Evidence of meeting #114 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was elections.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thank you.
To my friend Mr. Corriveau from the Rhinoceros Party, I can't say I was ever an organizer for your party like my friend across the way, but there were probably a couple of elections where certainly, if there had been a candidate on the ballot, I might have considered voting for you.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Just out of curiosity, you mentioned in your opening that you are the leader and also the “dealer” of the Rhinoceros Party. What the heck does that mean?
Leader, Rhinoceros Party
For Elections Canada, I am the leader of the party, but honestly I'm more like a dealer of the party. I think more leaders of political parties in Ottawa should act like dealers.
You know, last week I was not thrown out of my party, so.... I think it's a good way to be.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Very quickly, Mr. Corriveau, I have to say that of the policies you folks put forward in a previous iteration, one of my favourites—maybe it was Mr. Simms' brainchild—was to run a waterslide from the top of the Rockies to Toronto and have free admission for every Canadian.
You should note that the Liberals have an Infrastructure Bank—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
—and we should never say never. They just bought a really old pipeline, so who knows? Anything is possible.
Ms. Hadskey, a few of us as parliamentarians were able to participate as observers in your last federal election. A few of us visited Baton Rouge. I'd like to say, first, “Go,Tigers”, and second, if you registered people at the football game, between yourselves and Alabama you probably would have boosted your numbers even further.
What is the youth participation rate like in Louisiana? I may have missed this, and if so I apologize. I'm wondering about the 18-to-25 age group, or however you categorize the youth vote in Louisiana.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
The youth vote is much lower. I mean, it's drastically lower. I would say that overall our youth vote is probably around 20%. It's really rough. We try, try, try to get people to go out and vote, and it's difficult.
For clarification, the law for the people who are 16 was passed in our 2015 legislative session, so it's been active for three years.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It would be helpful to the committee, if there is anyone who's preceded you in this, to know whether there's been any empirical evidence of increased turnout. There are many factors as to why people do and don't vote. We had a significant youth bump in our last election despite—actually, I would argue—some of the changes that have been made. There are many factors, but it would be good if there were any empirical evidence connecting something like a registry to people coming out to vote at a younger age.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
Do you mean for registration, the 16—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
That's the early voter registration, and then correlating that to turnout as the young person enters the voting age and years beyond.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
We may be able to track that. I could look at that for you.
An idea would be to ask, actually, the person who was the commissioner prior to me. I took office in August of last year, but I've been in elections since in 1986. I asked the person who was in place before me whether she knew of any types of questions, problems, concerns, or anything like that. She said the only thing she would stress would be that if the person did register at 16, and then they were going to turn 18, we have a 30-day close of books, so if they were going to turn 18 in the middle of early voting or something like that, you would need to address that with your registrar of electors to allow them to vote, making certain that they understood.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay, that's good. That's very helpful.
Mr. Moscrop, I want to turn to you for a moment. I apologize. I came late to committee today and I missed your presentation, but I will see it later.
I want a perspective from you. We're going to have Facebook and Twitter in a little bit later. I was reading your dissertation summary, and I don't understand it because it's far too sophisticated for me: “Can we be autonomous deliberative citizens? Towards answering that question I examine the ways non-consciously processed stimuli and a-rational cognitive processes affect citizen deliberation in liberal democracies.” Yes, it's obvious to everybody else except me.
My question to you, Mr. Moscrop, is do you think there is some obligation on the part of the social media agents, the companies—particularly Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter—in terms of who pays for the ads and the actual content being displayed, the way there is for traditional media?
As an Individual
Yes.
Part of the issue is that the speed, reach, and volume of advertising material and all kinds of other materials are such that you can start to microtarget. You can start to A/B test at a mass level. You basically have all the tools you need to manipulate people, really quite easily, and it's perfectly legal to do so. It's seen as just advertising, but with a certain amount of volume and with a certain amount of sophistication, it becomes very easy to effectively manipulate people by tailoring specific ads and—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I apologize. Could the same thing be said of political parties, then, which also collect a large amount of data and increasingly are using microtargeting as an approach, in a benevolent way, to influence voters interested in certain issues?
There is also the propensity, in a more malicious way, to subvert certain voters, suppress certain voters, target them with messages that turn them away from issues that they might be more interested in. Do political parties have a responsibility in terms of the management of our own data?
As an Individual
They do, very much so. I'm actually quite concerned about that. Part of the issue is that if voter turnout is low and you have this digital media capacity, then all of a sudden microtargeting becomes even more powerful.
You mentioned voter suppression. If our elections become about just how we're going to balance our mobilization and suppression tactics to try to get the right people out and the wrong people to stay home, which you could try to do with digital media—you know, through misleading statements, for instance, or the spread of misinformation or disinformation—then all of a sudden you have an awful lot of power at your fingertips. It's easier to use and it's cheaper to use.
I think that part of the issue is that there are different advertising rates for social media versus, say, for broadcast or print. That's a serious issue that also needs to be considered. Part of what you get to do with social media, digital media, is leverage cheap cost and quite an extensive reach to try to move voters one way or the other.
I'll make a quick distinction. We talk about persuasion versus manipulation. There's a big debate on what the difference is. I say that manipulation is that if you knew better, you would be upset or you would make a different decision. That's manipulation. There's a deliberate attempt to either mislead or misdirect you. If you'd known better, and if you'd been more rational—I'd say rational and autonomous—you'd make a different decision.
This is the scary thing: it's very easy to leverage digital media to try to manipulate people.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Thank you very much.
I'll welcome Ms. Romanado to the committee, and it's your turn to ask some questions.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you so much. I was on the Special Committee on Electoral Reform with some of my colleagues here today, so it's a treat to be back together again.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
We're going on the road, 2.0.
My first question is for Ms. Hadskey. You mentioned in your testimony that you have four elections every year in addition to special elections, and that you're having a problem with voter fatigue and voter turnout.
My colleague Mr. Cullen talked a little about the participation rate for 18- to 25-year-olds, and you mentioned 20%. What is the participation rate in general in your elections? Are we talking above 50%? What are we talking about in terms of voter turnout?
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
For a presidential or gubernatorial, we'll have between 40% and 60%, or something like that, depending on what's on the ballot. In general, with the spring election cycle.... This past spring we had a 12% turnout. It was very low. That is propositions, municipals, and things like that. For this fall's congressional election, we expect a heavier turnout. We expect it to be somewhere between 50% and 60%.
It's important to point out that Louisiana has a four-year cycle. You have the presidential, the gubernatorial, the congressional, and then you have a down year. Last year, 2017, was our down year. When I'm trying to look at all of the statistics, I always have to keep that in my thought process on the whole.
I'm sure you'll all agree with me that some of our heaviest turnout has a lot to do with who is running in the race and how well they are known and things like that. I do see an upside to that when you're looking at statistics.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
In terms of your outreach program, I love the idea of using the technology in schools, for voting for your prom queen and so on, to familiarize youth with the process.
What efforts are you making in terms of outreach for voters who are not in that 18-to-24, 16-to-18 category? I don't know what the population is in the state of Louisiana, but unless there's a huge boom of youth, I'm assuming you have a big voter pool of people who are above the age of 25 and not coming out to vote for whatever reason. What outreach efforts are you making to increase that voter turnout?