Poilievre calls for law to block long ballot protests ahead of Alberta byelection (cheknews.ca)

submitted 5 days ago by Sunshine@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[-] Yaztromo@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago

There is virtually no evidence that anyone who has voted in a riding with a “longest ballot” was ever confused.

Bruce Fanjoy won in the Carleton riding with 50.9% of the vote — a majority. The highest vote count for the any of the independent candidates was a whopping 57 votes — out of 86 060 total votes. That’s a whopping 0.06% of the vote.

In fact if you count only those candidates running either as an independent OR as “Not Affiliated” (so taking out anyone running for a party, including the Rhino Party and Marijuana Party candidates who did worse than a handful of the independent candidates), the longest ballot candidates IN TOTAL had a massive 0.99% of the vote. They didn’t even crack 1%.

Honestly, there are no electoral shenanigans to get worked up over here. The outcome was overwhelming, and Bruce Fanjoy (Liberal) didn’t seem to have any problems getting a plurality of votes to win.

[-] bowreality@lemmy.ca 18 points 5 days ago

It’s like a built in skill question. If you can’t pick your candidate off a list with several names maybe you shouldn’t vote.

[-] nyan@lemmy.cafe 7 points 5 days ago

Well, in theory it could be an issue if there were three John Smiths or something all running as independents, but to my knowledge even these extra-long ballots have not produced an example of that yet.

[-] bowreality@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 days ago

Unlikely and here most people still have a middle name too.

[-] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

That issue can be solved by means other than saying, "Sorry, there's already a John Smith on the list, try again next year." Let's focus on the real problems.