Electoral Reform committee  I think there's a lot we can do to increase the accessibility of the ballot. One of the things that's in place in provincial elections here in British Columbia which is not available at the federal level is the ability of voters to attend any voting place to cast their ballot. If

Electoral Reform committee  Is that question for me?

Electoral Reform committee  My comment was actually a direct quote from the Referendum Act, and the quote was that a referendum is used when the government “considers that an expression of public opinion is desirable”. When the government considers that an expression of public opinion is desirable, they th

Electoral Reform committee  My response is probably briefer. The Election Act wouldn't provide the authority to have a role in determining or ascertaining the degree to which that's the case, and so Elections BC would not take a position on a matter like that.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, it would. The question that we have asked is the question as to why people didn't vote, and we tend to get a mix of responses. Some have to do with the convenience of the voting opportunity. Some have to do with administrative issues, not knowing where the voting opportunit

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, we've been conducting voter surveys since the 2005 provincial election, so we've done three of them now. The results are posted on our website. The results don't ask people the question that.... I'm not sure if this specific question was included in the Manitoba study: Did y

Electoral Reform committee  Sure. The costs I talked about in my original statement looked at the costs of what we call the thin layer, held in conjunction with the general election, and that was in place in 2005 and 2009. I brought the data from 2005.

Electoral Reform committee  If you're trying to minimize the additional expenditure for that consultation process, yes, then do it in conjunction with a general election. I think I've heard Elections Canada talk about their ability to do this with mail-in balloting, as well. I think there are a number of op

Electoral Reform committee  For that event, the additional cost to administer the referendum per registered voter was 37¢.

Electoral Reform committee  Exactly. We were already hiring all of our district electoral officers, who in turn were hiring all of their field staff, so the event was moving forward. Much of the additional cost was public education expenditures, so that people were aware that this was part of the electoral

Electoral Reform committee  The $8 cost was the cost per registered voter for the general election. We've parsed those two costs. There was the general election, assuming there was no additional referendum put in place. The total cost of the event was that cost plus the 37¢ per registered voter for the refe

Electoral Reform committee  The decision rule on the referendum is established by regulation, and that's a matter for the government to determine. It's not something the election agency is responsible for determining, and I suspect the legislation at the federal level would be similar.

Electoral Reform committee  One of the arguments that has been used in British Columbia for the mail-in ballot is its cost-effectiveness. Our budget for the last provincial general election was about $35 million. The HST referendum that was conducted with mail-in balloting was just over $8 million. It's a m

Electoral Reform committee  Thanks, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. Welcome to Victoria. My name is Keith Archer. I'm the chief electoral officer in British Columbia, a position I've held since 2011. Prior to this appointment, I was a professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Mr

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The reporting relationship between independent officers of the legislature and their assemblies I think varies a bit from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. I understand your process federally less well than I understand our process in British Columbia. I know in our case we had an i