Election Results Ban To Be Scrapped

Election laws get a 21st-century tweak.

Canada's aged law forbidding the early broadcast of elections results will be done away with, according to Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal, who tweeted the news this morning. The provision in the Elections Act, drawn up in 1938, "does not make sense with widespread use of social media and modern communications technology," wrote Uppal. We're inclined to agree. The law was meant to deter people in eastern Canada from issuing election results before polls closed in the west, which could have potentially influenced the voters' decisions in B.C. and Alberta. Television and radio networks have long abided by the law, but with thousands of Canadians flocking to Twitter and Facebook to discuss the results, the law has become basically unenforceable. On the night of May 2nd, countless Twitter users on the East Coast broke the law to broadcast results from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Uppal gave a specific shout-out to B.C. software developer Paul Bryan, who had argued (unsuccessfully) before the Supreme Court that the law was an unjustified limit on Canadians' freedom of expression. Others, such as former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley, are probably a little less keen on the decision.