. The byelection was called after its recently re-elected MP, Damien Kurek, resigned to allow Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to run for a new seat in the House of Commons. Poilievre lost in his longtime riding of Carleton in April. The Longest Ballot Committee has been organizing dozens of candidates to run in byelections in recent years, resulting in metre-long ballots that have caused delays in vote counting and confounded some voters. The group wants to put a citizens' assembly in charge of electoral reform and says political parties are too reluctant to make the government more representative of the electorate. The previous record of 91 candidates occurred twice in the past year: during a byelection in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun last September and Carleton during the general election this past spring. The Longest Ballot Committee says it is aiming to sign up 200 candidates in Battle River-Crowfoot. The deadline to register as a candidate is July 28.
