COLUMN: Think Again – Longest ballot becomes the shortest ballot

Advance voting has started for the byelection in Alberta’s Battle-River Crowfoot constituency. The official byelection date is Aug. 18.

Once the nomination period closed, there were 214 confirmed candidates. However, most of these candidates have no interest in actually being a Member of Parliament. Rather, they are part of a group known as the Longest Ballot Committee (LBC).

As I explained in a previous column, the LBC exists for the sole purpose of making voting as complicated as possible in high-profile constituencies. They seek to flood ballots with as many names as possible to point out the alleged problems with Canada’s first-past-the-post voting system.

Since this byelection is being held to give Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre an opportunity to get back into the House of Commons, this definitely counts as a high-profile byelection. Hence, the LBC thought this was a great opportunity to step up their game and get a record number of names on the ballot.

Well, they did get a record number of names lined up. However, Elections Canada found an ingenious way of dealing with LBC’s mischief. Instead of printing out two-metre-long ballots with 214 names on them, voters will simply write in the name of their preferred candidate. In other words, the longest ballot just became the shortest ballot, since there will be space for only one name.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the boardroom when LBC organizers heard about this latest development. After weeks of organizing and getting signatures lined up, Elections Canada in one fell swoop derailed LBC’s plans. It just goes to show that we must have some smart people working for Elections Canada.

To be clear, voters will still be provided with a list of all 214 names. In addition, election officials have said that they will not allow minor spelling errors to disqualify a ballot. The key is that the intent of the voter is clear.

It’s also important to note that there’s nothing new about write-in ballots. Every year during regular federal elections, anyone who wants to vote before advance polls open has always had the option of casting a special ballot where they write in their preferred candidate’s name. This is something that I’ve done myself several times.

As for the counting process, all candidates can have scrutineers present while each ballot is being counted. This means that this byelection will have the same oversight as any other election.

While Elections Canada has effectively neutralized the LBC’s silliness for this byelection, it’s still important that Parliament close the loopholes that LBC members have exploited over the years. Requiring that voters only sign the nomination papers for one federal candidate per election is an obvious reform. Since we can only vote for one candidate, we should only be able to sign one candidate’s nomination papers.

Another sensible reform would be to state that a person cannot serve as the financial agent for more than one candidate per constituency. The only reason someone might want to be the financial agent for multiple candidates in a constituency would be to flood a ballot with extra names, something that we really don’t need.

While our democratic system in Canada is not perfect, it is one of the best in the world. Let’s not allow the immature antics of groups like the Longest Ballot Committee to wreck a perfectly good electoral system.

If you want to change how elections work in Canada, run for office the right way and pass a new law. Don’t play games with our electoral system.

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.