Stéphane Perrault, chief electoral officer of Canada, in his Gatineau office on Dec. 12, 2024. Mr. Perrault said candidates for federal ridings must obtain the signatures of 100 voters, but some voters are signing for a number of candidates, leading to these long ballots.Ashley Fraser/The Globe and Mail
Canada should bring in penalties for individuals who are responsible for stacking ballots with independent candidates, the federal chief electoral officer says, criticizing the tactic used by activists as a form of political protest.
Stéphane Perrault, who leads Elections Canada, said long ballots create confusion for voters and challenges in counting and processing results. Individuals who choose to protest the electoral system by supporting multiple candidates in order to stack ballots should be sanctioned, he said.
Candidates for federal ridings must obtain the signatures of 100 voters, or 50 in rural areas, Mr. Perrault said, but some voters are signing for a number of candidates, which leads to these long ballots.
“If somebody signs for more than one [candidate], there should be sanctions to dissuade that,” he said. “There can be measures taken that do not involve casting doubt on the validity of a nomination. That, to me, is critical.”
In the June by-election in the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding, 84 names were on the ballot. Three months later, 91 people ran in the by-election for the Montreal-area riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun.
Polls closed in Toronto-St. Paul’s at 8:30 p.m., but it took eight hours for all votes to be announced. Conservative Don Stewart won the riding, which was considered a Liberal stronghold. The LaSalle-Émard-Verdun by-election made history for its number of candidates, with 21 receiving five or fewer votes each and two receiving no votes at all.
Many of the names in the two by-elections were added by the Longest Ballot Committee, which was protesting Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system. In this country’s system, the candidate with the most votes wins a seat in the House of Commons – an absolute majority is not required.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to reform first-past-the-post during the 2015 election campaign in which he came to power, but dropped the issue the year after.
The Longest Ballot Committee also says Canada’s electoral system is flawed because the party that won the last election gets to write the rules for the next.
Spokesperson Tomas Szuchewycz said politicians should not have a say in the management of elections because they have a vested interest in the outcome. The responsibility should be handed to an independent body, he said.
He disagreed with Mr. Perrault’s suggestion that sanctions are required to stop long ballots.
“The reality is the longest ballot can’t be beaten, so instead of wasting their time thinking up ways to stop us, we would ask MPs to reflect and recuse themselves from the business of deciding election rules and end this ridiculous conflict of interest,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Perrault said there is nothing wrong with protest in elections. “But when you get to a point where you’re using the system to take it to its breaking point and hindering the ability of others to actually participate, then you’ve hit a tipping point,” he said.
Mr. Perrault said the Commissioner of Canada Elections, currently Caroline Simard, is in charge of enforcing the Elections Act and should make it an offence to sign for more than one candidate.
However, a spokesperson for Ms. Simard said she hasn’t made any specific recommendations on the ballot issue because she believes it’s primarily an area of electoral administration, which means it would fall under the mandate of the chief electoral officer.
Pierre Verrière said in a statement that Ms. Simard has stated that administrative monetary penalties are an increasingly important part of the commissioner’s compliance and enforcement tool kit, and she believes the regime should be expanded to make it applicable to more provisions of the Elections Act.
Mr. Perrault said he has spoken to parliamentarians and has raised his concerns about stacked ballots while discussing Bill C-65, legislation to amend the Canada Elections Act.
“I think they understand the conundrum,” he said about the parliamentarians.
In a table that Mr. Perrault’s office provided for MPs studying C-65, he said he supports a provision to change the number of nominating signatures required for most electoral districts from 100 to 75.
He said, however, that candidates should not have their nomination papers rejected or challenged because a person happens to have signed someone else’s nomination paper.
“While a prohibition on supporting more than one candidate should be created, accompanied by sanctions for those who sign more than once or incite others to do so, the inclusion of a signature on more than one candidate’s nomination paper should not invalidate either nomination.”
Political parties, he said, have seen how long ballots delay counts in by-elections. “I don’t think anyone wants to see that in a [general election],” he said.