Fired up by a newly discovered commitment to protecting the privacy of the voting process, various MLAs seem to be talking themselves into moves that could drive B.C.’s already dismal voter turnout down another a few points.
The share of eligible voters who turn up has been hovering at just over half for the past few elections, down 20 points over a generation. That turnout is bolstered by the considerable get-out-the-vote effort the parties use to get their own supporters to the polls.
An amendment to the Election Act would enhance the get-out-the-vote capabilities, by giving parties and candidates access to the list of people who actually voted. But it ran afoul of Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, who raised objections over privacy concerns.
That started a bit of backtracking by MLAs. Although party officials advocated for the change and support it, some of the MLAs appear to be spooked by the implications of Elections B.C. handing over data on who voted to parties and candidates.
But the concerns expressed discount the fact that parties already have the data, and have had it for ages. Parties use an army of volunteer scrutineers at polling stations who manually check off names of voters as they appear.
As described by NDP MLA Nicholas Simons in the house this week: “Many parties are very technical and well organized. They determine where they expect their supporters to be and where they aren’t, and then they cross-reference and make sure that the people who haven’t shown up do show up to vote.”
They likely do a lot more than that with the count. The information is a basic element in the big data banks on voters that are kept by parties.
Most of them treat their identified supporters on Election Day the way border collies treat sheep, hustling them along to the polls any way they can.
Simons, who acknowledged he’s not up on the history of voters’ list management, said it doesn’t resonate with him to have parties knowing who did and who didn’t vote, because of privacy issues. “It strikes me as a bit of an invasion.”
Liberal MLA Moira Stilwell also spoke against that section, although she voted for the bill at second reading. She said the changes are in the interests of the parties, not the voters.
Where parties now invest thousands of volunteer hours compiling the information, the change would require Elections B.C. to just hand it over, not only during the voting process, but between elections as well. Stilwell said allowing parties to “harass” voters is not going to engage them more.
“We will bombard them with emails, phone calls, junk mail and more. We will make their dinner hours more miserable as we try to reach them on the phone with automated telephone calls.”
Others voiced concern, as well, and there are a half-dozen proposed amendments from various MLAs who want that section of the bill reworked.
Justice Minister Suzanne Anton seems to be leaning toward recognizing some of the concerns. She said Wednesday there do need to be controls and she appreciates Denham’s concerns.
“So we’re looking at whether or not we should be making changes.”
The reason party officials want the change is that it’s getting harder to find volunteers to do all the manual labour needed to identify who voted, so the quality of the data is likely slipping.
The bill would just hand it over on demand — a complete, up-to-date list of about 1.8 million people who voted last time, a pile of data to be analyzed as they see fit.
It’s anyone’s guess how much of the turnout (57 per cent of those eligible in the 2013 election) is attributable to the get-out-the-vote effort. My guess is that the cumulative effort by all parties adds between three and 20 per cent to the total.
The bill would give parties more power to refine that effort, but if enough MLAs get cold feet, it might be watered down. Privacy will be respected, but more non-voters will adopt the practice of simply not bothering to show up.
