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There have been 102 incidents flagged by employees all through the final election — 78 required police intervention
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OTTAWA — Canada’s chief electoral officer says there was a “disheartening” improve in violence on the polls, with greater than 100 studies of violence or abuse towards ballot staff over the past election.
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Stéphane Perrault instructed MPs throughout a committee assembly Thursday that Elections Canada is contemplating hiring extra safety at polling stations or getting police forces concerned.
“What we’ve seen sadly within the final election was a rise of incidents of violence or abuse vis-à-vis ballot staff. That’s fairly unlucky,” Perrault stated in response to a query by Conservative MP Kelly Block concerning a number of the largest threats to Elections Canada’s work.
“We’ve seen cases that have been fairly disheartening in that regard. We have to be alert to that and monitor it to get some alerts as to the place cases might occur, whether or not further safety is required and whether or not police forces have to be knowledgeable of that,” he added.
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Elections Canada first flagged its concern in a January report, wherein it famous that almost all incidents concerned individuals refusing to put on a masks on the polling station.
On Friday, Elections Canada spokesman Matthew McKenna stated there have been 102 incidents flagged by employees all through the election. Of that quantity, 78 required police intervention.
“Most incidents on the polls concerned the refusal to put on a masks, whereas most protests have been associated to both masks mandates or vaccination insurance policies,” learn the report.
Within the doc, Elections Canada stated the incidents had a typically “low” affect on the general safety of the election.
However “any incident involving confrontational behaviour had the potential to hurt the bodily safety of electors and staff alike,” the report added.
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Considerations about employees’s bodily safety are tied to a different main — if not the “most vital” — menace to Canada’s elections, Perrault stated: The rising quantity of misinformation and disinformation concerning the electoral course of that’s being unfold largely by social media.
He didn’t element any examples in the course of the committee assembly, however Elections Canada notably put out statements in 2020 insisting that there was no digital voting within the nation when conspiracy theories have been raging in the USA about “rigged” voting by digital techniques operated by a Canadian firm.
Perrault says the difficulty is changing into more and more noticeable and is slowly eroding Canadians’ belief within the electoral system, although he says confidence in Elections Canada stays “excessive.”
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“The problem of misinformation and disinformation has been a priority of the company for a number of years now. It’s definitely not declining, so it’s a much wider subject than the electoral course of… That is one thing that we really feel is vital, which we have to handle,” he instructed parliamentarians. “There’s the misinformation on the voting course of, and I insist on that.
“We’re in a world of information and in a world of basic crises of confidence,” he later added in French. “Allow us to not idiot ourselves, all of that is fragile. We have to be very attentive to this belief.”
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Elevated threats towards ballot staff are unlikely to assist Elections Canada resolve its staffing points throughout elections, an issue in the course of the 2021 election in the course of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One other subject his group confronted in the course of the fall election was a scarcity of venues to host voting stations, partially as a result of many constructing house owners and faculties that have been able to share their house within the months earlier than the election was referred to as modified their minds come voting time.
“Returning officers subsequently needed to redo their homework and discover new areas. That was tough almost about areas, however it additionally precipitated delays for the knowledge playing cards for voters who wanted them to know polling areas,” he instructed MPs.
Perrault stated organizing election day and discovering employees could be made a lot simpler if voting day have been moved from Mondays to the weekend. He stated that will be preferable to a three-day vote that extends into Monday.
Of their help settlement signed earlier this 12 months, the NDP and Liberals dedicated to extending voting day to 3 days by 2025.
“I feel providing extra voting alternatives is an efficient factor. My choice could be to do it on the weekend slightly than over three days,” Perrault stated.
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