The problems that some registered liberals have with the online vote in the leadership career of the party should not be a surprise and can even be something good, some experts say.
“You cannot have an open and almost verified process to select Canada Prime Minister,” News Christopher Cochrane, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, told CBC.
Cochrane points out that when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won the liberal leadership in 2013, they were not just members of the party in their vote. A new class of followers could register to vote without paying a membership rate.
Cochrane said that system made sense when the liberals were the third in the House of the Commons and needed to build their list of supporters. But today, the threat of foreign interference was combined with the fact that the leadership contest will select the next prime minister that the game has changed.
“It is absurd to have a massively open and loose process, choose the Prime Minister of Canada. And the liberals know that,” Cochrane said.
Judge Marie-Josée Hogue, commissioner of public investigation on foreign interference, warned that party leadership careers were a vulnerability in their final report with respect to the federal elections of 2019 and 2021.
He issued a series of recommendations, including the need to verify the citizenship of a leadership voter or the permanent residence status and apply the Canadian election law to leadership competitions.
“It is likely that the improved security measures in this race are directly related to foreign interference problems that have affected the Canadian elections in recent years,” said Chris Alcantara, professor of political science at the western University, to CBC News.
The complicated process
To vote in this race, registered liberals must obtain an electronic voter identification and then verify that online identification. Then they have to confirm their status as an eligible voter. After that, they must confirm their identity using the application of identity+ of Canada Post or in person in a participating post office. Once this is done, members can cast their vote online.
But dozens of people have now written in CBC News saying that they have not been able to make the process work, particularly when it comes to the mobile application and the option in person to verify their identity.
“In programming, every step that obviously adds a potential for an error, error or dysfunction and that is a very complicated process of several steps,” said Cochrane.
Mark Carney, the favorite in the race, has joked about the process in different campaign events, but has aligned with the party on the issue of security.
“We took security seriously,” he told a multitude during a recent campaign stop. “We do not want any possibility of foreign interference in this election.”
A Liberal Party spokesman told CBC News that they could not comment on people who may have written to CBC News with complaints.
“This is actually the system that works. If you can’t verify, there is a reason why you can’t verify,” said the spokesman.
“We want to make sure we are organizing a safe and fair process.”
Until now, more than 127,000 registered liberals have been verified to vote in the race and 105,000 have cast their vote. The vote began on February 26 at 8 am et and closes on March 9 at 3 pm et.
Stewart Pers, Professor of Political Science at British Columbia University, said that Canadian political parties have the difficult task of trying to celebrate a leadership choice that meets two related standards: avoid interference and not deprive voters.
“Politically speaking, it is the most dangerous criticism that there are those who are not eligible to vote that participate in the electoral process,” Perst told CBC News.
“There is sufficient public good to ensure that political parties choose leaders reliably and in a manner free of interference, but also maximizes the accessibility of voting.”
Building a stronger process
These experts say that people will fight more and more to use evolving technologies and political parties should ensure that they can make sure they can make fair elections.
Perst said that parties may be more willing to receive criticism that their vote was too safe, depriving some voters than to let the unqualified people vote. But he argues that the position is not sustainable.
“Ultimately, the parties will need to find ways to develop leadership voting processes that coincide with Canada’s election standards or, in fact, cooperation with Canada’s elections are incorporated, because that is the gold standard for the country,” he said.
Cochrane says that the frustration that some registered liberals feel was inevitable, but the results of this race will probably satisfy the party.
“While their staunch supporters are the ones who leave and incur all those costs to vote for their candidate, they will probably end the leader who wants the base,” Cochrane said.
