Local Government Election Rules In Need Of Change?!?

In response to having come across (in a Lantzville council Agenda package), a request for Council to solicit input from "local groups and individuals interested in local government election issues" - did anybody come and ask you for your thoughts?, I submitted the following input to the Local Elections Task Force on April 15, 2010 (the 'soft' deadline). In order to maintain maximum transparency, the Task Force was going to publish all of the submissions from the various local governments, groups and individuals. Unfortunately, in spite of several unanswered prompts from individuals like myself, my submission was not actually put up on the website http://www.localelectionstaskforce.gov.bc.ca/ until the day their final report was posted, May 31, 2010 (45 days after my submission!). If I didn't know any better, I would have to say that they were not overly keen on having yours and my opinion posted for all to see!
Once I have the chance to digest the actual contents of the report, I will post another article sharing my thoughts with you.

PREAMBLE: Let me begin by saying that I am greatly disappointed that a Task Force that says they are seeking public input into a process that has the potential to significantly impact the public has done such a poor job of informing the public of that opportunity. I only found out about it when I was going through an Agenda of my local Council Meeting and saw the notice the Task Force had sent out to local governments seeking their input. Putting the onus on them to solicit input from "local groups and individuals" makes for the likelihood of a wide range of effort expended across the province, the natural reaction likely being that, since they 'work in the system', they may feel qualified to speak on behalf of the public. Also, I understand that the Premier announced this Task Force back in early October of last year, only appointed the members in early December and now the Task Force is expecting input to be closed as of April 15th. This is a very short time frame for the generally busy public to research and then consider something as important as the conduct of our democratic elections. It would also have helped demonstrated non-partisanship if one of the members was from the Official Opposition. The make-up of the Task Force, including a new Minister and two rookie government MLA's, hopefully will be long on enthusiasm and critical thinking, if not on experience with the Acts under consideration.
GENERAL COMMENT: although there have been a number of changes similar to the ones being contemplated in B. C. made in other provinces, there appears to be a dearth of actual data on whether or not these changes have resulted in the benefits expected (e.g., cost savings, increase in voter participation). One would have thought that this type of research would have been a natural outgrowth of the implementation of the changes. Why this is not the case, is beyond me but I think it would be wise to quantify the actual benefits before we seek to do anything more.
 
Campaign Finance
In order to avoid conflicts of interest, which seem to be occurring much more often nowadays, I believe that all campaign contributions should be reported BEFORE the actual election (there should be a cut-off on donations, say 7-10 days, before election day). The information, organized by candidate, should be available for inspection at the local government office in written form and on the local government's website. There should also be reasonable limits on the total amount that an individual or corporation can donate to a single candidate, say, $300 for an individual and $500 for a corporation.
 
Enforcement processes and outcomes
We have no way to hold election officials accountable for the proper conduct of elections since Part 153 (7) of the Local government Act requires the ability to measure the "intent" of an official's actions - "a person who is an election official must not contravene this part with the intent of affecting the result or the validity of an election" (maximum penalty - up to a $5,000 fine, a year in jail, prohibition from being a candidate or voting for up to 6 years). As a result, nobody in the system seems to take any of this very seriously (the Ministry of Community and Rural Services would probably classify them as "inadvertent contraventions", which they deem not in themselves to be contraventions of the Local Government Act. The City of Nanaimo conduct of their elections is a good example of this 'rule creep', to the great detriment of our democracy. I don't know what cave they have been living in/planet they are from but not requiring voters to identify themselves is just asking for trouble. Nanaimo has a computerized system which is supposed to prevent the same person from voting more than once but, in actuality, what it does is prevent someone claiming to be that person from voting more than once (e.g., if I knew that several of my neighbours were away on extended holidays, there is really nothing but my own personal standards/integrity preventing me from going from polling station to polling station and representing myself as one of more of them). This has got to change! If you doubt what I say, tell us how many people have been charged and convicted of an offence under this section of the Local Government Act since it was enacted and what the penalties imposed were. Then tell me what percentage of people admit to cheating on their income tax, even after they have certified ("taken a solemn oath"?) that the information is correct. If there is money in it or a benefit from it and surveillance/enforcement is poor, 'ordinary' people will do it in droves.
 
Role of the B.C. Chief Electoral Officer in local government elections
Given that the individuals who are appointed Chief Election Officer and Deputy Election Officer in local government elections are usually senior employees of said local government and that, especially in smaller communities, the same individuals run in election after election, this sets up the very real possibility that these election officials may be influenced in a number of ways. In my opinion, hiring family members of municipal employees to aid in the conduct of local elections is also a potential problem of conflict of interest. I believe that local elections should be run by independent, impartial and well-trained individuals whose sole responsibility is the conduct of elections. As demonstrated by the investigative work of Rosalie McAllister in Nanaimo (shared with the Ombudsman and the B. C. Civil Liberties Society), local election workers can be poorly qualified for a job they only do at most once very 3 years and often in a potential conflict of interest and, as a result, not follow the requirements as set out. This type of inconsistent application of the rules does little to satisfy the public that a transparent election process has occurred. I don't know if this means that the B. C. Chief Electoral Officer should be involved but that may well be the best way to ensure election integrity, consistency and professionalism.
 
Election cycle (term of office)
Ever since Justice J. Paul Rouleau of the Ontario Superior Court, in 2006, ruled that the only place to hold politicians accountable for lying to the voters was at the ballot box, the people have needed this opportunity more, rather than less, frequently. If we are to be lied to during the campaign in order to have us vote FOR a particular person or AGAINST a particular person, we need to be able to have the chance to correct our 'error' before we forget the issue/specifics in the daily hustle and bustle of life. If we find out after the fact that a candidate has received a large amount of funding from a single source, we would have reason to view their decisions very critically and may want to have the ability to 'change our mind' in the near future.
In my opinion, consistency in the frequency of local elections with other provinces is a non-issue. There is no need for co-ordination or consultation with municipalities in other provinces that would require that the election cycles be 'harmonized'. With every increase in the term of our elected REPRESENTATIVES, we move further and further away from the ideal of direct democracy.
Six months to a year is more that adequate time for those relatively few members who are new to local governments to 'learn the ropes' (they should have been well-versed on the issues when they were running for office). The suggestion that lengthening the election cycle (and thereby likely the planning framework) would provide more certainty for things such as capital projects belies the fact that governments trying to plan anything more than 3 to 5 years out are pretty tenuous as best. The concept of building reserves, rather than "potentially reducing the amount needed for borrowing and thereby reducing the burden on the local taxpayer", is simply a mechanism whereby the taxpayers are relieved of their tax dollars early. While I can appreciate that there are some considerations in terms of how any particular term of office would affect those things called 'Other voting' (referendum), I fail to see how 'consistency' with other provinces and the federal government election cycle have any bearing on what we should choose. If these 'Other voting' events were to be separated from the local government elections, an increase in cost would certainly be expected, even if they did achieve the predicted 'benefit' of more referendums. I can see nothing in these proposals that would tend to increase the accountability of our local politicians, the claim that becoming more like the provincial government in terms of the election cycle (and some unspecified 'accountability measures') notwithstanding.
As the acclamation data demonstrates, political 'dynasties' tend to become entrenched, especially in small municipalities, which is something that extending the election cycle will exacerbate.
Interesting that, of the roughly 155 municipalities in B. C., to whom the Ministry of Community Services suggested to those interested in furthering the issue of extending the election cycle that they hold a referendum during the 2008 local elections, only 4 chose to do so - not exactly an overwhelming response!
So no one gets to feeling too comfortable and loses sight of the objective of representing their constituents, there should also be term limits on local politicians, say no more than 6 - 8 years in succession.
The AAP mentioned in conjunction with the discussion of election cycles is a 'negative billing option', i.e., consent is assumed if one DOESN'T submit a form, when there can actually be a number of reasons why this has happened, e.g, they weren't made aware of the issue.