The Rules of the Game.

Today, elections in Canada are conducted in about as clean a way as it's possible for them to be held. From the preparation of voters' lists to the counting of ballots every step is scrutinized carefully to prevent cheating

We've gotten rid of open voting and the bribery and intimidation it entailed. We've increased the number of polling stations so people no longer have to make arduous journeys to cast their ballot. And, we're left with a system that's free and fair. But, it's still amazing how relatively recent these changes are.

It wasn't until 1920 that the Dominion Elections Act came about, setting up what would become our modern system of voting. The Act gave responsibility for the whole process to a Chief Electoral Officer, and federal elections then fell under federal, not provincial, law as had been the case before. The Chief Electoral Officer is chosen by the House of Commons and is completely independent of the government or any political party.

Since women had won the vote in 1918, and most other voting restrictions such as racial or property requirements had disappeared, the franchise (right to vote) was close to today's goal of universality. Now, almost every adult Canadian citizen (18 or over) has the franchise. Only the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada and the chief's assistant, returning officers, minors, and non-citizens are not allowed to vote.

Federal elections apply only to the House of Commons because senators are still appointed. These elections must be held at least once every five years, but they're usually held more often - the average duration of a parliament since Confederation has been about 40 months. Unless the government is defeated on a major issue, the prime minister and his or her party decide when to call an election. At the request of the prime minister, the Governor General dissolves Parliament and sets the date of the election. Under the Canada Elections Act, the date has to be at least 36 days away, giving election officials time to prepare, and parties and candidates time to organize their campaigns.

The election machine starts humming and the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) shifts into gear at Elections Canada headquarters in Ottawa. The CEO notifies scores of key officials, known as returning officers, that it's time to start working. There is one returning officer for each of Canada's 301 districts (also called ridings or constituencies), appointed by the Governor-in-Council, or federal Cabinet.

Even before the election is called, the returning officers sort their electoral districts into polling divisions, one for roughly every 350 voters in urban areas and for somewhat fewer in rural areas. The voters' lists are prepared and votes recorded according to these divisions.

It's the returning officers who prepare the lists of (or enumerate) all eligible voters in their electoral districts. Generally, if your name isn't on the list, you can't vote. The returning officers appoint one enumerator for each rural polling division and two (representing different political parties) for each urban area. Rural workers are allowed to phone people in the riding; those in urban areas work door-to-door.

Once the lists are made up, they're revised to make sure no one has been left out, and that the information is accurate.

Enumeration used to be done prior to every election, a labour-intensive and costly operation. In 1997, a more permanent National Register of Electors was created in a computer database. About 20% of elector information changes every year. The National Register is updated with information (name, sex, date of birth, and address) supplied by provincial, territorial, and federal data sources between elections, and by voters themselves during elections.

It's much less costly to have a permanent list. Elections Canada no longer has to employ thousands of enumerators to knock on doors. The savings add up to about $30 million per election and federal campaigns can now be 11 days shorter because the time needed to prepare a voters' list is no longer a factor.

Elections Canada also does everything it can to get people to the polls. Polling stations have to have level access for disabled voters. A relative or friend may vote on the instruction of someone who is ill. Advance polls are provided for voters who can't make it on election day. Military voters, public service personnel, and their dependents abroad may vote in advance under a measure called "Special Voting Rules." Workers are allowed by law four paid hours off to vote. In a 1991 Northwest Territories territorial election, snowbound travellers were allowed to send in their ballots by fax machine.

There are rules for political candidates too. Unless they're running as independents, they must use the name of the political party on the ballot. The party must first be registered with the Chief Electoral Officer, and it needs to have at least 50 candidates before it can register. Candidates themselves are usually chosen at a nomination meeting of a party in a given electoral district and will have a letter of endorsement from the party leader. Candidates also need at least 25 voters' signatures on a nomination paper, as well as making a cash deposit, to ensure they have some support.

On election day, voting hours are staggered across the country so Western Canadians are not affected by results from polls that close earlier because of different time zones. Each polling station is staffed by a deputy returning officer and a polling clerk. The ballot contains the name of each candidate in the electoral district in alphabetic order and names his or her party. As the voter receives a folded ballot, the poll clerk strikes off his or her name from the voters' list so the person can't vote again. The voter moves behind a screen and marks an "X" in the blank circle beside the preferred candidate. The voter then refolds the ballot and hands it to the deputy returning officer who puts it in the ballot box.

The votes are counted by the polling clerk, supervised by the deputy returning officer and observed by the scrutineers, who may be sent by candidates to make sure everything is done properly.

The winning candidate, of course, is the one who leads all others in the riding, and unofficial results for the whole country are usually known within hours. If the leading candidate is ahead by fewer than 25 votes, an automatic recount is made, and if the vote is very close a recount may be requested by an interested party.

After the vote, there's still weeks of paperwork to tidy up as the returning officers verify the accuracy of the vote and send everything to the Chief Electoral Officer. The candidates and parties, whether they won or not, have to submit reports on how much money they raised for their campaigns and how they spent it. Some of their expenses are reimbursed by the government. Finally, the Chief Electoral Officer prepares a report for Parliament outlining the progress of the election and recommending future improvements.

The process is an expensive one; the 1988 federal election in Canada cost $124 million in expenses covered by taxpayers. About a sixth of the cost goes to partial reimbursements to parties and candidates. The rest pays the fees of the tens of thousands of election officials, the rental of election offices and polling stations in each riding, and the preparation of ballots, maps, instruction kits, and other forms.

With a system based on electing an individual representative from each riding, there's the complex business of fixing the boundaries for constituencies. This procedure is tied up with the need to protect minorities, small provinces, and other interests.

Electoral maps are important to candidates and parties as well as voters. They define the boundaries of ridings where certain voters vote for certain candidates. From each of the 301 ridings, a Member of Parliament is elected to the House of Commons. Our Constitution says that after every 10-year census the riding boundaries must be readjusted. But first, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada decides how many seats each province is entitled to in the readjustment, based on population.

The formula for allotting seats to each province has changed over the years. The one used now results from the Representation Act of 1985, which sets out the following four steps:

* Subtract the three seats given to the territories from the total of 301 seats, leaving 298 seats;

* Divide the total national population by 298, to get the average population or quotient for each riding;

* Find the theoretical number of seats for each province by dividing the population of the province by the quotient. If the result leaves a remainder higher than 0.50, add one more seat;

* Two adjusting clauses, the senatorial clause of 1915 and the more recent grandfather clause are used to protect the seats of provinces with small or falling populations. The senatorial clause states that each province is guaranteed as many MPs as it has Senators. The grandfather clause provides a further safety net by ruling that no province will have fewer seats than it had in 1976.

Prince Edward Island was entitled to only one seat in 1981 because of its small population. However, the island has four Senators so PEI is allotted four seats. Quebec's population dropped slightly between 1976 and 1981 and simple mathematics would give it one seat less, but it had 75 seats in 1976 so it remains at that figure.

With seats allotted to each province, the boundary readjustment can begin. Before 1964, Members of Parliament fixed riding boundaries themselves, and "fixed" is the right verb. In his book, The Election Process in Canada, Professor Terence Qualter suggested four informal "rules" which parliamentarians apparently followed in readjusting seats and riding boundaries:

* Save the incumbents' seats (current elected MPs);

* Cut out the districts of members who are not going to run again;

* Cut the seats of the minority party;

* If there is strong pressure to increase seats in heavily populated areas, increase the size of the House rather than reduce seats in rural areas.

* That all ended when the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act was passed in 1964. It handed over the readjustment job to independent commissions, one for each province. As the Northwest Territories, the Yukon Territory, and Nunavut constitute only one electoral district each, no electoral boundaries commissions are required.

No sitting members of the Senate, House of Commons, or any other provincial or territorial legislature could be on a commission.

Some changes to the Readjustment Act now give each of the 10 commissions three members. Each is chaired by a judge who is named by the chief justice of the province. The other two members are appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons and are often university professors or provincial public servants.

The commissions have a year to draw the lines, mapping out districts with populations as close as possible to the average or quotient for the country. It isn't an easy task. Canadian geography, with its mountains, lakes, and rugged coasts, is difficult to carve up into neat squares. Commissioners have to be careful not to split communities which, by tradition or race, feel they belong together on election day. The commissions publish maps of the proposed boundaries and invite the public to hearings where they may voice their opinions. Members of Parliament also may express their views at the hearings but the final decision rests with the commission.

The final reports go from the Chief Electoral Officer to the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Speaker must place them before the House (table them) where they will be referred to another Committee that deals with electoral matters. This group will receive written objections, each signed by at least ten MPs, for another 30 days. The Committee then has a further 30 days to get its collective heads together, discuss any objections to reports, and return them to the Speaker.

Then, it all goes back to the original commissions, which decide whether they want to make further changes, before everything is returned to Cabinet with a "representation order" which describes and names each riding established by the commissions. There's still ten days to go after Cabinet receives the representation order: after five days, Cabinet has to proclaim the new boundaries, and in another five days it has to publish them in the Canada Gazette. The new ridings can't be used at a general election for another year.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Some recent attempts to reform the election process have been shot down by the courts as being an infringement on the rights of voters. In 1998, a superior court judge was asked to rule that Parliament went too far in 1993 when it amended the Canada Elections Act to limit the rights of fringe political parties. Under the 1993 amendment, for example, a party could only be registered if it ran 50 candidates. The judge found that many of the law's rules had no other real purpose than to discourage small political parties from running candidates, and that this violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of expression. Find out what other provisions were under attack, and why.

2. The Internet brings new opportunities and challenges to the existing process. Discuss how the Internet can help or hinder the election process.

DOING THEIR OWN THING

The provinces map out their own ridings by their own rules. Two of them were taken to court in 1992 on charges that the boundaries were unfair to voters or biased in favour of the governing party. British Columbia lost its unfair-to-voters case and had to redraw its boundaries. Saskatchewan won its bias case in the Supreme Court of Canada. The court ruled that while the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to vote it does not guarantee that all votes will be absolutely equal in power.

Nova Scotia made a bold reform in its riding boundaries in 1992 when the legislature voted for an amendment in its boundary law to create a new Halifax-area riding in which one third of the voters will be black. The change improves the chances of electing a black MLA. The amendment includes a commitment to create a separate seat for Micmacs.

FACT FILE

All election officials have to take an oath to uphold voters' rights and the secrecy of the vote, and to perform their duties without favouritism.

FACT FILE

The 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrined in the Constitution the right of all citizens to vote and to be candidates.

FACT FILE

The term "riding" comes from England, where Yorkshire, the largest county, was for administrative and electoral purposes divided into three parts, called "ridings," a word derived from Old English "thrithing," meaning one-third.

FACT FILE

In 1974, a law controlled election expenses and required that information about both expenses and contributions to candidates and parties be made available to the public.

Websites

Elections Canada - http://www.elections.ca