Ontario’s own hanging-chad catastrophe

In 2000, the president of the United States was chosen not by voters, not by the electoral college, but by the Supreme Court. It was the controversial end to a bitter and divisive electoral outcome defined by the ludicrous process of adjudicating whether there was a “hanging chad” on any ballot.

These tiny pop-outs still clinging to a paper ballot were used to determine whether a ballot was to be counted, and in whose favour. Tight TV close-ups of lawyers and scrutineers, heads inches apart, peering intently at a debatable chad made the ridiculousness to which American democracy had descended even more painful.

Worse, the count of Florida ballots was frozen with tens of thousands of ballots unchecked, by Republican politicians and an imprudent — at best — Supreme Court. The sight of GOP operatives, sharp and slippery lawyers and a partisan court, cheating Al Gore of his presidency, feeds the anger and disillusionment of many Americans for whom it remains a deep scar to this day. Fair election counts matter and predictable and transparent counting processes matter most.

Around the same time, young political activists in each Canadian political party became convinced that delegated conventions gave too much power to party elites, were undemocratic and subject to manipulation. Like dominoes, each party establishment fell to the “one member, one vote” agitation.

In a banquet hall in suburban Toronto last week, we saw how demonstrably unequal, untransparent and simply undemocratic such systems can be.

Yes, party bosses, so determined, can manipulate election outcomes, or when exhausted and under pressure make dumb decisions, in any electoral system.

There was a whiff of mischief in the Alberta conservative leadership and at the end of the recent B.C. Liberal leadership campaign of similar type: party phone lines blocked, pin numbers not sent, IDs disappearing, questionable payments, etc.

The moral of the story, whether it is hanging chads, dubious delegates, or “one person, one vote” schemes, is that the system’s guardians and the rules they enforce must be clear, with no potential for late-night “tweaks.”

One may not be seen as a credible steward of party democracy if through incompetence or design you disenfranchise thousands of voters, or leave open to choice which riding they live in — on election night!

It’s past time to think again about party nomination and leadership processes.

We seem to have replaced the sleazy operative flipping bills off a roll of tens with sneaky digital geeks manipulating identities, electronic payments and access to the digital ballot box.

The election process must be seen to be fair and open: no ridiculously high financial deposits or nominating names thresholds, for example. The process must be overseen by guardians who are beyond reproach and have the experience, reputation and strength to stand their ground in the face of partisan bellowing. Voters need to have guaranteed access, throughout, to party decision-makers and referees about missing credentials, ballots or any other obstacle.

Rules about how the predictable variety of conflicts in a counting process will be resolved need to be public, and widely pronounced at the beginning of a contest, not after a bitter electionnight battle.

Here are two personal preferences: election decisions should be made by groups as close to the voters themselves as possible. Centrally run electronic ballot issuing and counting systems are understandably seen as remote and insensitive, run by party bureaucrats whom you have never met. Far better, surely, to have riding-level decisionmaking about who gets to vote, who is a “real” party member and how problems are to be solved.

Secondly, voters should be allowed to change their minds between ballots. Performance matters in politics, and leadership conventions are about candidate performance, as well as leadership selection. A powerful recent example is that Kathleen Wynne became premier significantly on the strength of her convention performance.

Processes that saw Doug Ford’s election damaged the reputation of all parties and faith in democracy itself.