Twitter, Internet Undermine Canada Election Rules

Twitter, Internet Undermine Canada Election Rules
As Canadians in four electoral districts spread right across the giant
country cast ballots on Monday to fill vacant seats in the House of
Commons, Elections Canada asked a newspaper to remove from its website a
story revealing initial results from one constituency where voting had
ended early. The agency did not notice reporters had been discussing the
same by-election results on the microblogging network Twitter, which is
accessible across Canada. [Reuters]

[excerpt]

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Twitter 1, Elections Canada 0.

In this era of smartphones and the Internet, the federal elections agency
is struggling to enforce a rule that bans the general broadcasting of
voting results until all the polls have closed.

As Canadians in four electoral districts spread right across the giant
country cast ballots on Monday to fill vacant seats in the House of
Commons, Elections Canada asked a newspaper to remove from its website a
story revealing initial results from one constituency where voting had
ended early.

The agency did not notice reporters had been discussing the same
by-election results on the microblogging network Twitter, which is
accessible across Canada.

One journalist even sent a Twitter message saying "Oh dear. Have just
realized I may have been violating law because of my poor understanding of
Twitter". Elections Canada did nothing.

It is little wonder that critics use terms like absurd and archaic to
describe a provision that, in large part, comes from an era before the
Internet was born.

The rule -- part of the Canada Elections Act -- aims to prevent abuses in
the world's second largest country. Canada has six time zones, which means
results from the East start to come in while polls are still open in the
rest of the country.

To head off the chance that the majority could somehow be influenced by
early voting, media organizations are banned from nationally broadcasting
any results until the last polling station has closed.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE5A94XM20091110