International group arrives in Ottawa to monitor election
A team of international observers is assessing Canada's election process, including potential implications of the recently-passed Fair Elections Act and "systemic issues" that could include robocalling.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights sent a team to Ottawa for a two-week mission.
A report put out by Civil Elections, a group of Canadian civil society organizations, had come out in September calling for international observers to ensure that the Canadian election is conducted fairly. It called the OSCE mission "irregular" and connected it directly to public concern over the Fair Elections Act.
The law has come under public scrutiny because of changes to voter registration that critics say will make it more difficult for students, seniors and Indigenous peoples to register.
Asked about whether the OSCE would be looking into election fraud issues, such as robocalls, Ms. Roberts said that they would be looking for "systemic" issues. "If there was such an issue [robocalls] coming up, that's the sort of thing we'd be interested in, because that's affecting the election process, affecting voters and voters' ability to participate."
"Our approach to elections is that elections are much more than just election day. They're about an entire process, about what the legal framework is, how candidates can register themselves and be nominated, what opportunities there are to campaign, how complaints can be made, can voters register, are there opportunities for complaints afterwards, what transparency there is—so election day is only a tiny part of the entire process and range of things that we're looking at," Ms. Roberts said.
"It's really to get a sense of what are the sort of systematic issues that are arising."
"What we'll be doing is looking at what implementation there might or might not've been of those recommendations [from the 2006 report] and the reasons for that, and how effective any implementation might have been," said Ms. Roberts.
The 2006 report was overall positive. Areas for improvement had included that "consideration should be given to enhance the right of domestic non-partisan and international observers to observe all stages of the electoral process, in order for the relevant legislation to be in line with OSCE commitments."
Recommendations included that Canada review ridings where voter participation was particularly low, publish more information on the Elections Canada website, that the selection of Returning Officers, administrators assigned to each riding, be more transparent, that political parties make greater efforts to include women and that consideration be given to recruiting members of visible minorities and aboriginal people as polling officers in polling areas where those groups are well-represented.
Another key recommendation was that Canada "reconsider" the rule that expatriates living outside the country for more than five years not be allowed to vote.
The current mission will issue a report about its findings in about two months. Ms. Roberts said the OSCE will be concerned with the follow-up on any recommendations that are made and will be following up.
International group sends team to Ottawa to monitor election, impact of Fair Elections Act | Embassy - Canada's Foreign Policy Newspaper
