Canada’s Electoral Director has issued a comprehensive report on the last two federal elections calling for action to crack down on hate groups, improved third-party regulation and new laws to outlaw the spread of election and vote misinformation .
“This report … is the beginning of an important conversation with parliamentarians and Canadians about ways to improve our electoral process,” Stéphane Perrault said on Tuesday. “It is a critical exercise that we must do regularly to ensure the vitality of our democracy in the face of evolving circumstances, challenges and aspirations.”
Perrault’s report calls for an amendment to the Canada Elections Act to make it illegal to disseminate information that would disrupt an election or undermine its legitimacy.
Specifically, the report states “prohibit a person or entity, including foreign persons and entities, from making false statements about the voting process, including voting and counting procedures, in order to disrupt the development of the voting process. the legitimacy of elections. the elections or their results “.
The report does not call for monitoring the political messages of candidates or parties. He says action must be taken now because the continued spread of misinformation could “jeopardize confidence in the entire electoral system in which democracies rest.”
“For me it’s about drawing a line in the sand for a matter of principles,” Perrault said. “It is not right to deliberately undermine our electoral process by spreading information that a person knows is false and to do so for the purpose of undermining the process.”
The report calls on online platforms to post policies that explain how they will address the spread of misinformation “which inaccurately describes election-related procedures during the election period.”
The report also calls for greater transparency in the political messages of political parties, candidates and third parties, arguing that there are drawbacks to regulating only those messages defined as advertising when social media and other online platforms are able to spread political messages that they do not meet this definition. .
Perrault said he wants the rule that requires advertisements from political actors to identify who authorized the message to be simplified and expanded to text messages, YouTube videos, and other social media messages that can now be broadcast from anonymously.
All political messages should reveal their perpetrators and tell voters how they can learn more about who is behind the messages, according to the report.
To achieve this, Perrault recommends that websites run by political entities, such as political parties, candidates, and third parties, be required to link to a paid digital communications search registry to improve transparency.
Hate groups police
To curb hate groups seeking to register as a political party, Perrault wants to allow voters to ask a court to determine whether the primary goal of an organization seeking to register as a political party is to promote of hatred against an identifiable group.
“At the moment there is no mechanism in place to address this issue,” Perrault said. “If there is a hate group that wants to register as a party right now, it could do so, and in doing so, it would have access to a number of benefits.”
These benefits, he said, include access to registered voter lists, free TV airtime, and tax rebates on contributions that hate groups should not enjoy.
Perrault said voters should challenge these organizations in court because it is not appropriate for him or the Canadian election commissioner to play a role in choosing which political parties to register.
Third party financing
In order to ensure that foreign entities do not fund third-party advertisers in an election, Perrault’s report says that any third party that claims to be self-funded should show that it does not receive more than 10 percent of its funding with donations.
Perrault said a distinction should be made between third parties, such as corporate entities and unions, that use the revenue raised in Canada to fund political communications and smaller third parties that depend in part on donations to survive.
He said the current election director of Canada has no way of keeping track of where small groups get their money, and that is a problem.
“What I’m proposing is a mechanism to make sure that only contributions from Canadian citizens or permanent residents would go in terms of third-party funding,” he said.
The report also calls for the regulation of “thematic” communications that do not nominate a party or candidate but that “may reasonably be considered as the purpose of promoting or opposing a party or candidate during election and pre-election periods.”
The report also calls for other changes, such as:
- Allow candidates to register earlier to allow Elections Canada to better manage its communications regulations.
- Improve the protection of voters’ personal information by giving them the right to choose not to receive election communications.
- Extend the minimum number of days in a non-fixed election from 36 to 44 days to allow Elections Canada to reduce the number of late ballots.
- Allow voters to register for a special vote 45 days before voting day.
- Allow special ballots to be marked only with the name of a political party instead of the name of a candidate.
- Require the head of Elections Canada to recommend an election date that does not interfere with important religious or cultural days.