The politicians who ride the political machines are shortly going to have to consult with the mechanics who keep them running, if objections to a change in election law start to gain ground.
Representatives from four parties -- B.C. Liberals, NDP, Green Party of B.C. and B.C. Conservatives -- were all quite enthusiastic last year about getting exact records hand-delivered to them during and after elections. The records would show who voted and who didn't.
Parties now use volunteer observers to track voter turnout and it's an enormous amount of work. Volunteers have to staff every polling place to get an accurate picture of whether their team's get-out-the-vote effort is working.
The concept of having all that data just handed over on request by Elections B.C. was roundly endorsed when party officials had their regular meeting with Chief Electoral Officer Keith Archer last fall.
Archer reported after the last one that parties are having trouble finding volunteers to track the turnout. His cautious recommendation to the government was that it amend the law to authorize Elections B.C. to provide a record of voter sequence numbers during elections. (Those numbers don't identify people by name or address.)
He noted that the parties were also keen to get access to voter-turnout records after elections, but said it wasn't an operational requirement and he took no position on the idea.
The minutes from the actual advisory panel show the party officials were quite keen to get the information. The premise was that it would generally improve the dismal turnout rate.
All that is the back story to Bill 20, an amendment to the Election Act introduced last month that gives them everything they wanted and more. Upon payment of reasonable reproduction costs, Elections B.C. must provide to an MLA or party a list of who voted in general or byelections.
The idea of voter-sequence numbers seems to have dropped off the table, replaced by actual names and addresses. And despite Archer's neutral position on handing the records over between elections, the government threw that provision in as well.
That caught the eye of information and privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham. She wrote Justice Minister Suzanne Anton last week raising some objections. The changes go beyond the objective of increasing turnout and amount to handing over personal and confidential information in a comprehensive and accessible format after voting day, "to perform analytics and other uses."
Those other uses would likely include mining the huge trove of data for every possible shred of useful information.
Denham said that could include "voter profiles, targeting voters, fund-raising, sharing data for secondary purposes, collecting non-consensual information, inappropriate communication and other intrusive uses."
She told Anton she was deeply concerned the amendments expand parties' already-broad ability to collect data on participation, and exceed what voters anticipate when they give their names to Elections B.C. She urged Anton to yank the section allowing the information to be handed over after elections. Failing that, some clear limits should be set on what parties can do with the information, she said.
"Personal information compiled for efficiently administering elections should not, from a privacy point of view, be provided to political parties for broader use," she said.
Green MLA Andrew Weaver says he's voting against it. The NDP isn't saying yet how its MLAs will vote. But the politicians are likely all consulting with the party officials -- the mechanics who love the idea -- on what to do next.
Premier Christy Clark said Wednesday there are no plans to change it.
Just So You Know: The ongoing mystery about the Election Act is why the government devoted so much time to this change while ignoring an obvious idea that's been sitting in front of them for years.
There have been several recommendations that Elections B.C. be allowed to pre-register teenagers on the voters' list while they're still in high school. It's the last time they're all corralled in one place and would be an easy way to round up more than 100,000 potential new voters in Grades 11 and 12 and introduce them to the idea of voting.
It would boost turnout as much or more than Bill 20 would.
