Mr. Hawn gave the example of a bus with roughly 40 people on it, with one person resident in the poll saying they wanted to vouch for these people. His scrutineers objected vigorously and were successful at stopping that, but that had a lot to do with having someone who is aggressive in place on the ground.
In the case of the example Mr. Lukiwski mentioned, of the particular box at a poll that had over 100% participation and some other very interesting anomalies, there was no scrutineer present. It is difficult to arrange in many ridings, quite frankly, to have a scrutineer from all parties present at all polls, particularly when polls are widely spread geographically, although that can also be an issue in urban areas. This suggests there certainly are openings for wilful electoral fraud.
Again, I mentioned there had been a discussion in the Canadian media about at least the theory that fraud was occurring in some areas, and in some ridings on a reasonably widespread basis, which raises an obvious question for me. It seems to me that the legislation could be amended to say that where someone doesn't have the proper identification and comes in and signs an oath, the ballots could be set aside and kept secret. We have the means to do that sort of thing. Mail-in ballots are kept secret--they are placed in a double envelope, with the inner one not being marked. The ballots could be kept secret until an after-the-fact verification occurs. That would ensure effectively that one could confirm whether or not the person was simply left off the list—I certainly know from my own riding there were lots of people left off the list who have a right to vote—without actually making it possible for people to engage in the kinds of fraud that are alleged to be occurring.
I would be interested in your thoughts on the observation I've just made.