Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you so much, all.

Actually I'll ask Mr. Peden from New Zealand if he could respond to my colleague's question regarding educational outreach. I know that Ms. May also asked this specific question.

You didn't have a chance to answer, so if you could elaborate on that aspect, that would be great.

[Robert Peden]

Sure. In relation to the previous question, before every referendum on the electoral system, there were comprehensive campaigns delivered by independent panels. For the referendums in 1992 and 1993—remember, this was before the Internet was really a thing—public education campaigns focused on radio, TV, newspaper, and brochures. There was a brochure delivered to every household.

For the education campaign delivered before the 2011 indicative referendum on the voting system, the electoral commission was responsible for delivering the education campaign there. We recognized that different people would have different interests and information needs, so we used a variety of channels and a variety of levels of detail of information to cater to the variety of needs we knew would be out there.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

That's great.

I have one question for Mr. Rogers. You mentioned that at the federal level folks can send in their votes 13 days after election day and there are millions of ballots to be counted and so on.

How long does it take from the day after an election to get the results? We heard from Ireland that they love the 24 to 36 hours of intense election day results, but if we're talking about two weeks, I think my nerves would be shot, so I'm curious about the turnaround time to get an election result.

[Tom Rogers]

Certainly the 2016 election is the gift that keeps on giving in that regard.

In most elections in which the result is clear, the result of the primary vote on the night of the election makes it clear as to who will form government. It only takes longer when the election is very close, when it comes down to a couple of seats, and this election is one of those. The government has already been formed and has been formed for a couple of weeks, but it's down.... The seat that we're now recounting is a very critical seat. Government has a one-seat majority, so every seat is important.

However, in most elections, people will go to bed at some point knowing the result.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I have one last question.

You also mentioned that in your compulsory voting, you get some data through a third party. For instance, you use driver's licence information. Here in Canada we have various jurisdictions, and driver's licence information would be under provincial jurisdiction, so there would be some issues in that respect.

If we were to do something like compulsory voting, how would we capture this information while respecting the jurisdiction of the provinces?

[Tom Rogers]

Driver's licences in Australia are one of those things for which there is a common database. This one is called NEVDIS, the National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information System. For other sources of data, sometimes we have to have individual agreements with the states. This is for births, deaths, and marriages data. However, we use—I don't know what the equivalent is in Canada—Centrelink data, the data on our unemployment benefits and those sorts of issues. We get that data federally. Passport data we get federally. We use all of that data to help us work out who's entitled to be on the roll. When that data provides the information, we then contact those individuals.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, you have about 45 seconds.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay. You know what? I'll leave it for another.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, we'll throw it into the pot.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you very much.

I thought this time I might start with a question for Mr. Rogers.

I'll start with this. In the most recent election, votes for senators were done using an optional preferential system, in which I gather the key change from past practice is that you do not have to fill out every single name if you're voting below the line. Is it still the case that for House of Representatives seats, there is still a full preferential system, and you must fill out every name or your ballot will be rejected as informal?

[Tom Rogers]

Essentially that is correct.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Okay.

You mentioned that there's a 7% informal vote in the Division of Herbert, where currently there's a recount under way in order to determine the winner. Is it possible for you to tell what share of that 7% is the result of voters not having filled out all of the ballot, as opposed to other causes? You mentioned other information being added to the ballot and that sort of thing, but can you tell?

[Tom Rogers]

Yes, we will. Once we've finished the entire process, we'll go back and do a survey of those ballot papers. We'll be able to tell what's deliberate and what's not, and we'll make an estimation about what that is.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

All right. Thank you.

I wanted to ask Mr. Peden a question on the subject of overhangs.

I think I'm correct in saying that of the various alternatives to Canada's first-past-the-post system, the one that has the most organizational momentum, if that's the right way of putting it, is a mixed member proportional system. Your country is frequently cited as an example that Canada ought to follow. As a practical matter, however, we are a federal system, and the number of seats that is assigned or allocated to each province is constitutionally laid out. It doesn't mean you couldn't have MMP operating at the federal level; it's just that you'd have to treat each province as a little New Zealand.

The number of seats per province is absolutely critical. For example, it actually says in our Constitution that there are 78 seats for the province of Quebec, and some of the other provinces have similarly constitutionally entrenched numbers. I raise all of this because it means that the issue of overhang seats becomes constitutionally problematic for Canada, and this question therefore arises: are there examples of mixed member proportional systems that do not involve overhang seats?

If such a creature exists, then that solves our problem. I realize you don't have that in New Zealand, but are you aware of that existing?

[Robert Peden]

I'm not aware of it. I know that the German system is federal system, and they have a provision of overhang seats. In the New Zealand context, one of the recommendations that the Electoral Commission made in 2012 to the New Zealand Parliament was that the one-seat threshold, which currently exists, should be abolished. If that recommendation were to be adopted, one of the consequences would be that the number of overhang seats might increase to an unacceptable level. We therefore recommended that provision for overhangs be removed. Our advice, on the analysis that we did, was that the impact on proportionality would be minor.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

It would be minor?

[Robert Peden]

It would be minor. The short answer is that it would be possible to have any of these systems that don't provide for overhangs and you'd be able to do the analysis, which can give you insight as to what impact it would have upon proportionality.

Remember that MMP is a moderate form of proportionality. It's not an absolutely pure system. There will be levels of disproportionality, and the question will always be how acceptable that is and where it would fit in the balance between proportionality and the desire for stable, effective parliaments and stable governments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll move on to Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Rogers, earlier today we heard from some Irish experts that when looking at another country's electoral systems, it's often commented that understanding how the ballot works from the outside appears very complicated and difficult. There's often a fear expressed by those who seek not to have electoral reform take place that any new system brought in will be so complicated that people won't understand it and in a sense might be disenfranchised because they don't know how to perform their enfranchisement the way they want.

You've made changes. Has there been any evidence, perhaps not in this past election—it may be too soon to tell—but in previous elections, that the complexity of the system has led to lower voter turnout or to more of these ballots that we've talked about not being able to be registered? Has there been any evidence? Have you looked for any? Does anyone do any research to find out whether the complexity of the system has led to any negative consequences?

[Tom Rogers]

It hasn't affected turnout, because we have mandatory voting and mandatory enrolment.

Our research shows that there are three factors that impact upon informality. One is those electorates in which there is a high level of English as a second language. The second of those factors is simply having a large number of candidates on the paper. Specifically for Australia, the third factor is having our electoral event occur close to a state electoral event that may use a different voting system.

There are, then, three factors that impact upon informality, but with the recent change to the Senate we really have done a very extensive education campaign. The initial results show that people were well aware of what the requirement was, but we'll have to do a wash-up at the end of it to see whether the informality rate for voting for the Senate increased at this election.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That entire campaign from start to finish was, education-wise, a process of more than four months, so people were able to pick it up in time and exercise their rights.

I want to turn to online voting for a moment. I don't know whether it was in the beginning presentation or in response to a question, but you commented that there were massive costs and unacceptable security risks.

Where does that comment come from? Is that a personal observation? Is it something Australia has looked at in any specificity? It is one of the things this committee is charged with doing here in Canada.

[Tom Rogers]

No, that certainly wasn't personal; it was from a 2014 report of the Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which is our parliamentary oversight committee. They did a comprehensive hearing into this topic and have written a comprehensive report on it. That quote came from that report, in which at that point in 2014 they acknowledged that whilst it may be inevitable at some point, they pointed out the significant risks that might accrue from electronic voting or Internet voting if it weren't done properly.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The question around this is a risks-versus-rewards question. Those who have promoted or proposed online voting have suggested what rewards there may be—ease, younger demographics becoming more engaged, higher turnout potentially—versus the risks that are in place. These may involve a lack of confidence on the part of the electorate as to what the results actually are, and we've heard a number of times already about counting physical paper ballots and whether, if the ballots are scanned, there's some physical back-up mechanism to give people confidence. Another risk is that the system might be hacked. The risk of an electoral system actually being hacked and the consequences of that would be difficult to ever know, and you could have in effect illegitimate government.

Is that what the committee struggled with or addressed in their report?

[Tom Rogers]

I think you summarized the two camps. One of the quotes from the report was that younger people allegedly would prefer to be online rather than in line and queuing up at a polling place, but there are also those risks and rewards that you pointed out.